Nigel Taberner

Nigel is a former UK hostage negotiator and expert speaker on communication, influence, and negotiation. During his 10-year career as a negotiator he saved over 130 lives, successfully resolving highly volatile armed sieges, domestic and international kidnaps and high-risk suicide interventions.

As a passionate and engaging speaker, Nigel brings to life, through his stories, subjects such as elite level listening, emotional intelligence and how to influence people and negotiate when you have nothing to give away.

Keynote Title:
"Negotiating When You Have Nothing to Give Away: What Marketers Can Learn from Hostage Negotiators"

In high-stakes hostage negotiations, there are no incentives, no added value and no room for error. Yet, decisions still need to be influenced.

In this session, Nigel Taberner lifts the lid on life as a hostage negotiator revealing not just what they do, but how they think, communicate and influence outcomes in situations where they have no leverage.

Through real-life stories, he explores the psychological principles, communication techniques and behavioural models that allow negotiators to build trust, reduce resistance and guide decisions under extreme pressure and from a position of weakness, with no leverage and nothing to give away.

Most importantly, he translates these lessons into a business context, showing how marketers and sales professionals can apply these principles to influence decisions, even in highly competitive or low-leverage environments.

Because in today’s market, you don’t win by having more to offer. You win by understanding how decisions are truly made and how you can influence them.