Where presence
becomes your
true power.
Powerful leadership begins
with deep listening.
Hi, I'm Valerie
For over three decades, I’ve helped leaders move from performance to presence. My path began on the opera stage, where I learned that true power isn’t about volume, it’s about resonance. Today, I bring that understanding to my work as a presence, communication and leadership coach.
I work with accomplished professionals who want to feel clear, present, and compelling in every interaction, especially under pressure. My approach helps you build the skills of Presence – awareness, physical & vocal expression and profound listening – so that you are known as a person who communicates with purpose and integrity, in every circumstance.
If you’re ready to stop second guessing and start resonating with yourself, your team and your world, I’d love to work together.
Let’s discover how your presence becomes your true power.
Liberate Your Voice:
Cut Through the Noise and Amplify Your Leadership Presence.
My Services
What I offer at a glance
Executive
Presence
Coaching
Lead Yourself First
For leaders ready to shift from performance to presence. I help you build internal awareness, refine how you show up, and access your natural authority, so that your Presence speaks before you do.
The
Presence
Lab
Own the Power of How You Communicate
An in-depth private coaching process that gives you the skills to consistently be the leader people trust and appreciate, by embodying connection, clarity, and expressive color, whether you’re in the spotlight or collaborating with your team. You’ll develop your way to effectively respond to stress, create the experience of relationship everywhere you go, and suffuse every room with your presence.
Leadership Presence Intensives
Pass the Baton
Leadership is a group responsibility. And we humans are complicated. In this potent group experience, you learn the skills to lead yourself, so that you have the clarity, generosity, and courage to work effectively with others, even when interactions get uncomfortable! Through somatic tools, practical techniques, and specific approaches to language, you will speak and listen in ways that allow you and your team to consistently create trust, commitment, and alignment.
The Art &
Science of Listening
Be the Person People Turn To
Listening is the most undervalued interactive skill. It is the key to trust, participation, and accessing creativity. Our days are littered with missed opportunities because we weren’t listening – we were waiting to talk. Learn to listen exquisitely, create relational safety, and unlock one another’s creative potential.
Embodied Leadership Coaching
Turn Reactivity into Responsiveness
Your body and breath are your underestimated partners in developing your Leadership Presence. You’ll learn to use somatic intelligence and breath awareness to calm your nervous system, choose your response, and access your full cognitive and emotional capacity – especially when the stakes are high.
Public
Speaking Mastery
Make your message unmistakeable
From stages to boardrooms, I help you speak with confidence, intention, and expressive presence. Together we craft your content and refine your delivery, so that you set your audience on fire to take action.
The Problems I help you solve
You can’t access your
best self when it
matters most.
Under pressure, you freeze, fumble, dominate, or retreat — even though you know you’re capable of more.
You struggle to regulate your internal state.
Nerves take over. Emotion clouds your clarity. Stress leads to over-talking, under-listening, or shutting down, and it costs your credibility and connection.
You’re not being
received the way
you intend.
You’re told you are unclear, too wordy, or hard to read. You may be seen as intimidating, bossy, or timid. You sense that others are afraid of you, or the opposite, underestimate your abilities. None of it is who you hold yourself to be.
You don’t fully
trust your
voice.
Whether you’re second-guessing when you’re in the limelight, or doubting yourself in one-on-one conversations, you feel like you’re not fully owning your space.
You over-rely on performance instead of presence.
You’ve polished the external, but something still feels disconnected, and it takes a lot of effort to maintain. You are tired of pretence and want to live and lead as the whole person you are committed to being.
You’re not clear on
what actually
creates impact
You want to lead with purpose and influence, but the usual tips and tactics don’t stick. You’re ready for something deeper, lasting, and real.
Happy Clients
What I believe
The foundation of powerful leadership is presence, and presence begins with relationship. Not just with others, but first, with yourself.
When you’re grounded in your own clarity, honesty, and awareness, every interaction changes. You listen more deeply. You respond with intention. You connect in ways that build trust, inspire commitment, and move things forward, whether you’re navigating high-stakes public moments, holding space for difficult conversations, or leading your team every day.
My work begins with that foundation. Together, we explore the relationship between being present and having presence. We reconnect you to your nervous system through breath and physical awareness, the often-ignored pathways to clear thinking, emotional nuance, and intuitive insight. This work doesn’t focus on performance. It focusses on accessing the qualities already within you that you naturally express when you are at your best, and learning how to return to them by choice, not chance. Powerful performance is a result that shows itself in your body, your voice and your words. It happens from the inside out.
If want to lead, listen, and live with more clarity, confidence, and impact, I’d be honored to partner with you.
Who you are as a leader
Who you are as a leader emerges directly from who you are as a human being. Exceptional leaders demonstrate coherence between their actions and their closely held values. This integrity demands ongoing and brave self-examination.
My role is to guide this exploration alongside you, helping you embody the person you hold yourself to be. This involves identifying gaps where your actions diverge from your intentions and creating practices that align your behavior with your vision of the leader you are committed to being.
How I work
I design personalized coaching programs for individuals, teams, and groups, each one tailored to help you communicate with clarity, presence, and purpose in any setting.
Whether you’re preparing for a keynote, navigating tough conversations, or leading through complexity, we begin with a simple question: what does it take to truly listen, to yourself and to others – to create an atmosphere of listening? From there, we build the skills to speak into that space with intention and impact.
I work as both a teacher and coach. As a teacher, I offer tools that help you access calm, clarity, and expressive power, using your voice, body, and breath as instruments for connection. As a coach, I guide you in insightful explorations using Clean Language and Breathexperience inquiries, helping you reconnect with the inner wisdom that already knows how you lead best.
My commitment is that you complete our work able to take on your own development, equipped with the tools to grow yourself with confidence, coherence, and choice.
The Speaker's Edge
Your Voice Has Power.
Become the Leader and Speaker Who Inspires Action — Shape, Deliver, Brand & Market Your Message to Empower Change.
The Speaker’s Edge isn’t just another speaking course, it’s a program designed with purpose, for purpose-driven people like you. Every lesson, every strategy, and every tool in this course is crafted to help you elevate your message and create genuine, lasting impact. This isn’t about delivering just any talk; it’s about helping you speak with clarity, conviction, and build the kind of influence that empowers change.
If you're ready to use your voice and wisdom to make a difference, this program is your next step.
Get in Touch
If you’re ready to lead with more clarity, presence, and courage. Let’s talk.
Whether you’re navigating change, preparing for something big, or simply feeling the call to show up more fully, I’d love to explore what’s possible together.