The rooms keep changing. The standard never does.
On Monday you brief the board. On Wednesday you take an investor call where one imprecise sentence can move the valuation conversation. On Friday a journalist wants twenty minutes, and next month you stand in front of the entire company at the all-hands. Each of those rooms has different rules, but they all measure you against the same standard: can this leader communicate with authority when it counts?
Most leaders prepare for each of these moments separately, if they prepare at all. Executive communication coaching treats them as one discipline. Instead of a workshop for one event, it is a personal coaching engagement that builds a repeatable communication system you carry into every setting, with a coach who knows your message, your style, and your calendar.
How this fits with our other programs: our executive media training prepares you for journalists and adversarial press. Our high stakes presentation training engineers a single prepared talk for a decisive room. Executive communication coaching is the engagement that spans both: ongoing, personal, and built around everything on your calendar that requires you to perform.
Who executive communication coaching is for
CEOs and C-Suite Executives
Leaders whose calendar mixes board presentations, earnings communications, press, and employee town halls, and who need one consistent voice across all of them.
Founders Raising or Scaling
Founders moving between investor pitches, media attention, and a growing team that watches how the leader communicates and copies it.
Newly Promoted Senior Leaders
Executives stepping into a role where the audience suddenly includes the board, analysts, and the press, and where technical credibility alone no longer carries the room.
Leaders Facing a Defining Stretch
A merger, a restructuring, a public controversy, or a major launch: a season where every conversation is high-stakes and improvising is not an option.
What the coaching covers
Every engagement is customized, but the work is organized around four core capabilities. Each one is trained the same way: short exercises on camera, immediate playback, and direct feedback, repeated until the improvement is visible to you on the recording.
Message Architecture
Before delivery, structure. We define the three to five messages you must own as a leader, then build the stories, proof points, and transitions that let you land them in a board memo, a media interview, or a hallway conversation without sounding scripted.
Executive Presence on Camera
Voice, pacing, eye line, and energy, trained through recorded practice. You will watch yourself improve within a single session, because seeing the change on playback is what makes it stick. This covers video calls and webcasts as rigorously as in-person rooms.
Q&A Under Pressure
Hostile questions, loaded premises, the question you hoped nobody would ask. You will learn to answer, bridge, and advance your message under fire, with rapid-fire question exercises drawn from your real risks, not generic scenarios.
Narrative for Investors and Boards
Financial and strategic audiences fund people they believe in, not slide decks. We build the narrative spine of your investor and board communications so the numbers support a story that moves the decision you need.
How engagements run
Most engagements begin with an intensive: a focused half-day or full-day session that establishes your message architecture, gets you on camera, and produces visible improvement you can measure on playback before you leave the room.
From there, clients continue with ongoing coaching: regular sessions timed to the real moments on your calendar. Before the board meeting, we rehearse the open and pressure-test the Q&A. Before the media appearance, we run recorded practice against the questions that interview is likely to produce. Before the all-hands, we tighten the narrative so the company hears one clear story.
- In person in New York City, at our Madison Avenue offices
- On-site at your offices, anywhere in the world
- Virtually, with the same recorded practice and playback structure
Jess coaches every executive engagement personally. There is no junior trainer, no rotating bench, and no rebuilding context with a new face each quarter.
The outcomes leaders report
- Board presentations that reach a decision instead of getting tabled for further discussion
- Investor conversations where the narrative, not just the numbers, carries the meeting
- Media interviews that produce the quote you wanted, not the one you feared
- All-hands where employees can repeat the message back a week later
- The composure to take a hostile question without surrendering the room
Have a board meeting, investor conversation, or interview on the calendar?
Get DetailsHow much does executive communication coaching cost?
Engagements typically range from $1,000 to $15,000 depending on scope and format. A focused single-session intensive sits at the lower end of that range. A multi-month engagement that combines an intensive with ongoing coaching and on-call preparation before major moments sits at the higher end.
Because every executive's calendar and risk profile is different, pricing is scoped per engagement. You can review common questions on our media training questions page, or go straight to a pricing inquiry and we will respond with a scoped recommendation.
Further reading
For a deeper look at how a year-long coaching relationship works in practice, including what it means to have a named communication advisor on call before earnings calls, keynotes, and analyst days, read our article on executive communication coaching for the year ahead. For the broader landscape of interview preparation, visit our media training hub.
About Your Coach: Jess Todtfeld
Jess Todtfeld spent 13 years as a TV producer for NBC, ABC, and Fox, where he made the editorial decisions about who got interviewed and how executives came across under pressure. He is a Guinness World Record holder for 112 media interviews in 24 hours, a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), and the author of the bestselling book Media Secrets. He has coached leaders at Google, JPMorgan, American Express, and the United Nations to communicate with authority in the rooms where careers, valuations, and reputations are decided. Learn more about Jess.