By Chris Burn
Published13th Sep 2025, 05:45 BST
Martin Johnson is celebrating a decade of running his leadership and performance consultancy T2, which he started on his own in 2015 and has grown into a successful business that has worked with the likes of Manchester United, the INEOS Grenadiers cycling team, Siemens and Specsavers.
Mr Johnson served five and a half years in the Royal Navy aboard HMS Edinburgh and HMS Nottingham, earning an Admiral’s Commendation for bravery. He went onto spend seven years at technology consultancy Gartner before taking the leap into setting up his own business.
The firm is now planning £1.2m investment in creating a ‘state-of-the-art leadership development centre’ after recently acquiring its headquarters in Hull.
Martin Johnson and Sir Dave Brailsfordplaceholder image
Martin Johnson and Sir Dave Brailsford
He said: “Ten years ago, I walked away from my corporate job at global business consultancy Gartner with nothing but an idea and a belief that leadership development needed to be more human-centred.
“Our continued growth across such diverse sectors – from elite sports to global corporations – demonstrates the universal applicability of our approach.
“We don’t just teach leadership theory; we help people understand who they are as human beings first, then build their authentic leadership style from there.”
Mr Johnson established the T2 People Performance Podcast and it was through this that he ended up working with Sir Dave Brailsford, the legendary performance director behind multiple Olympic cycling gold medals and Tour de France victories.
After discovering the podcast during lockdown, Sir Dave contracted the company to work with the INEOS Grenadiers cycling team and later with Manchester United, following INEOS Chairman Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s acquisition of a significant stake in the club and taking control of football operations.
Sir Dave, Director of Sport for INEOS, said: “Martin has a very structured mind and when he imparts knowledge, he does it in a very clear and concise way, which is what attracted me to T2 in the first place.”
T2’s aim is “to develop the people of today, the leaders of tomorrow and the organisations of the future”, making use of organisational and performance psychology to help companies build high-performing teams.
Kaushik Gopalan, Vice President of Human Resources at global information and insights business TransUnion, paid tribute to the company’s work with T2 in a recent podcast.
“From the time we started to work with T2, which is about two and a half years ago, we have made tremendous amount of progress, which I see acting out in our day-to-day lives,” he said.
“The value of the work with T2 has not just been in the Executive Leadership Team, but with the next level of leadership as well.”
Central to the company’s offering is the T2 Hub, first launched in 2019 but significantly developed during and since Covid, as a smart online learning platform designed to deliver real-time personal development content. It now has more than 11,000 active users.
Mr Johnson said: “What sets T2 apart is our unique fusion of organisational performance principles with deep performance psychology.
“We’re not just another consultancy delivering generic leadership training. We’re specialists in human transformation who understand that excellent performance starts with understanding yourself as a human being first, then building from that foundation.
“Our methodology bridges the gap between the science of high performance and the art of leading people.”
The firm also puts on an annual three-day leadership retreat, with previous speakers including Professor Steve Peters, author of The Chimp Paradox, explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Damian Hughes, the author of eight best-selling business books on creating high-performance cultures and co-host of the High Performance Podcast.
Next year’s line-up features chef Raymond Blanc and endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh.
Mr Johnson added: “It demonstrates our principle that breakthrough performance requires leaders to step outside their comfort zones.”
T2 plans to widen scope of services
T2’s “ambitious expansion plans” include branching into physical and mental health services over the next two years.
A spokesperson said: “Within the next 12 months, T2 has plans to launch an enhanced 360-degree feedback tool providing users with in-depth, personalised reports that offer clear breakdowns of strengths and development areas, with actionable insights for professional growth.
“The company is also developing a groundbreaking industry database, scheduled for launch in 2026, which will allow individuals, teams and organisations to benchmark their performance against others in similar industries and positions, featuring comprehensive team-level analysis.
“In addition, T2 has also secured the UK licence for Attributes, a psychometric assessment tool developed by former Navy SEAL commander Rich Diviney, adding another dimension to its comprehensive leadership development offering.”