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Paul Connolly

Paul Connolly is an investigative broadcast journalist, television and radio presenter and documentary maker with more than 20 years’ experience under his belt. Born in Dublin, Ireland, his daring undercover operations have seen him infiltrate criminal gangs in cities and towns across Britain.

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About Paul Connolly

Paul Connolly is a vastly experienced presenter and broadcast journalist best known for his work on crime. His acclaimed and extremely successful documentaries have aired on Channel 5 in the UK, ITV (Tonight), Netflix, Facebook Watch, Discovery Channel, BBC Worldwide, Sky History Nine Network in Australia, Virgin Media One in Ireland and on many networks besides.

Biography

Paul Connolly has been a face of Channel 5 since his first series aired in 2014. Amongst other things, he has gone on to go undercover to buy large shipments of fake and poisonous vodka from Eastern European crooks in Black-Market Britain. For months, he immersed himself in the underworld to expose large-scale welfare fraud in Undercover Benefits Cheat. Paul narrowly escaped injury when, in Undercover Criminal, he secretly filmed from the passenger seat of a car as insurance fraudsters intentionally crashed into each other at speed. He interrogated the world of consumer related crime and corruption in Hunted And Confronted; in Undercover: Nailing The Fraudsters Paul came face-to-face with high-end document forgers, international drug traffickers, ruthless con-men, dark-web scam-artists. On Channel 5, Paul co-hosted Is it a Con? – a series which examines the shopping habits of UK based families, then reveals to them the tricks of the marketing trade which, unbeknownst to them, influenced their decisions to buy.

Paul also fronted Inside The World’s Toughest Prisons for Channel 5/Netflix where, in a world first, he lived as a prisoner for a week inside four of the most dangerous lockups on earth. Paul describes it as “equal parts fascinating, mind-altering and impossibly dangerous” – but, again, it has provided him with a rare and remarkable insight into the mind of a criminal, as well as a hefty back-catalogue of nerve-jangling, “brush-with-death” stories to tell. The series was first broadcast on Channel 5 in the UK but is now available on Netflix.

His thirst for hostile environments was further tested when Paul was recruited as lead presenter on Curse of Akakor – a big budget investigative/adventure series for Discovery US which sold in a number of other territories including the UK. Alongside a former FBI undercover agent, Connolly was tasked with investigating the disappearance of tourists who vanished whilst searching for ancient Amazonian cities said to be located across Peru and Brazil.

Paul is also a well-known television and radio personality in his native Ireland. He regularly co-hosts the most watched morning show in the country, Ireland AM on Virgin Media One, plus he has reported and presented on Newstalk 106 and 98FM. In the UK, Paul works as a freelance presenter for BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 and The Inquiry on BBC World Service.

Speech Topics

The Art of Confrontation: 

As an investigative journalist, Paul goes go toe-to-toe, head-to-head with dangerous criminals on a regular basis. During the on-camera, tension-filled confrontations that round-off each successful investigation, Paul takes crooks to task on the impact their crimes have on society as a whole.

Essentially, he serves up the harsh truth – and, for most of his adversaries, it’s a very bitter pill to swallow. Naturally, forcing a criminal to endure the glare of the spotlight case cause them to become agitated, even violent. Therein lies the skill, the art of confrontation.

Over the years, Paul has a developed a tried-and-tested method of calming and, to a degree, controlling situations that have the potential to escalate quickly. Using only language, specific mannerisms and other subtle nuances in his armoury, Paul can teach you how to apply these little known techniques in a corporate environment.

As we all know, confrontation is never easy. But, sometimes, it is a necessary evil. Over the course of just one seminar/talk, Paul can instruct you on how to diffuse any potential hostility before it has even started.

Overcoming adversity/The Power of persuasion – and turning a “no” into a “yes, where do I sign?”

As an investigative journalist, Paul is extremely skilled in the art of secret filming and in all other facets of undercover work. But no amount of training or experience can prepare a covert investigator for the worst of the worst case scenario: your cover being blown whilst on the job, face-to-face with dangerous criminals, with no safe exit in sight.

During his many years working undercover, Paul has endured  numerous nightmarish situations. And he has lived to tell the tale. How? By the power or persuasion. Despite facing into a seemingly hopeless, against-all-the-odds situation, Paul was able to employ subtle but powerful techniques. These enabled to him to alter his adversaries focus, then turn the situation to his own advantage.   Furthermore these little known skills can be applied to any number of situations that arise in a corporate environment, not least when a potential sales lead seems hell-bent on saying “NO!”.

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