Composure Media specialises in training women in public speaking.
The founders Luisa Baldini and Louisa Preston are former BBC News journalists who have drawn on their experience of broadcasting live to millions of people to establish Composure Media.
They teach strategies and techniques to help individuals communicate confidently and connect with their target audiences, with a particular focus on empowering women and promoting female leadership.
Tell us about the story behind founding Composure Media
We met at Independent Television News in London in the year 2000. Our careers shadowed each other working first in the commercial broadcasting sector then the BBC, and we became friends out of work too. Luisa Baldini moved to New York for a few years after leaving the BBC and Louisa Preston started doing more corporate media training with businesses, so transatlantically, we discussed setting up a business together and that’s when Composure Media was born!
What does Composure Media do?
Our clients learn practical tips and techniques that enable them to understand audiences better, communicate with impact and feel more confident in high stakes moments. They learn how to think about their audiences so they are able to communicate with them more effectively, so they feel more in control of what they’re saying and feel more confident saying it. The result is that our clients learn to present well in those high stakes moments, irrespective of how they’re feeling internally, rather than dreading it and doing a mediocre job.
What services do you offer?
Pitch/Presentation and Communication Training
Corporate Media Training
Female Leadership Development
Executive One-to-one Coaching
What makes Composure Media unique in the market?
There are lots of presentation/communication coaches out there, but not many have worked at the highest level in TV broadcasting. Luisa and I worked at the BBC for more than 10 years and bring all that experience to the training room by sharing tried and tested tips, techniques and strategies which transform how participants communicate in business.
What is your most popular program right now?
Our ‘Confident Communication’ training course is a combination of pitch/presentation training which focuses on structuring your content for success, performance & delivery, executive presence, confidence boosters, personal branding and creating an engaging elevator pitch. We also do a module on ‘Answering tricky questions’ as we hear so often that’s what people dread the most.
Do you have a successful client case study you can share?
Investec Bank in the UK wanted their private wealth & charities division to learn how to better pitch to prospective clients. Taking groups of 6 people, we trained a large proportion of the team with multiple groups in London, plus Liverpool, Sheffield and Belfast.
Participants learned how to better capture the attention of their prospective audiences by sounding fresh and relevant and focusing on a core message that really separated them from their competitors, thus helping them to stand out and win the business.
What makes a great presenter?
- Someone who communicates with impact & distils the information and doesn’t just do an info-dump on their audience.
- Someone who sounds refreshing and passionate and speaks with energy
- Someone who sets out their content logically and who guides their audience through their content
What are your top THREE presentation tips?
- Engage your audience from the beginning
- Don’t speak too quickly- and use pauses
- Always practise your presentation out loud and record yourself
What are your growth plans/goals as a company in the next 5 years?
We would like to become established in the UAE, helping as many people as possible to communicate with impact and share their core messages and stories with their target audiences. As two women who navigated a very male dominated environment in broadcasting, which it was when we started, are also very passionate about supporting women in business and helping more of them reach the very top.
How can readers find out more about Composure Media?
