Adriana Brownlee: Youngest woman to conquer fourteen peaks on drive and determination
Adriana Brownlee is a record-breaking Drive & Determination speaker, best known for becoming the youngest woman to summit all 14 of the world’s 8,000m peaks.
She also became the youngest Briton to conquer K2, one of the most dangerous mountains on Earth.
Inspired by her father, Adriana’s journey began at just eight years old. Since then, she has faced avalanches, extreme weather, and life-threatening conditions, proving that resilience, focus, and determination are key to success.
Now, as co-founder of AGA Adventures, Adriana helps others experience the mountains while promoting safe, sustainable climbing.
In this exclusive interview with The Motivational Speakers Agency, she shares her story and the lessons that drive her beyond the summit.
Q: What first inspired your passion for mountaineering, and how did your journey begin?
Adriana Brownlee: “My journey began when I was about 8 years old. I was in primary school at the time, and my father was the one who was into mountaineering.
“He would go out on the weekends or he’d go on big trips, like to Aconcagua, for example, the highest mountain outside the Himalayas.
“I remember FaceTiming him from home, and he was at base camp, and I was just in absolute awe of what he was doing.
“I thought that he was the most incredible person on the planet and, obviously, as a little girl, I wanted to be exactly like him when I grew up.
“So, the idea came into my mind to summit Mount Everest. A few months after I was FaceTiming him from Aconcagua, our teacher asked us to write a homework piece, and in it, we were asked to write down what we wanted to do when we were older – our big ambition in life.
“Of course, Everest was the one. So, I wrote a letter to myself saying that I wanted to summit Mount Everest, to become one of the youngest people to do so, and to inspire other people as well once I’d summited Everest to climb their own Everest – whether that’s mountains, work, or anything else. That’s where the dream all began.”
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Q: What have been the greatest challenges you’ve faced in high-altitude mountaineering?
Adriana Brownlee: “High altitude mountaineering is probably the most dangerous sport in the world. There are so many things that are completely out of your control – things like avalanches, rockfall, and death.
“These are things I had to face along my journey. I’ve been through avalanches, I’ve had rocks the size of washing machines almost hit me by a few inches, and of course, I’ve had to face death, which is a reality when it comes to high altitude mountaineering.
“There are also other things involved, such as the logistical side of it all – being organised and making sure that everything goes right from start to end, not just the physical climbing itself.
“The logistical side involves getting permits – for places like China, it was very difficult. I had to wait an entire year just to get through the border with the visa and the permit. These are all small challenges.
“Alongside this, you have to work in a team. Working in a team sometimes gets you to your goal even faster than normal – sometimes it’s incredible, but sometimes it can hinder you, because it means dealing with other people.
“If you don’t mesh well and if you don’t trust each other, then there’s a problem. Luckily, I got to climb with my partner GJ, whom I summited 12 of my 8,000m peaks with, so it wasn’t a huge challenge, but there were definitely obstacles in the way.”
Q: Having become the youngest woman to summit all 14 peaks above 8,000m, what goals are you now setting your sights on?
Adriana Brownlee: “Next for me is to actually focus on my company, which is a trekking and expedition company that I started with my partner about a year and a half ago.
“So far it’s been incredibly successful, and the next step is to allow people to come to the mountains – especially the high mountains – who see it as a financial boundary, and hopefully break that down a little bit.
“Mountaineering is expensive, but it should be open to everyone because the mountains are part of nature.
“For me, the mountains were my freedom, they were my motivation, they changed my life, and so to be able to give that opportunity to someone else would be absolutely incredible.
“We also want to make sure that the mountains are safe – a safe place to climb. At the moment, there are too many people on the high-altitude mountains, including Everest.
“For us, anyone who comes and joins our climbs needs to have a record and experience – they need to have a CV essentially of the mountains that they’ve done previously.
“That’s our plan for the future. Hopefully, in 2026, we’ll be doing our own small projects again – climbing some unclimbed peaks in the Himalaya, working on my paragliding as a pilot, and just going out there and enjoying the mountains.”
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Q: Which skills developed on the mountains have proved most valuable in business and everyday life?
Adriana Brownlee: “The skills that I learnt in mountaineering, and the lessons that I’ve learnt, are all transferable to every part of life really – whether that’s in the office, at a race, at school, or starting up a business.
“I learnt so much about things like teamwork, resilience, perseverance, determination – all of these you need to start a business, because it’s not easy.
“Starting out, I had no idea about business management. I hadn’t done a degree in it or anything, and it was all about having the resilience to get to that point.
“That’s something that really helped me – from 8,000m in the death zone, all the way to now in my office working on a company.”
Q: What do you hope audiences take away from your public speaking engagements?
Adriana Brownlee: “I hope that when an audience listens to one of my speeches, they are firstly inspired – that was my goal since I was eight years old, so hopefully I’ve made that goal come true.
“Secondly, I hope that people find the lessons that I teach, or the stories that I tell, to be transferable to their lives. I don’t want people to see me as something totally unreachable. I’m just a normal girl who has dedicated her time to wanting to climb Everest.
“My Everest doesn’t have to be your Everest – it can be any goal that you have. It could be reaching a new goal in your work industry, making new friends, or anything else, really.
“I hope that what I’ve learnt is easy for others to take on board and bring into their lives, whatever that may be.”
This exclusive interview with Adriana Brownlee was conducted by Megan Lupton of The Champions Speakers Agency.
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