Rory Underwood

About Rory Underwood

Rory is probably best known for his international rugby career. Not only for scoring a record 49 tries for England (85 caps, 1984-1996) but also for winning 6 caps for the British Lions touring Australia (1989) and New Zealand (1993). Rory played first class rugby at Leicester Tigers for an unbelievable 14 years and was awarded the MBE in 1992 for his services to rugby. Rory joined the Board of Leicester Tigers as a non-executive Director in Nov 2007.

Throughout this record-breaking rugby career Rory amassed 18 years flying as a pilot in the Royal Air Force. He was responsible for introducing Crew Resources Management (CRM) training into the RAF, thereby developing a culture where personnel look at how teamwork and decision making is effected in time limited stressful situations.

Rory has a specific interest and expertise in the areas of effective communication and high performance leadership within teams. His experience and insight gained through his stellar rugby and RAF career has allowed him to bring a different perspective into the performance of business teams. He is an experienced facilitator, psychometric profiler and performance coach.

Rory incorporates his inspirational experiences with practical performance activities creating an environment for delegates to explore and challenge their view of teams and how they can make an impact within the business. He will explore and challenge the delegates about their understanding of teams, high performance and how to measure it.

Rory uses his experience from his time within high performance organisations and teams to be able to bring a different perspective than the normal ‘team building’ workshop. He explores the relationship between values and motivation that is bound together by trust to enable you to create and sustain a high performance team ethos within the organisation.

Rory combines the wealth of experience from international sport, the military, extreme human achievement and the tried and tested formula of personal and team development to create processes for individuals, teams and organisations to inspire performance.

Rory is also associated with various charities and organisations, namely; Lord’s Taverners, Wooden Spoon, SENSE, Macmillan Cancer Support, Chairman of the Leicester City Sports Partnership Trust Board, President of the National Malay & Veterans Association, Grantham Districts Branch and Patron of the Meningitis Research Foundation. Rory has been a Non-executive Director at Leicester Tigers since 2007.

Rory enjoys playing golf, reading, watches Leicester Tigers and is currently bitten by the triathlon bug.