The story behind the lab
From hundreds of expert conversations to a training organisation with one mission: help people understand their brains - so they can protect them, heal them, and unlock their full potential.
From hundreds of expert conversations to a training organisation with one mission: help people understand their brains - so they can protect them, heal them, and unlock their full potential.
Anita Whyte Moran is the founder of High Performer Lab, working with corporates, teens and women's groups to build healthier brains and healthier cultures - the kind where people can actually thrive.
Her path here began with The FEMCAST, the podcast she founded, which has grown into a global platform reaching listeners across 28 countries and more than 160 cities. Through the podcast, Anita has spent years in direct conversation with experts, researchers, advocates and people with lived experience on the issues that shape how people show up at work, at school and in life - from gender equality and workplace culture to bullying, manipulation, gaslighting, coercive control and gender-based violence.
Storytelling sits at the heart of that work.
Anita holds a First Class Honours Higher Diploma in Journalism and New Media Content from SETU, alongside training in Creative Writing and Storytelling. Her journalism background has developed her ability to research complex subjects, ask difficult questions, listen carefully and turn complicated issues into stories that people can understand, connect with and remember.
That matters because changing workplace culture is not simply about presenting people with information. It is about helping people recognise themselves, see what may be happening around them, understand why it matters and feel equipped to do something differently.
Central to this work has been Anita's ongoing podcast work with Dr Jen Fraser, whose research has focused for more than a decade on the neuroscience of bullying and abuse, and who is the bestselling author of The Bullied Brain and The Gaslit Brain.
Together, Anita and Dr Fraser have explored what really happens in the brain under stress, bullying, gaslighting, manipulation and coercive control - and, just as importantly, what helps it recover.
That work has given Anita a practical way to translate complex neuroscience into conversations people can actually use: recognising unhealthy patterns earlier, understanding their impact on the brain and behaviour, and creating psychologically safer environments where people can think, communicate, collaborate and perform at their best.
Anita has backed this experience with a Distinction in Train the Trainer: Training Delivery & Evaluation, a Postgraduate Certificate in Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship from Trinity College Dublin, and training in Understanding and Responding to Domestic Abuse and Gender-Based Violence through SETU. Her wider professional and advocacy training includes sexual violence training and court accompaniment training, alongside counselling skills.
Together, this gives Anita a distinctive perspective: she understands organisations and workplace culture, but she also understands the human impact when people experience fear, manipulation, abuse or a loss of psychological safety. Combined with her journalism and storytelling background, she knows how to ask the difficult questions, listen carefully, communicate complex subjects and create learning experiences that people can connect with and act on.
Her work brings together three things that are rarely found in the same room: the science of the brain, the power of storytelling, and the realities of human behaviour.
That is the foundation of High Performer Lab.
Healthy brains. Healthier cultures. Higher performance.
When people understand how their brains actually work under stress, bullying and pressure, they can protect them, heal them, and unlock their full potential.
Through High Performer Lab, Anita now takes everything she's learned - from hundreds of expert conversations and Dr Fraser's neuroscience research - and turns it into practical training.
Cortisol, the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex - translated into plain English and practical behaviours anyone can use on Monday morning.
Respect and accountability aren't wellbeing extras - they're the operating conditions of a brain that can think, create and collaborate.
Toxic patterns are cheapest to fix before they take hold. We give people the language and skills to spot them early - at work, at school and in life.
Whether you're an HR leader, a school principal or a community organiser - we'd love to hear what you're working on.
Get in touch