Executive Presence Coaching
Client Story
A founder-led technology company with more than 800 employees, preparing for its first company-wide off-site.
The Challenge
A founder-led technology company with more than 800 employees, preparing for its first company-wide off-site.
The Challenge: When leadership communication becomes a business priority
Millions of users. Nine figures in annual recurring revenue. A valuation north of a billion dollars, and a founder so anxious about showing up poorly and failing investors, employees, and users that he planned to pre-record his keynote instead of speaking live to his employees.
The business wasn't the problem - the founder panicking under large-audience communication was.
When a handful of people start a company together, communication happens naturally. As an organization grows, leadership communication becomes more complex — and the stakes rise. The founder was rambling through investor meetings, talking past the sale. With the first company-wide off-site approaching, he asked to pre-record his address. Before that happened, his People Team leader introduced him to Connection Lab for executive presence and keynote coaching.
Our Approach
Get out of your head and into relationship
Traditional presentation skills training often focuses on the deck, delivery techniques, and performing confidence. The Connection Lab approach is different: we begin with the relationship between the speaker and the audience.
Connection Lab draws on the principles of the performing arts to develop our natural human engagement skills that make communication collaborative and profoundly effective. Rather than focusing on content first, we build the capacity to connect with an audience, then develop the storytelling and calls to action that bring the message to life.
The goal isn't to turn leaders into performers. It's to help them invest energy into what they control and surrender to what they don’t.
The delivery: Building the skills through practice
With a customized speaker-development program, the client was on his feet practicing effective somatic exercises and script development — all while consistently prioritizing his relationship to the rehearsal audience. Each session built on the last, with live audiences providing opportunities to develop his skills.
Results
From pre-recorded to a live and in-person keynote
A live keynote. The founder delivered his address in person at the company's first off-site, engaging hundreds of employees joining from dozens of countries. His presentation was both personal and professional, in full collaboration with the audience. The result was an energizing launch for the off-site with a clear vision for the future and the calls to action to achieve it. It was a triumph.
Energy that carried forward. The off-site became a high-energy experience that fostered employee excitement in the months that followed.
A lasting investment in leadership. Company leadership subsequently offered the Connection Lab program to department heads to improve interdepartmental communication and the onboarding of new employees. Connection Lab was also approached by the investor group supporting this enterprise to explore supporting other founders they were working with.
Why it worked
Executive presence isn't an innate quality reserved for natural extroverts. It's a set of capabilities that leaders can develop.
The foundation is human engagement: connecting with your audience, knowing what you want to achieve, and recruiting people to come with you.
Whether you're leading a one-to-one conversation, a team meeting, or a company-wide keynote, the principle is the same.
Get out of your head and into relationship. Your audience will follow.
