John Amatt

John Amatt has over 35 years of mountain experience, having climbed in Europe, Peru, China, Nepal, Baffin Island and Greenland. In 1965, at the age of 20, he made the first ascent of the 1500-metre "Vertical Mile" Troll Wall in Norway, the highest vertical rock face in Europe. The following year, he climbed the more difficult North Face of Sondre Trolltind in the same valley. After immigrating to Canada in 1968, he worked at The Banff Centre, where he founded the Banff Festival of Mountain Films in 1976. In 1982, he was one of the principal organizers of and a climber on Canada’s first successful expedition to climb Mount Everest.

Building on these experiences, in 1984 Amatt founded One Step Beyond WorldWide, an innovative educational and motivational company dedicated to the pursuit of personal peak performance and effective teamwork in corporate and professional life. He has since delivered leadership seminars to more than 1500 audiences in over 35 countries worldwide. His "Adventure Attitude™" philosophy is articulated in his recent book Straight to the Top and Beyond, which uses his own adventure experiences to develop innovative strategies for meeting the challenges of rapidly changing times.