Introduction: Everyone Has Something Worth Saying Most people in IT have spent years building deep expertise. Most of them will never share it on a stage — not because they lack knowledge, but because standing in front of a room feels uncomfortable. Paula Januszkiewicz has delivered keynotes to audiences of 40,000 and recovered from a failed hard drive an hour before a major talk. Her argument is simple: if you have something useful to share, presenting is a skill worth learn

Introduction: Meet The Panel An Ask Me Anything session with Florian Mueck, Margareet Jacobs, Cynthia Zhai and Cliff Kennedy. Moderated by Minna Taylor — Present to Succeed Conference. You've all just delivered full sessions. Now the audience gets to ask the questions nobody asked during the day. Where do you want to start? Mina: One thread that ran through today was the relationship between failure and preparation. So let's pull on that. Q: How do you actually prepare w

Introduction: Meet The Panel A panel conversation with Lucy Wyatt (Bright Carbon), Damon Nofar (Slides Agency), Jason Paul (Slido) and Olena Zubova (Represent). Moderated by Ash Pemberton — Present to Succeed Conference. After watching a live Copilot demo turn a Word document into a 12-slide presentation in under a minute, the audience had one question: should we be worried? Robin: You can either get scared or you can embrace it. AI won't replace humans — but humans with AI

Introduction: It's Not What You Say — It's How Your Voice Delivers It Most presenters spend their preparation time on content. What they rarely think about is the instrument doing the delivering. In her Present to Succeed session, Cynthia Zhai — voice coach and author of Influence Through Voice — makes the case that your voice isn't just a delivery mechanism. It's a tool for connection, persuasion, and inspiration. And she has three specific techniques to prove it. Start He

Introduction: The Meeting Nobody Wanted to Leave Picture a workshop in a church in southern Italy on a warm summer evening. The participants range in age from 18 to 70-plus. Most of them have never picked up a LEGO brick as an adult. The topic? The creation of the world. The method? LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®. Within minutes, people who had never met — and who would never normally collaborate — were building, laughing, and telling stories with genuine depth and imagination. That's n

Introduction: You're Supposed to Be Nervous Mark Twain once said there are only two kinds of speakers: the nervous and the liars. In his Present to Succeed closing keynote, John Zimmer — international public speaking coach, former UN lawyer, and co-founder of Manner of Speaking — takes that as his starting point. Nerves aren't a sign that something is wrong with you. They're a sign that you're human. The question isn't how to eliminate them. It's how to use them. Why We Get

Introduction: Two Audiences, One Meeting, Zero Level Playing Field About 50% of meetings are now hybrid. Most of them aren't working — at least not for the people joining remotely. Around 43% of remote participants report not feeling included in hybrid meetings, and only 27% of companies have introduced any new hybrid meeting etiquette to address it. That gap between the problem and the response is exactly why this conversation matters. Jason Paul opens his Present to Succeed

Introduction: Hybrid Has Always Been Here — Now It Matters Conference calls in a box. Satellite events across multiple locations. PictureTel. WebEx. In many ways, hybrid isn't new. What's new is that the technology finally works, corporations are building for it, and the stakes are higher than ever. In his Present to Succeed session, Cliff Kennedy — former creative director of Fortune 100 corporate events, now a presentation coach — offers a reframe that cuts through the nois

Introduction: The Goal Was Never More Slides If you asked someone on the PowerPoint team what success looks like, they wouldn't say longer presentations, more slides, or users spending more time in the app. The answer is simpler than that: make people successful. Whatever the goal — informing a board, pitching investors, persuading a room, or just entertaining the family — PowerPoint exists to help you achieve it. That framing matters as AI enters the picture, because it shap

Introduction: You're Already Communicating Before the first slide appears, before you've said a word, your audience is already forming an opinion. They're reading your frequency — the tempo of your movements. They're reading your amplitude — the size of your gestures. And they're deciding, entirely below conscious awareness, whether they want to keep communicating with you. In his Present to Succeed session, Stefan Verra makes the case that body language isn't a presentation