Chris Marshall is a behavioural scientist, performance coach, and former elite athlete whose work explores how humans think, feel, and adapt in times of disruption.

After competing at elite level sport — where he learned the power of balancing physical and psychological skills — Chris entered the investment world just as the first cracks of the 2008 financial crisis began to show. It became a live laboratory. His early research focused on how resilience and mental toughness shaped decision-making under stress — especially how investors evaluated gains and losses when uncertainty was high.

His career has always circled one question: How do people make good decisions when the world gets messy?

That question has taken him through leadership development, trauma recovery, behavioural research, and organisational design. He’s trained as a performance coach, psychotherapist, and applied psychologist. He’s now completing a PhD exploring playfulness as a strategic advantage in high-pressure environments.

Chris’s interest in playfulness began at the edges — working with survivors of complex trauma. He saw something resilience alone couldn’t explain: playfulness wasn’t a luxury. It was a recovery tool. A performance tool. A way of reactivating creativity, connection, and cognitive flexibility when it mattered most.

Since then, his work on playfulness has been applied across finance, leadership, and team performance. He helps organisations rethink not just how people cope with change — but how they thrive in it.

Chris is the author of two books:

• Decoding Change (2022) — on why disruption comes in waves, and how to ride them.

• The Playful Advantage (2025) — on why playfulness is the human superpower we need now.

A sought-after speaker, Chris has delivered keynotes on stages across the world and appeared on numerous podcasts exploring the future of leadership, resilience, and human performance.

His philosophy is simple:
Disruption is here to stay. The leaders who thrive will be the ones who can play.