With more than 30 years of leading teams up to the summit of Mount Everest—the world's highest peak—David Breashears has established himself as an expert on leadership in extraordinary, dynamic environments. An accomplished team leader in both film and adventure, Breashears combines his skills in climbing and filmmaking to bring audiences to earth's most extraordinary and dangerous places, and accomplishing remarkable feats in the process, including transmitting the first live television pictures from the summit of Mount Everest.

David Breashears is an accomplished filmmaker, explorer, author, mountaineer, and professional speaker. He is also the founder and Executive Director of GlacierWorks, a non-profit organization that uses art, science, and adventure to raise public awareness about the consequences of climate change in the Greater Himalayan Region. Since 1978, he has combined his skills in climbing and filmmaking to complete more than forty film projects.

In the spring of 1996, Breashears co-directed and co-produced the first IMAX film shot on Mount Everest. When the now infamous blizzard of May 10, 1996 hit Mount Everest, killing eight climbers, Expedition Leader Breashears and his team were in the midst of making this historic film. In the tragedy that soon followed, Breashears and his team stopped filming to provide assistance to the stricken climbers. After returning to Base Camp, Breashears and his team then regrouped and reached the summit of the mountain on May 23, 1996, achieving their goal of becoming the first to record IMAX film images at Earth's highest point. Breashears has said that if there is a lesson to be learned from the May 1996 tragedy, it is that for him, success that year was not to be found in reaching the summit, it was that everyone on his team returned safely. The film, titled EVEREST, premiered in March 1998.

Breashears is an accomplished, highly sought-after professional speaker who has delivered his presentations throughout North America, Canada, Europe, and Asia. His lectures are closely tied to his ascent of Mount Everest in 1996 as expedition leader and co-director of the IMAX film team. He conducts quarterly lectures each year on leadership, planning and team building at the Advanced Management Program at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France; widely recognized among the world's top-tier business schools as the most innovative and influential. He also speaks about "Leadership in an Unpredictable World" six times annually to groups of Admirals and Commanders at the Naval Post-Graduate School's Center for Executive Education in Monterey, California.

Book and Film Accomplishments Snapshot
•Author of best-selling memoir High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places
•Co-author of National Geographic's best-selling book Last Climb
•Contributing photographer for National Geographic's book Everest: Mountain Without Mercy
•Producer of National Geographic's IMAX film, Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa
•Director, Producer, Cinematographer of Storm Over Everest
•IMAX film Everest
•Four National Emmy Awards for accomplishment in filmmaking
•Co-producer, Cinematographer of Everest 2015 film
•Director & Director of Photography – 4th Unit ‘Himalayas' of Seven Years in Tibet

Climbing Accomplishments Snapshot
•First American to summit Everest Twice
•5 summits of Everest to his name
•First Live broadcast from the summit
•First Live Webcast from the summit
•First IMAX shoots from Everest