Jonathan Drury

Autistic speaker and storyteller with bags of experience and training

Jonny’s fun and powerful speaking style engages audiences with thought provoking and humorous tales from a life following his inner calling, wherever it beckons. He reveals an exciting and risky path, and with the aid of his own stunning photography and storytelling skills will take you on a quest for meaning.

Adventures include a two-month road trip to Arabia on a rickety old bus, spending six weeks alone in a garden shed eating only lentils, a year as a postman on a remote Scottish island while simultaneously filming a movie, then inventing a healthy chocolate spread and crowdfunding £85,000 to bring it to the nation!

Seen from a unique and often untethered autistic perspective, tales become practical wisdoms, designed to motivate students and school leaders alike to reconsider success and to aspire to be better leaders.

Through his work, Jonny supports people to understand neurodiversity and hidden disabilities, and to use strengths-based perspectives instead. He encourages educators and students to appreciate neurodiversity and his work emphasises the ‘special’ in SEN.

His unconventional approach brings a room to life and demonstrates, through the eyes of autism, how facing the unknown together and not alone, can initiate new and deeper potential.

Trained in a wide range of disciplines including storytelling, coaching and fine art, Jonny delivers self-discovery workshops and storytelling in galleries and schools and through his group dialogues leads a different way of communicating, helping to create inclusive and leaderfulcommunities.

Jonny aims to challenge, inspire and instil a deeper respect, asking us to ponder on the question; if we are all unique and wonderful, why are some people still disadvantaged simply because of their circumstances they were born into, and what can we learn from people for whom failure isn’t an option, so neither is success?!