PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP

TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 11:00-1:30PM EASTERN

Executive Presence, Now (for You, and the Leaders You Support)

Executive presence has gained importance in recent years—and it’s gotten more subtle and more difficult.

Authority is flatter. Attention is scarcer. Much of leadership now happens through screens, not rooms. And the behaviors that once signaled credibility, confidence, and command don’t always translate cleanly to a remote or hybrid workplace.

In this in-depth, highly interactive pre-conference workshop, executive presence expert Jeff Davenport will help executive communication professionals rethink (and rebuild) executive presence for today’s corporate culture.

Jeff will focus on a dual challenge unique to exec comms pros: helping leaders show up with clarity, confidence, and credibility across every medium—while also modeling those same qualities themselves.

The session will address executive presence where it most often succeeds (or, sadly, breaks down) today:
in high-stakes presentations, town halls, and fireside chats … in Zoom meetings and video addresses … and in the everyday moments where influence is quietly earned or lost.

You will learn how to:

• Redefine executive presence for a remote and hybrid world without diluting authority or warmth.
• Help leaders project confidence, credibility and calm when physical cues are limited or distorted.
• Coach executives to communicate presence through voice, structure and focus; not just polish or personality.
• Strengthen your own executive presence—as a trusted advisor, not just a behind-the-scenes tactician.
• Navigate changing expectations around hierarchy, tone, authenticity, and inclusion without losing clarity or control.
• Make presence observable and coachable so leaders can act on it.

This workshop is practical, candid, and grounded in real executive behavior. Participants will leave with tools they can use immediately, both to support their leaders and to increase their own influence and effectiveness inside the organization.

AGENDA

(All times Eastern)

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24

11:00-11:45 • Executive Communication Reorientation: A Clear-Eyed View of the Moment We Are In—and a Strategy for Dealing With It

We know this: CEOs (and other leaders) are facing unusually intense pressures over risk, responsibility, perception, and trust. There has been a huge backlash against the ideas that dominated business discourse just a few years ago. Polarization and misinformation make reputational risk ever more idiosyncratic and unpredictable. A range of difficult trade offs around legal and political risk further complicate building and sustaining stakeholder trust. How can corporations navigate this strange new landscape, and consider their values and positions, as global consensus over ethics breaks down? NYU Stern School of Business professor Alison Taylor, author of Higher Ground: How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World, brings an unsentimental view and a clear-eyed strategic vision for how to do exec comms now—or for now, anyway.

11:50-12:15 • Astronomer Lessons: Wisdom Earned from Inside the Ultimate Exec Comms Crisis 

It was about 4:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time last July 17 when Astronomer Director of Communications Taylor Jones’ phone rang, with confusing stories about his CEO and Chief People Officer, a Coldplay concert, and a “kiss cam” video. It would be weeks before Jones’ life returned to anything like normal. In the meantime, though, he and his small communications crew kept their heads, sorted true news from fake, protected their brand and kept their workforce in the loop and on board. Jones will join us to discuss what worked and what didn’t in what turned out to be a crisis communications effort more successful than Jones might have envisioned in the early morning dark, on July 17.

12:20-12:40 • A Sit-Down with the Speechwriter to the President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business organization, helping members that range from Main Street businesses to Fortune 500 companies navigate an increasingly complex environment. In this session, Faith Mabry, speechwriter for the Chamber’s President and CEO, will provide a behind-the-scenes look at the organization’s mission and the rhetorical strategies used to advance it. She’ll also suggest ways for executive communication professionals to increase their leaders’ power and reach by aligning strategically with and amplifying the Chamber’s messaging.

12:45-1:30 • Reacting to ‘Vibes’ Is Not a Strategy: What the Data Says About How to Do Executive Communication Now

Media, policymakers, employees and investors are openly debating what your leader is or isn’t saying—and when, and in what tone of voice. While you and your leader agonize about how to handle this, research director Kay O’Grady is crunching the numbers to compile Public Relay’s widely-relied-upon CEO Index, which compares and quantifies the actual, measurable results of proactive, reactive and “unintentional” media engagement. O’Grady will reveal and explain how various communication strategies influence both brand reputation and the leader’s own standing with key stakeholders. Participants will leave with a clearer view of the current risks and opportunities around executive voice—your executive’s voice—and a practical framework for navigating them more intentionally.

1:30-2:00 • Talk Directly with Today’s Speakers

Whichever of today’s sessions interested you the most—join the speaker in a dedicated Zoom room, for a freewheeling Q&A where you can ask whatever you like as you consider how to apply these ideas to your own organization, and your own leaders.

THURSDAY, JUNE 25

11:00-11:45 • What Are CEOs Really Thinking These Days? And What Can Exec Comms Pros Do About It?

Do CEOs believe their own words about AI creating as many new jobs as it eliminates? What would they say about Trump if you got them drunk? What fears and opportunities really drive them through their workdays? As editor of Semafor’s CEO Signal newsletter, Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson talks to these people every day, on the record and off. He knows the tone of their truth (and the sound of their spin), from the words they say and the words they don’t. He’ll share what he’s hearing directly, what he’s reading between the lines—and what he thinks exec comms pros ought to know, and do, in response. Bring the impudent questions you’ve always wanted to ask your CEO, and ask Andrew. Let’s get a group reality check.

11:50-12:15 • Water Out of Stone: How to Draw Ideas, Humanity and Clarity from Leaders and SMEs

If you’re going to help senior leaders communicate compellingly, you must learn their story, internalize their “voice” and, very often, win their trust. In this session, former Cigna Group and State Street Corporation exec comms chief Andrew Lewis Conn will share: the best angles of approach for teasing out compelling and personal, humane and authentic anecdotes from even reticent execs; how to extract brilliant key messages and pithy soundbites out of the weeds in which brilliant SME’s so often dwell; how to discern unique executive POVs; and how to carve out thought leadership “white space” for executives.

12:20-12:40 • Straight Talk on Navigating a Strange Marketplace: Career Advice from a Recruiter Who Sees Communicators Win and Lose Every Day

In this session, prominent exec comms recruiter Jessica Bayer will provide a candid, recruiter-level view of how the executive communications market has evolved, and what truly differentiates its leaders today. Drawing on recent and active retained searches across Fortune 500 companies, high-growth tech, regulated industries, and agencies, she will share what boards and C-suites are prioritizing, what new skills are essential (AI isn’t the only one), and why some communicators accelerate while others plateau. Participants will leave with clear, practical insight into how roles are being scoped, where opportunities are emerging and how to position their experience in a market where executive communications is increasingly tied to business performance, risk, and valuation, not just messaging.

12:45-1:30 • New Seat, New Rules: Protecting Executive Credibility During Executive Transitions

When even the most seasoned executive steps into a new role, credibility resets. Past success does not automatically translate into trust, and the first 100–180 days bring new power dynamics, heightened scrutiny, and early impressions that form quickly and stick—for good, or ill. For communication partners, this is a defining advisory moment. Messaging is essential, but credibility is shaped just as powerfully by how leaders navigate positional vulnerability, stakeholder alignment, and unspoken expectations. In this session, leadership transition guru Jennifer L. Jackson lays out a disciplined, orderly approach to identifying transition risk, mapping critical relationships, and strengthening credibility in the early months of a leader’s tenure. Participants will leave with an invaluable lens for advising leaders at one of the most consequential moments of their career.

1:30-2:00 • Talk Directly with Today’s Speakers

Whichever of today’s sessions interested you the most—join the speaker in a dedicated Zoom room, for a freewheeling Q&A where you can ask the speakers whatever you like as you consider how to apply these ideas to your own organization, and your own leaders.