Phil Gifford - Gold Elite Speaker
Phil Gifford is an award-winning broadcaster, sports journalist, and outstanding after dinner speaker and Master of Ceremonies.
The first person to be twice chosen as the New Zealand Sports Journalist of the Year he is the author of 15 books, 10 of them biographies, that in total have sold over 195,000 copies. His subjects have included the Mad Butcher, Sir Peter Leitch, cricketer Nathan Astle, and All Black captain, Todd Blackadder. He was awarded the SPARC Lifetime Services to Sports Journalism award at the New Zealand Sporting Journalists Awards in 2010.
From 1981 he worked in breakfast radio for 23 years, hosting No.1 shows at Radio Hauraki, 91ZM and More FM in Christchurch. In that time he won 12 New Zealand and two Australasian radio awards.
He has reported on one Olympic and three Commonwealth Games, on every Rugby World Cup since 1987, covered every rugby test in New Zealand since 1977, and reported on rugby in Great Britain, France, South Africa, Argentina, Ireland and Samoa.
He created in print a satirical rugby character, Loosehead Len, a column that ran for 32 years from 1973, and spawned six comedy books that sold in total 65,000 copies.
He beat Pam Corkery in the final of the celebrity “Weakest Link” television show, and is glad he declined an invitation in 2005 to be involved in “Celebrity Treasure Island.”
He now hosts the rugby show “Up Front” on Radio Sport every Saturday, writes a weekly column in the Sunday Star-Times, and airs sports comments on NewstalkZB.
Phil, who was a writer for the Billy T James show in the 1980s, worked on a script with Ian Mune for "Billy T: Te Movie" released in August 2011.
Phil's 15th book "Cup Glory" was produced to celebrate the All Black’s RWC 2011 win. It is packed with stunning photography, informed commentary, a foreword by Richie McCaw and was an immediate top seller.
Testimonials
Phil was the best opening speaker that we'd had! Excellent, catered perfectly for the audience and very well received.—New Zealand Heavy Haulage
Phil Gifford was a pleasure to deal with, professional and delivered on the day - looking forward to using him again sometime soon.—Mango Communications
Phil was a perfect blend of humour and sincerity. He had the audience with him all the way. He facilitated, tied various presentations together and made the morning a seamless exercise.—Visibility
Phil fills the MC role very well. Phil assisted in the entire presentation, flowing smoothly with appropriate links where required.—Suzuki New Zealand Ltd
I would recommend Phil to anyone; he delivered exactly as per my brief and he was hugely entertaining.—Enterprise Franklin
Phil is obviously very passionate about what he has done and is doing, so comes across as very entertaining and therefore was extremely well received. Delegates loved to hear the little anecdotes that he had to tell. He was more than happy to take questions afterwards which meant he was speaking for over an hour much to everyone’s delight. Comments were “He was the best speaker we’ve had.” “A very genuine speaker”—Industry Management Systems
Everyone enjoyed his stories and ability to ask him questions.—FUJIFILM NZ Limited
Phil was a fantastic speaker for us to have at our annual conference. He took the time to understand our organisation and tailored his address accordingly. His rugby tales were enjoyed by all. Phil's diversity and willingness to go the extra mile also shone when he interviewed the Prime Minister on stage in a Q&A style following his own address.—i-SITE New Zealand
Phil was just PERFECT!
Phil came in on the right level for our group and very entertaining.—New Zealand Association of Credit Unions
Favourite quotes
"In an after dinner speech I want to make people laugh, and to do that I increasingly tell true stories. They're easier to remember."
"For almost 20 years I've worked on a breakfast radio show. It means you must always sound happy and cheerful at the break of dawn. That's why I call a motivational presentation Un-natural Acts At 5am."
More information
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