Eric Blakeley is a television journalist with a love of the great outdoors and extreme sports. His interests have taken him to more than 80 countries.

Amongst his accomplishments are climbing the so-called 'Seven Summits' - the highest peak on each continent, including Mount Everest swimming the English Channel and around New York's Manhattan Island and completing a number of long-distance walks.

On a lighter note he's also competed in the World Bog Snorkelling Championships raced up the 1,860 steps of New York's Empire State Building in the annual charity run-up tried to visit every London underground tube station in a day and hurtled head-first down the infamous Cresta Run.

Eric's produced more than 50 half-hour documentaries for television, some of them about his own adventures. He's also staged two solo photographic exhibitions (Sarajevo - a city still under siege, and Liberation 50), and published a book on the German Occupation of the Channel Islands 1940-45.

Eric's a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society. In the Queen's 2004 New Year's Honours List he was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire - MBE - for 'services to mountaineering, sport and charity.'

Eric has a lot to say and a fun way of saying it. In his talk 'Peaks and Troughs - Mountaineering and Swimming' he outlines what he believes the business world can learn from the world of extreme sports and adventures.