Caspar Berry started his career as the lead in the first series of Byker Grove on BBC1 alongside Ant and Dec.

He went on to read Economics and Anthropology at Cambridge and - after setting his sights on being a professional film writer - had his first screenplay produced by Film Four while still in his third year of university.

By the time he was 23 he was writing for Miramax and Columbia Tri Star. Then at 25 he took the decision to end this career path; he moved to Las Vegas; and became a professional poker player!

Caspar played poker professionally for most of the next 3 years of his life during which time he made a good living pitting his wits against the game's best known players.

After all of this, he went on to set up and run twenty first century media: building it into the fastest growing audio visual media company in the north east of England, before leaving to concentrate on his career as a speaker and trainer in London.

His latest film credit was as the poker adviser on the latest James Bond movie, Casino Royale.

In the past four years Caspar has built a reputation as a highly distinctive speaker within the corporate world with a unique and challenging message that forces people to question many of the things they took for granted. Drawing on his range of diverse experiences in poker, business and life, Caspar has created a range of workshops, seminars and speeches that deliver powerful and important messages about the way we think, particularly when it comes to risk-taking, communicating, decision-making and innovating.

The metaphor of poker is a fun and original one which gets people involved and engaged but crucially, it provides just a starting point from which to explore these themes in a business-focussed way.

The emphasis is always on provoking a change in the behaviours of the participants for the greater good of themselves and their teams. Audiences feel incredibly challenged but in a way that is never prescriptive or preachy. It is for organisations to apply the lessons in a way which is useful for them.

The overall aim of the sessions is to break people's patterns; to energise and motivate a team and to provide tools not rules for collective change. Often, after a session, clients choose to play poker for fun and though this is optional it often provides a perfect end to a day of learning and stimulation.