Living life in the fast lane is all Perry McCarthy has known throughout his diverse and extensive career in motorsport. A former Formula One driver, TV personality and best selling author, McCarthy has since developed an illustrious career as an after dinner and keynote speaker. Attending events worldwide, he has inspired audiences with his success story told with humour. Best known for playing the original ‘The Stig’ character on the hugely popular BBC show; Top Gear, McCarthy raced to set lap times for some of the most prestigious cars in the world. As the anonymous character, he completed two series on the show between 2001 and 2002, driving a range of vehicles from sports cars to family saloons.
Prior to his role on Top Gear, McCarthy competed on the professional racing circuit. Funding his early career entirely through working on oil rigs in the North sea, the unconventional fundraising allowed McCarthy to work his way up the ranks of Formula Ford, Formula 3 and F3000. Eventually, he got his break in 1992 when he was signed by Andrea Moda, an independent team. However, the team disbanded and was unsuccessful. McCarthy has perhaps the most victorious period of his career with his five Le Mans appearances between 96’ and 03’.
Labeled the ‘most unlucky racing driver’ due to his bad fortune in F1 teams, amongst other hurdles in his journey, McCarthy is not a stranger to overcoming adversity. Reflecting on his experiences, the ups, and downs of his career and time at the top, he wrote and published an autobiography in 2002 titled ‘Flat Out, Flat Broke’. The biography combined his famous sense of humour with brilliant stories from his career and became a best seller.
Having attended events worldwide, McCarthy is a highly sought after and experienced speaker. Inspiring and entertaining an audience comes naturally to McCarthy, who has made over 1500 appearances to date for corporate and private audiences, including a number of blue chip companies such as: Coca-Cola, Audi, and BP. His renowned speeches cover all aspects of his career from life as the Stig, to his rise to Formula One and all the of the adventures in between. Equally as relatable to a business environment, McCarthy explores risk management, technology, data, and marginal gains.
How to hire Perry McCarthy
Contact the Champions Speakers Agency to provisionally enquire about hiring Perry McCarthy 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.
See what people had to say about Perry, when he appeared at their corporate events:
"As for Perry, he was absolutely fantastic and really made our event. The perfect blend of insights and humour. So many people came up to us at the end of the event saying how wonderful he was. It was a really nice touch how he stayed at the event to speak and have pictures with attendees. He was such a good sport with the racing too. Couldn't recommend him highly enough." - Rosie, Candyspace
"Perry was an excellent recommendation for our digital event. He was hugely entertaining, one of our guests said “I could listen to Perry all day”, and he also went above and beyond to understand what we do and the purpose of the event. We didn’t expect him to speak about hybrid multi-cloud environments, but he very effectively helped us introduce the topic by talking about the use of data in F1 and engaged our very technical audience." - Jane, Cloud Business
"Perry was excellent both in his after-dinner speech and in his interaction with our staff and customers." - Caroline, Kubota
"With Perry you can always guarantee that your guests are going to have a fun time. His ability to grab everyone’s attention and make them laugh has ensured that we book him on a regular basis." - Audi
"Very entertaining speech by Perry. Great that he used short stories to entertain. It was good to see Perry mingling with the guests afterwards so they had the chance to ask him questions on an informal basis. Much appreciated and would recommend him for future work." - HBOS Legal Dinner
"Perry went down a storm at our event, he was very easy to get along with and interacted with many people. The Q&A session he did after his talk could have gone on for hours as people had so many questions for him!" - Zycko
"Perry was a fantastic speaker, extremely animated and made the event. His speech was very entertaining and basically made everyone laugh – a really great choice!GoodwoodThank you so much for the brilliant drivers’ briefing you did for the Revival. You had everyone in stitches and as far as Stirling Moss was concerned, it was definitely the highlight of his whole weekend – he talked about nothing else. Your future as an entertainer is definitely assured! Thanks so much for bringing such a light touch to the proceedings and very much hope to see you soon." - Metis Launch Event
