Lauren Burns

Lauren Burns created sporting history by winning the first ever Olympic medal for Taekwondo when the sport made its debut at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Lauren was one of only three Australian women to win an individual Olympic Gold Medal, along with Cathy Freeman and Susie O'Neill. Her amazing triumph at the Sydney Games was achieved against the odds - requiring enormous discipline, commitment, perseverance and teamwork.

The nation watched as Lauren's victory brought the Australian public and Olympic crowd to its feet. Before her Olympic win, few people knew that Lauren had been 12 times Australian Champion and had achieved a string of international titles including numerous medals at world championship level. Lauren's gold medal has put Australia on the map as a major international competitor for the sport of Taekwondo.

Since the Sydney Olympics, Lauren has emerged as one of the most successful Olympians from these Games. She has worked diligently to raise her profile to position herself in the echelon of Australia's most sought after speakers. She has spoken to over 150,000 people in the past 5 years and in her presentations Lauren talks about what it takes to be successful. She transforms her stories and experiences into life skills making them entertaining and relevant to her listeners.

Lauren interacts with her audience in a fun manner with the added highlight of inviting someone up on stage to break a board with the palm of their hand. Lauren has the ability to create active audience participation with groups of 10 to 10,000. During her more 'active' workshops Lauren the entire audience breaking boards! Her presentations always leave the audience buzzing with excitement.

Lauren enjoys a variety of commitments due to her newly accredited celebrity. She was ambassador for World Vision's Destroy a Minefield campaign in Cambodia (2001 - 2002). Lauren's main focus within the community is her involvement with Red Dust Role Models, conducting healthy lifestyle clinics in remote Aboriginal communities. She is also a director on the board of Appin Hall Children's Foundation.

Lauren is currently on the Athletes commission of both the Australian Olympic Committee and Taekwondo Australia.

The success of Lauren's autobiography, Fighting Spirit resulted in her travelling Australia to promote the book, which was listed in the Sydney Morning Herald as the number one best selling sports book.

Lauren has captivated audiences across Australia regularly appearing on many major television shows including The Panel, Australian Story, Burke's Backyard, Good Morning Australia and she is about to begin regular health and fitness segments on Channel 9's Today show. Lauren's face has launched a number of advertising campaigns, including Ozemail's Broadband marketing strategy where she soared over city skylines in a striking advertising campaign. Lauren's current associations include Nike, Blackmores and Australian College of Natural Medicine - where she is completing a Bachelor of applied science, Nutritional Medicine. With an abundance of talent and her vibrant personality, it is inevitable that the Australian public will see Lauren Burns for many years to come. Client Ovations: Lauren was delightful. She was extremely approachable, easy to work with, and accommodating. The afternoon session which included breaking physical activity was well structured and energising, and perfect for the time of day. The dinner speech in the evening was a lovely mix of stories, humour, advice and motivation. Lauren was totally lay back, accepting and far from panic with the facilities and initial uncertainty of the technology delivering the required results. Lauren was also great with the signing and giving of herself, her inspirational messages and her give aways. Lauren was very generous in so many ways, and the young people from Rural Youth were extremely appreciative of her and her presentation. I have had third party comments come back to me since, indicating how well the sessions went down, and I believe third party endorsements are the true testiment of the success of the sessions.

PDF Management Services Pty Ltd

Our conference 'Reach for the Sky' was a great success and largely due to your presentation which matched perfectly with our team's focus and themes for the rest of the year. It was truly motivating and inspirational! We had another two days of conference and many of the guys were consistently referring to yours and Martin's presentation and particularly the focus, control and follow through themes. Your energy and enthusiasm made a big difference to the rest of the conference.

Toyota

Just a quick note to thank you for the excellent talk you gave at our conference last week and for helping with the awards presentation. I have had great feedback from the team on your talk which they found interesting, humorous and inspiring. It certainly made us step back and consider the part we can all play in driving forward the Company's goals. I know the teams were thrilled to have you attend the Awards dinner and it was a pleasure to talk to you during the course of the evening.

Colgate-Palmolive Pty Ltd

The room was electric, they stood clapping their broken boards together. Lauren signed every board, which was printed with the conference theme "Breakthrough". The memento boards now adorn many offices. Fantastic!

Wrigley's

Excellent, Lauren's energy was intoxicating. Our guests were mesmerised.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers

I would sincerely like to thank you for speaking with the participants on our Leadership program. Everyone I spoke to was very impressed and found your presentation highly entertaining, motivating and informative. Your presentation was still being talked about this morning and was the highlight of this important day for the group.

Commonwealth Bank

'I just wanted to again send my feedback on how fantastic Lauren was for our conference last week! We will definitely use her again in the future'

Xphyr Event Management