Christen Gilchrist

Christen Gilchrist is a high performance keynote speaker and organisational psychologist who helps leaders build teams that deliver consistently under pressure, without sacrificing trust or wellbeing. Her work focuses on how real performance is shaped, not by surface-level processes, but by behaviour, decision-making, and leadership culture. Christen is known for bringing clarity to complex systems, helping organisations understand why performance stalls and what genuinely unlocks momentum. She works with leaders who want results that last, not short-term fixes that quietly drain people and performance.

Christen began her career on the NHS frontline in mental health, working in crisis and home treatment services where decisions carried immediate human consequences. This early experience shaped her belief that performance and humanity are inseparable. She went on to hold roles across organisational development, leadership, and service improvement within the NHS, where she led culture initiatives, change programmes, and leadership projects from aspiring managers through to executive level. One early achievement saw her redesign clinical review processes, cutting meeting time in half while improving decision quality, a practical demonstration of psychology driving measurable performance under pressure.

In 2020, Christen founded Core Potential Solutions, where she works internationally with founders, entrepreneurs, and senior leadership teams navigating growth, restructuring, and cultural change. Alongside her consultancy, she holds multiple senior associate roles, including Associate Business Psychologist with Aon, Mercer Talent Enterprise, Talogy, and Bailey & French. Her work spans the UK, Middle East, Europe, and Australia, with significant delivery across KSA and the UAE. Christen is trusted to design and deliver assessment and development centres, leadership diagnostics, psychometric feedback, and large-scale capability programmes in complex, high-stakes environments. She is currently completing a Professional Doctorate in Occupational Psychology, alongside her MSc in Organisational Psychology and ICF-accredited coaching qualifications.

As a keynote speaker, Christen is direct, evidence-led, and deeply human. She speaks on the psychology behind high-performing teams, why efficiency problems are rarely operational, decision-making under pressure, trust, and leadership behaviour. Her talks draw on real examples from healthcare, government, and global corporate systems, translating psychology into practical actions leaders can use immediately. Audiences value her honesty, her ability to surface what is usually left unsaid, and her focus on creating cultures where performance, accountability, and humanity reinforce each other rather than compete.