Speaker Recap: Gwen Resick-Rennich on Executive Presence

If you were not in the room for this one, you missed something.

Gwen Resick-Rennich, international speaker and executive speech coach with over two decades on stage and ten years as a CBS and NBC television anchor, brought her program “Executive Presence: How Do You Look and Sound as a Leader Today” to our CEO peer group, and it was one of the most hands-on, memorable sessions we have had.

Within minutes, she had members speaking with wine corks in their mouths. Breath work, posture drills, and vocal projection techniques straight out of her television anchor days in LA. Every trick she has spent a career learning, she handed directly to the room.

The program is built on a simple but uncomfortable premise: most leaders have no idea how they actually come across. Gwen fixed that by putting members on camera and playing it back. What you think you project and what your audience actually sees are often two very different things. Watching yourself on video in real time, with a world-class coach standing next to you, pointing out exactly where you gain power and where you lose credibility, is not something you forget.

Members worked on eliminating filler words, adjusting pitch and pace, commanding a room without forcing it, and developing the kind of physical presence that makes people lean in rather than check their phones. Warren Buffett has said that communication skills increase a leader’s value by fifty percent. After spending time with Gwen, that number felt conservative.

Everyone loved her. Top notch from start to finish.