Corporate Wellbeing Speaker Galway: Resilience Talks for High Pressure Teams

Enda O’Doherty is a resilience speaker who delivers corporate wellbeing keynotes to teams across Galway and the West of Ireland, drawing on over two decades of personal recovery combined with evidence-based frameworks for HR leaders and event planners.

I get the same phone call from HR teams in the West of Ireland more than any other. It usually starts the same way. “We’ve done the wellbeing week. We’ve had the yoga mats out. Engagement scores still aren’t moving.”

That gap is real, and it’s bigger than most people think. A 2025 Hays Ireland study found that 95% of employers and 96% of employees agree wellbeing matters to organisational success, yet only 48% of employees feel their organisation’s current approach actually supports them. Nearly every company says the right thing. Fewer than half of employees feel it.

I speak on resilience and mental health for corporate teams right across Ireland, and Galway is one of the places I end up most often. It’s not a coincidence. Galway carries a concentration of pressure most people outside the region don’t fully see. The city is home to more than 300 medtech companies, and the sector alone employs over 8,000 people locally. Add the university research community, the pharma supply chain, and the financial services firms based there, and you get a workforce operating at a pace that doesn’t always show up in a headcount spreadsheet.

Why Galway’s Workforce Needs This Conversation Now

HR leaders across Ireland are telling the same story through their own data. Leading the wellbeing agenda is now a top priority for 88% of Irish HR professionals, sitting alongside employee experience and learning and development as core deliverables rather than side projects. That shift matters. Wellbeing used to be something HR ran quietly in the background. Now it’s being asked to prove its worth at board level.
CIPD

The cost of getting it wrong is not abstract either. IBEC’s 2024 report on workplace mental health estimated that poor mental health can cost Irish employers up to €2,000 per employee every year, and HSE figures suggest that 40% of long-term sickness absence in Ireland is now linked to mental health conditions. Those numbers land differently when you’re a Galway-based manufacturing or medtech employer with a team of three hundred and a production schedule that doesn’t pause for anyone.

The Gap Between What HR Says and What Employees Feel

I built my talk around a simple idea. Most workplace wellbeing content is written by people who have never actually struggled. Mine isn’t. I speak from over two decades of my own recovery from alcoholism and depression, combined with practical, evidence based frameworks that leadership teams can use the next morning, not just feel good about for an hour.

HR teams are already moving away from one size fits all wellbeing programmes toward approaches that are flexible and tailored to how different teams actually work. A resilience keynote works the same way. It’s not a script read the same way in Dublin as it is in Galway. I shape every talk around the specific pressures the room is carrying, whether that’s a medtech production floor, a research team, or a leadership group trying to hold a culture together through growth.
Irish Life

What a Resilience Keynote Actually Changes

Companies don’t book me because they want an hour of feeling good. They book me because the team walks out with something they didn’t have walking in; a different way of talking about pressure, a manager who finally asks the right question, a room that stops pretending everything is fine.

I’ve delivered this talk for organisations including JPMorgan, Pfizer, Accenture, AIB, Sanofi, and Abbott, and I’m regularly named among the most in demand keynote speakers currently working in Ireland. I work nationally, not just around one city, but Galway sits at the centre of a huge amount of that work because of the sheer density of high pressure, high performing teams based there.

Booking a Resilience Speaker for Your Galway Event

If you’re planning a conference, leadership offsite, or wellbeing day anywhere in the West of Ireland, I’d genuinely like to hear what your team is dealing with before we talk about a date. Every keynote is built around the real pressures in the room, not a generic script.

Call me on 086 677 2154 or get in touch through endaodoherty.ie/lets-talk. Every client also receives a free copy of my digital ebook, The Thriving Mind, after the event, so the conversation doesn’t end when the talk does.

Frequently Asked QuestionsEnda O'Doherty motivational keynote speaker delivering corporate event presentation to business audience in Dublin Ireland

Do you speak specifically to Galway based companies, or is this a national talk adapted for the region?
I work with organisations across all of Ireland, but every keynote is rebuilt around the specific team in the room rather than delivered as a fixed script. For Galway audiences, that usually means speaking directly to the pressures of medtech, pharma, and research-led environments, since the region carries one of the highest concentrations of that kind of high-performance, high-pressure work in the country. I spend time before every event understanding what your team is actually carrying.

What size events do you speak at in Galway?
Anywhere from a leadership team of fifteen people to a full company conference of several hundred. I’ve delivered keynotes for organisations including JPMorgan, Pfizer, Accenture, AIB, Sanofi, and Abbott, so the format scales in both directions. What doesn’t change is the honesty of the content or the practical frameworks people leave with.

Can you deliver this as part of a wider wellbeing day rather than a standalone keynote?
Yes. I regularly speak as one part of larger wellbeing programmes, alongside other elements HR teams have already planned for the day. I can open the day, close it, or sit wherever makes most sense in your agenda. Every client also receives a free copy of my ebook, The Thriving Mind, after the event.

How far in advance should we book a resilience speaker for a Galway event?
Most corporate events book six to twelve weeks out, though peak conference season in spring and autumn fills faster. If you have a fixed date already, get in touch as early as possible and I’ll confirm availability directly.

Do you offer virtual or hybrid delivery for teams that can’t attend in person?
Yes. While I prefer in-person delivery for the impact it has in the room, I offer virtual and hybrid formats for organisations with distributed teams across multiple sites.

Why book a resilience speaker instead of a general motivational speaker?
A general motivational speaker leaves a room energised for a week. A resilience speaker gives managers and teams a framework they can actually use the next time pressure shows up, which is the difference HR leaders are increasingly booking for. I’m regularly named among the most in-demand keynote speakers currently working in Ireland, and resilience is specifically why organisations bring me back.