Chris Bonnello is an autistic advocate, award-winning writer and international speaker, also a novelist and a former teacher. Since 2015, his advocacy venture – where he speaks about the importance of neurodiversity from both a professional and personal perspective – has seen him deliver speaking engagements as far away as India and Sydney Opera House (working with companies including Rolls Royce, Yahoo, Invesco and Toyota), in addition to attracting over 200,000 Facebook followers to his platform ‘Autistic Not Weird’.

Bonnello is a professional member of the Professional Speaking Association, and the author of several books including the Underdogs novels, a dystopia war series with heroes from a special school. Among other accolades, he was shortlisted for the 2023 Speaker Awards (Sustainability and Positive Impact Speaker of the Year), the 2017 National Diversity Awards (Positive Role Model for Disability), and won the National Autistic Society Professionals Award for Outstanding Achievement by an Individual on the Autism Spectrum in 2019.