Dame Denise Lewis DBE

Dame Denise Lewis DBE is an Olympic heptathlon champion, broadcaster and author who hosts conferences, awards ceremonies and in-conversation sessions. She won heptathlon gold at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, four years after taking bronze in Atlanta, and today serves as President of UK Athletics and President of Commonwealth Games England.

Across her athletics career Denise won Commonwealth Games gold in 1994 and 1998, European Championship gold in 1998 and World Championship silver medals in 1997 and 1999. Her score of 6,831 points, set in 2000, was a British heptathlon record. She was inducted into the UK Athletics Hall of Fame in 2011 and was twice runner-up in BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

After retiring from competition in 2005 she built a long career in broadcasting. She joined the BBC's athletics team as a pundit in 2009 and covered the London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympic Games, along with Commonwealth Games and world championships. She has also fronted BBC programmes including Secret Britain and Right on the Money, and appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, where she was runner-up in 2004, ITV's Don't Rock the Boat and The Masked Dancer, where she reached the semi-final.

In 2025 Denise published Adaptability: Seven Lessons to Thrive in a World of Competing Demands, which draws on the discipline of the heptathlon, where seven events demand seven different skill sets, to help readers manage change and pressure. She has hosted her own podcast and worked as a brand ambassador for Next since 2021, as well as with L'Oréal, Google, Haven and Purplebricks.

Denise was appointed MBE in 1999, OBE in 2001 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2023 New Year Honours, and received an honorary doctorate from Birmingham City University the same year. She is an ambassador and patron for several charities and initiatives, including Breast Cancer Care and Sparks.

As a host, Denise brings the authority of an Olympic champion and the timing of a live sports broadcaster to business shows, awards ceremonies and conferences, and she leads in-conversation and Q&A sessions on performance, adaptability and leadership in sport.