About Us

The Cognacity Story

Whilst working in London as a private psychiatrist in 2007, I met Gary Bell, a fellow psychiatrist. He introduced me to his colleague Pieter Kruger, a Clinical Psychologist, who had an impressive record working in elite sport performance. We had a common interest in sharing best practice. At that time most private clinicians in our field worked independently in separate locations. Our experience in the NHS and elite sport emphasised the importance of a team approach to the quality of patient care. As a result Cognacity was born in 2008. Our vision was to create a team of outstanding experts to deliver top class clinical services, with an emphasis on personal empathy. Given our backgrounds, we had an early focus on elite sport and corporate clients that we retain to this day.

Rob Archer, an Occupational Psychologist and former management consultant joined us as an associate in 2010. Rob brought a valuable business perspective to the preventative programme that Pieter was developing. Around this time an existing client needed expert help to address the impact of a major crisis on their workforce. We were tasked with designing and delivering a resilience programme which could enable c.1,000 employees to ‘survive’ this period of intense pressure whilst continuing to perform effectively. Our training enabled a number of employees at high risk of burn out to cope and return to impressive performance levels. Since that time we have become a global leader in the field of corporate resilience, performance and wellbeing. Companies are increasingly asking us to deliver training as part of their wellbeing and personal development / leadership programmes.

Filippo Passetti joined us in 2012 to help meet the demand for our excellent clinical care to individuals, organisations and elite sport. Sam Rogers joined us in 2020, bringing his experience of operations and strategy to further support the businesses growth.

We are proud to work with some of the world’s leading organisations from sport, business and charity. In 2012 we were chosen as the specialist psychiatry and psychology team at the London Olympics and Paralympics. Today we support athletes and teams competing in Premier League Football and Rugby, Formula 1, Olympic and Paralympic sports and many others.

Dr Phil Hopley