Dr. James Alvarez

Dr James Alvarez is an internationally renowned expert in persuasion and negotiation, having been the only psychologist utilised by Scotland Yard and the NYPD in hostage situations. Backed by an extensive range of professional psychology qualifications, Alvarez is now combing his experiences and education as a behaviour and change management speaker. One of the world’s most impressive communicators, Alvarez has honed the qualities required for communicating in challenging circumstances and with varied personality types, a skill he instils in corporate clients for effective business.

Spending six years working alongside police in high profile hostage negotiations, Alvarez was called on to share insight into the perpetrator’s potential behaviours and state of mind, due to his superior knowledge as a Doctor of Clinical Psychology. Through his role as the European Operations Director of the International Association of Hostage Negotiations Alvarez successfully reached a resolution on 24 kidnap cases and earnt the title of Honorary Police Surgeon of the NYPD. With more than 30 years of practical psychology experience, Alvarez has established himself as an authority on the effect of emotions on behaviour in a range of environments, from foreign militaries to corporate businesses.

Since 2008, Alvarez has been working alongside numerous blue-chip companies to transform their potential with his unrivalled insight. Whether he’s relating hostage negotiations to business negotiations or improving performance through education on behaviour change management, Alvarez’s input has already improved the output of numerous clients in the public and private sector. Sharing an impactful and engaging presentation, audiences of Alvarez’s talks are guaranteed a discussion with long-lasting positive implications on an individual and team-wide basis.

With people at the heart of Alvarez’s work, he is currently continuing as a consultant psychologist in person and on-screen, improving performance through personal advancement. He can regularly be seen in the media, called on by broadcasters like the BBC and CNN as an expert in his field, and as a contributor to police manuals. With an established reputation for communication and change management, Alvarez is ideally suited to give keynote talks for conferences, corporate clients and industry summits.