Who we help
Communication coaching for biotech companies
Where the science is sound, the audience is not scientific, and the meeting decides something.
Laurie reads every inquiry personally and generally replies within one business day.
Communication coaching for biotech companies is mostly one problem wearing different clothes: the person who understands the science best is the person least able to tell whether an outsider followed it. That is not a flaw in them. It is what deep expertise does, and it arrives at exactly the wrong moments — the raise, the advisory board, the regulator, the all-hands after a readout that did not go the way anyone hoped.
Biotech and healthcare are the two industries this practice has worked in most over thirty years. The work is usually with founders, chief scientific and medical officers, heads of clinical and regulatory, and the vice-presidents who present on their behalf.
When biotech leaders usually call us
- A raise is underway and the story has to survive contact with people who will not read the appendix.
- A scientific advisory board or investor day is scheduled and one person is carrying the narrative.
- A readout, a delay or a restructure has to be explained to the whole company without losing them.
- A brilliant technical leader has been told, more than once, that they lose the room.
- The leadership team is spread across sites and time zones and now presents almost entirely on video.
- Half the team works in English as a second or third language and wants their ideas to land as clearly as they think them.
Making complex information land
Two of the twenty-six competencies do most of the heavy lifting here: conveying complex information and controlling detail and speaking to the executive level. Deciding what to leave out is the hardest skill an expert ever learns, and it is a skill rather than a temperament — which is the whole reason it can be coached at all.
Laurie has written about this directly, in strategies for conveying technical and complex information. For leaders working in English as an additional language, the same work runs alongside enhancing speech clarity for non-native speakers — pronunciation, diction and intonation, plus the cultural nuances of doing business in English.
When one coach is not enough of them
There is a size at which paying an outside coach per leader stops adding up. One biotech company in growth mode resolved that by certifying its human resources function through the Train the Presentation Coach Certificate Program — six modules, three months, a credential at the end, and afterwards an internal capability that does not bill by the hour. It is one of the few programs of its kind. The engagement is written up among the client stories, and if this is the option that interests you, the page written for HR and L&D goes into it properly.
Where biotech engagements usually start
Investor Pitch Coaching
Customized coaching for the meetings that decide the money — your story, your messaging, your delivery, and the nerves that come with a room that can say no.
Executive Communication Coaching
One-to-one and group coaching incorporating the best practices leaders actually use: shaping a message and delivering it with confidence, whether you are presenting to a board, running a meeting, or handling challenging situations.
Media Training
Customized coaching for interviews, podcasts, webinars and press — message discipline, memorable soundbites, and what to do when the question is not the one you prepared for.
Why people choose us for work that matters
A named system, published in full
Twenty-six competencies with names, grouped into five categories. You can read the whole thing before you spend anything — most firms will not show you their method.
See the Presence26© SystemThirty years, and the receipts
The Today Show, Oprah, the Wall Street Journal and Women’s Health. Three published books, all of them translated. Fifteen thousand clients.
See the press recordOther firms send us their coaches
The Train the Presentation Coach Certificate Program is one of the few of its kind — organisations pay to have their own HR and L&D people trained and credentialed by us.
About the Certificate ProgramThe prices are on the website
No discovery call required to find out what it costs. Both programme structures and the rates are published, along with what happens if those numbers are a problem.
See how an engagement runs
Companies We've Coached
Thirty years of work concentrated in biotech, healthcare, finance and technology — fields where people carry deep expertise and need it to land with someone who does not share it. The logos above are organizations whose people we have coached.
Hava and Laurie's Leadership Playshop was simply fantastic. This program helped us lean into and play on our innate talents, abilities, and skills and learn many new tricks about communication and leadership.
Building the coaching capability in-house — what happened when one life-sciences company stopped outsourcing this and trained its own people
What is the meeting, and when is it?
A complimentary half-hour with Laurie. Describe the audience and the date, and she will say plainly what can be changed in the time available.
Laurie reads every inquiry personally and generally replies within one business day.