Benjamin Kelly is a leading expert on decision-making and behavioural finance. With his extensive knowledge, Benjamin explores the behavioural similarities between high finance and elite sports environments, bringing together his academic expertise and 17 years of real-world experience as a fund manager and investment strategist at industry titans like BlackRock and Columbia Threadneedle. As a keynote speaker, Benjamin shares insights on risk and reward, financial behaviours and staying rational under stress, making him a perfect addition to conferences, board meetings and executive coaching sessions.
Benjamin is currently Head of Behavioural Economics at Kavedon Kapital, where he develops practical, evidence-based strategies to minimise decision-making errors in investment processes. Benjamin is especially competent in understanding how geopolitical tension and market volatility create bias and their impact on decision-making. With his expert analysis, Benjamin is highly sought after by investment professionals and shares his key insights with audiences as part of his popular keynote talks. In 2025, Benjamin co-founded PrepUp, an educational consultancy designed to guide parents through the school selection process, particularly in West London.
Benjamin also contributes pioneering research to elite sport, sharing how the same behavioural patterns that influence investors also shape decision-making in golf, football, tennis and rugby. He has published his findings and analyses in several articles for the Leaders Performance Institute. Benjamin presents his analysis clearly and uses frameworks to support leaders and organisations in optimising their decision-making. Connecting psychology, economics and sports, Benjamin is a compelling keynote speaker for a range of events across business and sports.
Benjamin Kelly brings together behavioural economics, investment expertise and elite sport, merging detailed analysis with practical strategy. With his extensive PhD research and hands-on investment experience, Benjamin is sought after as a keynote speaker to help organisations improve decision-making under pressure and achieve stronger long-term performance. To hire Benjamin Kelly for your business conference, corporate strategy session or industry event, contact Champions today!
Benjamin Kelly's official speaking topics are listed below:
Decisions at the Edge: What Elite Sport Teaches Boards About Risk & Reward
How Ryder Cup captains, F1 strategists and NBA coaches handle pressure – and what CIOs, CEOs and investment committees can copy to improve capital allocation and strategic bets. Ideal for: Board meetings, executive leadership teams, investment committees, and corporate strategy sessions.
Behavioural Finance in the Real World: Turning Biases into Process
From loss aversion to overconfidence, I show how investors systematically misprice risk – and present practical checklists, pre-mortems and “decision hygiene” routines that improve portfolio and corporate outcomes. Ideal for: Investment conferences, CFA societies, hedge funds, asset managers, financial services firms.
Clutch Decision-Making: Reducing Errors When the Stakes Are Highest
Lessons from Grand Slam tennis, F1 strategy walls and NBA clutch time on how to build teams that stay rational under stress, combining evidence from sports psychology with investment and leadership case studies. Ideal for: Corporate conferences, sales teams, sports organizations, high-performance teams.
Official Feedback From In-Person & Virtual Events:
“I have known Ben for a number of years. Our first interaction was when he delivered the keynote address at a CFA UK Behavioural Finance Conference, where he excelled in sharing valuable insights with a touch of humour, setting a positive tone for the day. More recently, he presented a well-received webinar—again on behavioural finance—this time drawing compelling parallels between golf and investment decision-making. I very much look forward to having Ben present to our members again in the future.” – Gerhard Sogl, Head of Content Strategy and Analysis, CFA Society of the United Kingdom
"Dr Ben Kelly has been a regular guest speaker on our Behavioural Finance module at the University of St Andrews Business School. He brings valuable industry experience to the classroom, showing students how behavioural biases play out in organisational settings and offering practical strategies to overcome them. His sessions consistently receive excellent feedback, with students citing his talk as one of the highlights of the module. We very much hope to welcome Dr Kelly back in the years to come." - Dr Christian Engels, Lecturer in Banking and Finance, University of St Andrews Business School
“This week I was lucky to spend some time with Benjamin Kelly who has worked with some of the greatest traders out there and at some of the best universities in the world. Ben is an expert in helping people to understand how our behavioural biases impact decision-making. It is incredible how common it is and how blissfully unaware we are that we all do it in some form. Just being aware of it can help you to make sure you’re making the right decisions. I am very excited to continue having these chats with Ben and look forward to him presenting this to our members in the near future!” – Aaron Goodwin, Founder, Caddi Club
"Ben and I have collaborated on a series of projects for approaching a decade now and he has always been an absolute pleasure to work with. I work for the Leaders Performance Institute. It’s an organisation that serves the sports performance community (with more than 500 member organisations on five continents) through a combination of summits, roundtables, seminars and written/audio/visual content. Ben’s insights have been well received by coaches and practitioners in teams and leagues as diverse as the Premier League, NFL, NBA and the AFL in Australia and so we always welcome him back with open arms. It is not just that he is an expert in his field, it is his ability to tailor the message to the audience in a way that conveys the central points and resonates with the reader or listener. They walk away with actionable ideas, which is critical to the work of the Leaders Performance Institute. Ben’s versatility is another strength, as evidenced through his written series and podcast appearances. He is just as comfortable discussing golf, football, tennis, rugby or F1 (and surely several other sports), which is perfect for our audience. On top of it all, and most importantly, he is friendly and open to feedback and has proven his resourcefulness and adaptability. Any organisation would be fortunate to work with someone of Ben’s calibre." - John Portch, Editor, Leaders Performance Institute at Leaders in Sport
- 2026 - Published 'Even the Best Tennis Players in the World Are Worse When the Stakes Rise – and it’s Not Just Down to Random Variance or Bad Luck' article for the Leaders Performance Institute
- 2026 - Published 'The Invisible Opponent: Why our Own Cognitive Biases May Present the Most Formidable Challenge' article for the Leaders Performance Institute
- 2025 - Published 'How the Science of Decision-Making Under Pressure Explains Both Successes and Failures at the Ryder Cup' article for the Leaders Performance Institute
- 2025 - Published 'What Behavioural Finance Teaches us about (Bad) Decision Making in Golf' article for the Leaders Performance Institute
- 2025 - Co-founder of PrepUp
- 2024 - Head of Behavioural Economics and Social Impact at Kavedon Kapital
- 2023 - Fund Manager at Columbia Threadneedle Investments EMEA APAC
- 2022 - Director of Impact Investing at Columbia Threadneedle Investments EMEA APAC
- 2017 - Senior Thematic Analyst and Behavioural Economist
- 2017 - Managing Director at CastleCliff
- 2013 - Investment Strategist/Economist at BlackRock Investment Institute
- 2007 - Account manager and business developer across strategic Nordic institutions for BlackRock Investment Institute
- 2002 - PhD in Economics from University of St Andrews
- 2001 - M.Litt, Economics, International Relations and Management from University of St Andrews
- 1997 - BSc (Hons) Chemistry from University of St Andrews
How to hire Benjamin Kelly
Contact the Champions Speakers Agency to provisionally enquire about hiring Benjamin Kelly for your next event, today. To get in touch, simply call an official booking agent on 0207 1010 553 or email us at [email protected] for more information.
** We do NOT accept requests for autographs, signed merchandise, fan mail, birthday messages or any other non-commercial contact with the speakers or acts. Each speaker on the website may not have necessarily worked with Champions in the past but are known to perform such engagements within the industry.
