Jim Davidson
Resilience expert and Everest survivor Jim Davidson delivers gripping stories and practical tools for leading through change and uncertainty.
Why book Jim Davidson for your next event
- Jim’s real-life survival on Everest turns resilience into clear, practical strategies leaders can apply immediately in times of change.
- With decades of expedition leadership, Jim shows how teams perform, adapt, and stay focused when conditions are uncertain and unforgiving.
- His storytelling is intense, human, and energizing, leaving audiences motivated to act with confidence and clarity under pressure.
Non-binding request for Jim Davidson
Resilience, leadership, and change management from the world’s highest stakes
Jim Davidson is a resilience expert, expedition leader, and best-selling author whose insights are forged through extreme real-world experience. He is one of the few people to survive two major mountain disasters, including the deadliest day ever on Mount Everest. From these moments, Jim delivers powerful lessons on resilience, leadership, and navigating change when the stakes are high. After surviving earthquakes and avalanches on Everest, Jim later returned and successfully summited, turning adversity into growth. Today, he translates these experiences into practical strategies that help leaders and teams perform with clarity, confidence, and strength in uncertain times.
Jim Davidson – Resilience Forged at the Edge
Jim Davidson is widely recognized for turning extreme adversity into clear insights on resilience, leadership, and change management. His credibility comes from experience that cannot be replicated in a boardroom or classroom. While attempting to summit Mount Everest, Jim survived catastrophic earthquakes and avalanches on what became the mountain’s deadliest day. Against overwhelming odds, he and his team made it off the mountain alive.
Rather than letting trauma define him, Jim returned to Everest years later and successfully summited. This journey became the foundation for his work on post-traumatic growth, showing how individuals and teams can emerge stronger after crisis. His story resonates with leaders and organizations navigating disruption, pressure, and rapid change.
Jim’s survival experiences have been featured in documentaries for National Geographic, the Smithsonian Channel, Netflix, and Discovery Channel’s “I Shouldn’t Be Alive.” He has also been featured on NPR, CBS, CNN, and hundreds of media outlets worldwide.
Leadership and Teamwork in Uncertain Conditions
Beyond Everest, Jim Davidson has spent 42 years leading expeditions across some of the world’s most challenging environments. He has climbed major peaks from Argentina to Nepal, Bolivia to Tibet, guiding teams through storms, altitude sickness, logistical failures, and high-risk decision-making.
These expeditions form the backbone of Jim’s leadership message. He demonstrates how trust is built under pressure, how communication breaks down during stress, and how leaders can keep teams focused when outcomes are uncertain. His talks explore what happens when plans fail and why adaptability, preparation, and shared purpose matter more than rigid strategy.
Jim’s insights are especially relevant for organizations facing transformation, rapid growth, or unexpected disruption. He connects mountaineering decisions to real-world leadership moments, helping audiences understand how to lead when certainty disappears.
Resilience, Change Management, and Post-Traumatic Growth
Jim Davidson’s core expertise lies in resilience, both at an individual and organizational level. Drawing from survival psychology, real-world crises, and decades of leadership experience, he offers practical frameworks for navigating change and recovering from setbacks.
Audiences learn how resilience is built before crisis strikes, how to respond effectively in the middle of disruption, and how to grow stronger afterward. Jim addresses stress, fear, decision fatigue, and adaptability with honesty and clarity, offering tools that leaders can apply immediately.
His keynotes and interactive workshops focus on resilience strategies that support sustained performance, mental strength, and long-term growth in uncertain environments.
A Speaker with Global Impact
Jim Davidson is a top-rated keynote speaker who has delivered energizing presentations both in person and virtually to audiences in more than 35 countries. His sessions combine powerful storytelling with actionable insights, making complex ideas memorable and relevant.
He has been commended twice by the U.S. National Park Service for volunteering on successful high-altitude rescue missions in Colorado and Alaska, further reinforcing his commitment to teamwork and service under extreme conditions.
Jim’s books extend his influence beyond the stage. His survival memoir, The Ledge, became a New York Times bestseller. His latest book, The Next Everest, was published in six international editions and selected as an Amazon Editor’s Pick. Both works deepen his exploration of resilience, leadership, and human potential.
Before becoming a full-time speaker and author, Jim worked for twenty years as a hydrogeologist and ran his own environmental consulting firm. Earlier in life, he worked alongside his father painting high-voltage electrical towers carrying 230,000 volts, an experience that shaped his respect for risk, preparation, and responsibility.
Book Jim Davidson for Your Event
When you book Jim Davidson for your event, you bring your audience a speaker who has faced real consequences, made life-or-death decisions, and emerged with lessons that matter. His presentations inspire confidence, spark reflection, and equip leaders and teams to face change with resilience and purpose.
Jim Davidson delivers a message that stays with audiences long after the event ends, helping them perform, lead, and adapt when it matters most.
Keynotes
Keynote by Jim Davidson:
EVEREST RESILIENCE: Overcoming Adversity and Reaching High Goals
Work, life, and mountain climbing always include change, challenge, and uncertainty. From his four decades of adventures around the globe, Jim Davidson shares hard-won wisdom about forging resilience, encountering setbacks, and still achieving high goals.
In this riveting keynote, Jim shares his real-world survival experiences of:
- Enduring the deadliest day ever on Mount Everest, when huge earthquakes and avalanches trapped Jim and his team at 19,900 feet.
- Recovering from this disaster and returning two years later to summit Mt. Everest.
- Escaping from the 80-foot-deep hidden glacial crevasse that swallowed Jim and killed his climbing partner on Mount Rainier.
Your attendees will learn practical lessons on how they can:
- Cultivate a resilient mindset for managing change.
- Spark resilience in each other during stormy times.
- Provide resilient leadership, even when the path forward is unclear.
- Rebound from setbacks even stronger than before, through post-traumatic growth.
Jim will inspire your team to be ready and resilient for the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Keynote is 30 to 75 minutes. Offered live or virtual.
Keynote by speaker Jim Davidson:
CLIMBING MOUNTAINS OF CHANGE: Elevating Your Team’s Resilience
Many businesspeople feel overwhelmed by global changes, resource challenges, and market uncertainties. All of these, combined with high client expectations, can create fatigue, stress, or burnout. To keep climbing these mountains of change, professionals need to elevate their resilience.
From his 42 years of high-altitude climbing experiences (including Everest), expedition leader Jim Davidson shares field-tested tips for building a resilient mindset. He shares practical tips and techniques on how your team can:
- Accept uncertainty.
- Adapt to changes.
- Endure the inevitable storms.
- Stay summit-driven while avoiding dangerous “summit fever”.
In this compelling keynote, Jim reveals resilient teamwork and leadership techniques for:
- Being trustworthy.
- Amplifying resilience in others.
- Preparing for false summits.
- Nurturing Post-Traumatic Growth for the opportunities ahead.
NOTE: This keynote connects especially well with fiscal services organizations and high-level sales teams. Since 2006, Jim has spoken to hundreds of such teams, both nationally and internationally, because the traits that make great high-altitude climbers also make excellent sales professionals.
Keynote is 30 to 60 minutes. Offered live or virtual.
Keynote by speaker Jim Davidson:
RESILIENT TEAMWORK AND RESILIENT LEADERSHIP
As an expedition leader, Jim has encountered many intense teamwork and leadership challenges. During remote climbs and rescues, the pressure increases, uncertainty grows, and team dynamics can become strained. High-performing organizations face these same teamwork and leadership conditions in today’s fast-paced, ever-changing world.
By examining real-world mountain rescues, that Jim has conducted, he facilitates an invigorating, interactive workshop that has your team working together to resolve complex leadership and teamwork challenges. Some of the difficult rescues that Jim has been on include:
- Solo mountaineer critically ill at 19,200 feet on Denali (Mt. McKinley).
- Hiker severely injured by falling 70 feet off a cliff at 13,000 feet in Colorado.
- Climbers trapped by earthquakes and avalanches at 19,900 feet on Everest.
In this hands-on session, Jim uses engaging storytelling and powerful visuals to bring these amazing experiences to life for your attendees. Then, he guides the participants to analyze the situation and distill crucial resilience lessons that they can use to be better team members and leaders. Your team will:
- Debate what traits make a team member resilient.
- Identify characteristics that a resilient leader should display.
- Examine their own resilience strengths and weaknesses.
This engaging workshop includes interactive modules with small-group discussion, large-group facilitation, and individual self-reflection. Jim’s well-refined process enhances mutual understanding and relationship-building among work colleagues. Each person walks away with an individual written self-analysis and specific ways that they can enhance their resilience at work or home.
Also, by recording all the key traits identified during the discussions, the process distills your team's collective ideas on what makes a resilient team member and a resilient leader. This critical insight can be used later in internal communications and for enhancing corporate culture.
Attendees vigorously engage with the process because these are real challenges (not board games or simulations). Jim regularly facilitates this energizing program for top-quality organizations like Marriott, Credit Suisse, US Army, Kia Motors, and many more.
Interactive workshop is 1.5 to 4 hours.
Jim Davidson Speaking Reel | Adventure Keynote Speaker
Watch Jim Davidson in action
Jim Davidson | Virtual Demo 2023
Watch Jim Davidson in action
