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Duncan Slater

Best known for:

Duncan Slater is best known for being an Afghan veteran who has overcome adversity to raise thousands of pounds for charity, Overall Champion Amplifon Awards for Brave Britons 2021 and awarded highest civic honours a town council can bestow.

Summary:

Former military sergeant who broke almost every bone in his body and lost both legs in 2009 when the armoured vehicle he was travelling in was struck by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. After spending five months in hospital he undertook several gruelling challenges including Lands End to John O'Groats, London Marathon, South Pole and Marathon de Sables. Named Overall Champion Amplifon Awards for Brave Britons 2021.

Biography:

In just under 7 months war veteran Duncan Slater joined Walking With The Wounded as the first double amputee veteran to race to the South Pole and achieve it. Inspired by stories of previous expeditions which have included the North Pole and Everest, Duncan made the British team’s final six from over 300 applications.

In 2009, Sgt Slater, from Scole, suffered life-changing injuries when a rode-side bomb in Helmand Province, Afghanistan struck the armoured vehicle he was travelling in.

In 2016 Duncan faced the Marathon des Sables which consists of six marathons in six days across the Sahara desert covering 250m. He made his first attempt and was the first double leg amputee to take part, he made it to Day 4 when, due to sufficient damage to his legs, had to withdraw from the race. Duncan completed the marathon in 2017 making history as the first double amputee to complete it.

As well as becoming an ambassador for the charity Walking With The Wounded, an organisation which helps and supports veterans reintegrate back into society and find sustainable employment.

Sgt Duncan Slater was presented with the Honorary Freeman of Diss at the town’s annual meeting. Upon receiving the honour, Sgt Slater said it had come as a shock but meant a huge amount to him.

Duncan was named Overall Champion and Against All Odds winner in the Amplifon Awards For Brave Britons 2021.

Topics:

Leadership & Teamwork
Inspiration & Motivation
Peak Performance
Adversity, Resilience & Change
Risk & Uncertainty
Mental Health & Wellbeing
Sport & Adventure

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Testimonials:

Huge thank you to you for speaking at CAS leadership conference. Your contribution was incredibly powerful and many people told me they felt emotional and were deeply impacted listening to you talk. Your candour and honesty, coupled with humour, allowed people to reflect in a way we rarely do in day to day life.

Group Captain Emma J Keith BA MSc RAF, Autumn 2023

Duncan, it is a year to the day that you won the Amplifon Awards For Brave Britons 2021 Against All Odds and Overall Champion awards. We have been hugely proud of the fact you have been our reigning champion over the last 12 months. As one of your inspirations Simon Weston, who made the award to you, said, you exemplify everything that makes a person the Best of British and that you had left an indelible mark of courage on the nation.

Claire Gilligan, Viva PR

It was fantastic to meet Duncan and he did a brilliant talk with a great turn out of our colleagues, as we’d hoped! It was great to hear from such a humble individual on his incredible life story and his honest account of challenges he’d overcome was incredibly inspiring for all our colleagues. I know some of our colleagues approached him afterwards to express their thanks and how his talk had touched them due to family links/individual challenges they’d faced, which is testament to the effect of his talk and how approachable he was. His talk was straight from the heart and that was exactly what we were hoping for.

LIDL 2022

Duncan Slater is an extraordinary individual and for many, many reasons and not least because he filled the ‘keynote speaker’ slot with less than 24 hours’ notice! The original speaker who was due to fly in from another country unfortunately was involved in a car accident and Duncan became the conference hero and keynote! Firstly, for any speaker to fill a huge slot at a conference of 160 international PAs with the amount of notice he had is no mean feat, but boy he pull it off and has now won his own ‘army’ of fans – Personal and Executive Assistants from across the world. Duncan’s presentation is a powerful story of overcoming adversity, teamwork, humidity, compassion and sense of self. He presented with humour and grace and I fail to see how anyone could not find this story of huge inspiration.

Victoria Darragh, HAYS plc