Graham Keene

When the story needs a stage

In May 2022, Graham Keene became the oldest British climber to summit Mount Everest. He was 68. He’d trained in the hills of Devon during the pandemic, beating the previous record held by Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

What followed was a speaker training programme in America and a growing calendar of talks, from school assemblies to corporate conferences to warming up 130 endurance runners the night before climbing Helvellyn nine times. The stories were there. The confidence was there. What wasn’t there was a website.

Graham needed a credibility piece. Something he could point speaker bureaus and agents towards. Something that would make the first impression his stories deserved. All speaking fees go to The Graham Keene Foundation, a UK registered charity working in Nepal, Bhutan, and the Southwest of England, and that needed to come through clearly too.

“I had concluded a speaker training course and felt much more comfortable giving talks and telling stories. But I needed some credibility. And that’s where the website came in.”

Graham searched locally, got a few quotes, and found Vu Digital based at the Quay in Exeter, which he walks past every day on the way to the gym. After an initial call with Dom, he felt comfortable enough to commit.

“The more we spoke, the more I felt comfortable that this was within my budget and that you were on my side.”

What We Did

• Website design and development for a motivational speaker
• Visual direction built from existing speaker reel assets
• Content structure for speaking topics, expedition stories, and foundation information
• WordPress training and handover for independent content management
• Ongoing maintenance and support agreement

Nailed it first time

The project was handed to Stu, Vu’s project manager, who ran it from brief to launch. Graham had existing creative assets from his speaker reel, with strong colours and a clear visual identity already in place. The team interpreted those quickly and accurately. The design, the colours, the headings, the layout all landed first time.

“I was surprised that it seemed to work first time. The creative side came quite quickly. Stuart was great. Clearly very experienced. He gave me the confidence, and when he couldn’t figure something out, he got it sorted by somebody else,” explains Graham.

Weekly Monday catch-ups kept the project on track. A clear list of what had been done and what was still outstanding. No surprises. No sense at any point that things were slipping. The brief had been clear, the assets were strong, and the team were good at interpreting both.

The website launched three months after first contact.

“I never felt at any stage that we weren’t on track. Stuart was there for every catch-up, went through everything that had been done, still outstanding. Just like any project manager should.”

The credibility piece, delivered

A website for a motivational speaker, giving Graham Keene the digital credibility to match a life spent climbing the world’s highest mountains.

Graham is now comfortable making changes to the site himself through WordPress, and has already updated content independently since launch and had two enquiries in the opening weeks.

The project didn’t just deliver a website. It removed the stress of a process Graham had never been through before and left him feeling confident that if anything needs to change, the support is there.

“It was stress-free. When I needed extra assistance, Stuart was there to give it to me. It would be nice if all service providers were like this.”

Graham Keene, Motivational Speaker