Purpose, Performance, and Positive Impact: Delivering High-Impact with RBS
June 10, 2025David Meade joins the most senior leaders from across the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for a high-impact keynote session.
A Powerful Gathering of Senior Leaders
David Meade was honoured to join the most senior leaders from across the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for a landmark event led by CEO Alison Rose. This gathering was more than just a leadership meeting. It was a moment to reflect on RBS’s successes, revisit and reimagine their strategy, and reinforce the importance of collaboration and customer centricity.
Held at a time when banking is evolving faster than ever, the event gave leaders space to focus on their shared mission: to keep customers at the heart of everything they do, while ensuring that purpose, legacy, and positive impact guide every decision.
Future-Focused Leadership with David Meade
To help inspire this ambitious vision, David Meade delivered a high-impact 60-minute keynote focused on the tools, techniques, and traits of high-performing organisations. His session encouraged leaders to think, act, and behave in fundamentally different ways. Challenging them to break free from the comfort of past success and focus instead on building a future-facing culture of innovation and agility.
From behavioural psychology to real-world business examples, David brought a rich mix of insights and inspiration to life—showing that high performance isn’t about working harder, it’s about working smarter together, with purpose.
Give a Hand: A Hands-On, Heart-Led Experience
What the audience didn’t expect was what came next. Seamlessly transitioning from keynote to activation, David introduced a powerful Lightbulb Teams experience: the Give a Hand programme. Kept entirely under wraps until the final moments of his talk, the surprise activity challenged the RBS team to put their new skills into immediate practice.
Delegates were tasked with building life-changing prosthetic hands—devices that would be donated to individuals in need around the world. At first, many were unsure. The task was unfamiliar and the stakes were high. But within minutes, the room transformed. Teams collaborated intensely, solved real engineering challenges, supported one another, and stayed focused on the shared mission: to create something meaningful for someone they may never meet.
This wasn’t just team building. It was a deeply humbling, purpose-driven challenge that pushed every participant to think beyond themselves and recognise the human impact of their actions.
Lasting Impact and Lasting Change
Feedback from the event was overwhelming. Many leaders described it as the most inspiring experience they’d ever had at a corporate event. CEO Alison Rose remarked:
“I was blown away by this humbling experience. This is the second time we’ve worked with David in a very short period of time, and he continues to inspire and engage like no one else.”
By the close of the event, the RBS leadership team weren’t just aligned on strategy—they were energised, connected, and inspired to lead with greater purpose. The combination of insight, interaction, and impact had created something truly unforgettable.
Looking Ahead
From myself, and everyone at Lightbulb Teams, a heartfelt thank you to RBS for getting involved in the Give a Hand programme. Your commitment to building not just better teams, but a better world, is genuinely inspiring.
We’re thrilled to continue this partnership, as RBS has committed to build many more hands in the future, extending the reach of this life-changing initiative even further. We can’t wait to see where the journey takes us next.