Leadership presence and public speaking success stories

Leadership Presence and Public Speaking Success Stories

At RiverWays Enterprises we feel privileged to be of assistance to some very talented and influential speakers. We often highlight one of our clients in our monthly newsletter, RiverWays News, and they are also featured on this page.

February 2010: Private Coaching Stories
This month we share updated interviews with four private coaching clients who have been featured in earlier stories to illustrate the multiple ways that people can benefit from working one-on-one with Carla Kimball... read article

January 2010: Jim DeVita, National Director of Quality Assurance and Patient Safety at CVS
Pharmacists, on the whole, are naturally introverted—they've got a little bit of the science geek in them. So says Jim DeVita, whose tendency to remain reserved kept him stalled in the same position—as a pharmacy supervisor for CVS—for 11 years.

"I had been promoted to supervisor in 1989, after filling prescriptions for many years, and in 2000, I was still there," Jim recalls. "I was in my thirties and I was starting to think about my career in the long-term. I didn't want to be in that role forever."

With that goal in mind, in 2003 Jim decided to attend Carla's comprehensive course, Speaking with Confidence for Results. Within the next year or so, everything changed.

"In retrospect, you can identify key moments in your career, and Carla's course was one of them," Jim says. "She gave me a fresh new perspective on being a professional and where a career path could go."... read article

November 2009: Cristin Lind, Principal Consultant, Clearwater Productivity
Cristin Lind came to RiverWays with considerable public speaking skills as a trainer, consultant, and the owner of her business, Clearwater Productivity. A certified GO System Trainer, Cristin has worked with a variety of groups and individuals, from healthcare professionals to academics, including clients from Harvard and Eli Lilly.

Yet, despite confidence about her subject and years of practice, she sometimes became anxious before speaking to a group. “I felt like the whole day before I was supposed to speak, I wouldn’t get anything done,” she says... read article

July 2009: Tracey Vincent, PhD in Electrical Engineering
How do you communicate highly technical information to an audience without losing them altogether, and without letting your attempt to explain the intricate details overpower your enthusiasm for the subject?

That has been an ongoing challenge for Tracey S. Vincent, an electrical engineer who recently earned her Ph.D. from Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a dissertation focusing on transmission line features and their influence on GHz conductor loss... read article

June 2009: Elizabeth Liebow, VP of Clinical Business Development at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
As the Vice President of Clinical Business Development at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Elizabeth Liebow has frequent meetings with 10 to 12 colleagues, sometimes speaks with groups twice that size, and very occasionally addresses an audience as large as 200.

A dozen years ago, any of those situations would set off extreme anxiety and nervousness, even when Elizabeth was more than adequately prepared. "I would get up in front of a group and my mind would go blank," she recalls. Elizabeth's fear of public speaking was so great that when her mother died in 1994, she wasn't able to speak at the funeral... read article

March 2009: Rich Polt, founder of Louder Than Words
When it came to public speaking, Rich Polt was perfectly comfortable wearing Spandex and yelling out orders when he taught his spinning class at the gym. But addressing groups in the boardroom for his public relations company, Louder Than Words, tied his stomach in knots and made him feel, as he puts it, "as if I was floating away from the earth"... read article

July 2008: Marie Bankuti, Life/Success Coach and Business Consultant
Question: What do Information Technology, Life Coaching, and Carla Kimball's approach to public speaking have in common? Answer: Making connections. Perhaps that's why Carla's philosophy and techniques make so much sense to Marie Bankuti, a Life/Success Coach and business consultant with more than 27 years of experience in the IT world. Through her coaching and consulting business, Tether Free Vision, Marie is constantly making connections with groups of all types and sizes, in many different situations... read article

June 2008: John Sullivan, A director of sales training
Fifteen years ago John Sullivan loved public speaking. He had a radio show in Boston, frequently addressed gatherings of regional sales and marketing executives, and generally had “no issues with being in front of crowds, with or without preparation,” ...Then, in his first month with a major sports equipment company—where he is now Director of Sales Training—he was asked to present at a national sales meeting on a topic he knew nothing about. He choked... read article

April 2008: Dana Zemack, Chocolate expert and public relations business owner
There are a few things in life that will never fail to grab a listener’s interest—and one of them is chocolate. That’s why chocolate expert Dana Zemack is pretty much assured of a rapt audience whenever she gives a talk, especially since her listeners know that before long they’ll get a chance to taste her subject matter... read article

January 2008: Sara Lazar, Neurobiology Researcher
As a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, neurobiologist Sara Lazar looks at how the practice of yoga and meditation effects emotions and cognitive performance...In practical terms... Her results give further evidence to a growing body of research which indicates that yoga and meditation can reduce anxiety and increase our ability to stay present and focused... read article

August 2007: Christina Carico, Director of Special Projects at William A. Berry & Son, a construction management firm in Danvers, Massachusetts, on the importance of Presence for project managers
... Whether they’re pursuing new work through client interviews, troubleshooting on-site, or consulting with subcontractors, project managers at Berry need skills and confidence in communicating and connecting with people. In short, they need presence... read article

May 2007: George Dom, Speaker on leadership and teamwork issues
George Dom spent 26 years as a U.S. Navy officer and pilot... He has a wealth of experience in creating and leading high-performance teams, and after his retirement from active duty four years ago, he discovered that there were plenty of corporations and organizations that wanted to pick his brain... read article

March 2007: Michael McCormack, Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Community Health Leadership
Change—even positive change—can sometimes look a lot like chaos. That’s especially true when you’re dealing with a complex, multi-layered bureaucracy like the American health-care system... read article

February 2007: Kelly Bollman, Holistic Health Counselor
When you're passionate about something, you want to share that passion with the whole world—or at least with as many people as you possibly can. And you want to share it in a way that touches them, and maybe even changes their lives... read article

December 2006: David Gumpert, A multi-published author, consultant, and columnist
When it comes to public speaking, sometimes the key to feeling prepared for anything is doing a little less preparation. And sometimes the best way to handle your nervousness is to acknowledge and accept it... read article

November 2006: Anne Litwin, Organizational Development Consultant
When Anne Litwin, an organization development consultant from Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, began working with Carla Kimball to hone her public speaking skills, she expected to take away more confidence, new techniques, and an improved presentation. She never imagined that Carla would have her dancing on stage in front of hundreds of people... read article

Unless otherwise indicated, Tresca Weinstein interviews our speakers and writes the articles for our feature speaker section. She is a freelance writer and editor whose beat includes dance, the visual arts, yoga, books, travel, and home design. She writes for The Times Union in Albany, NY, Berkshire Living Magazine, and Pointe Magazine, and edits the Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association newsletter for Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. She is currently working on revisions to her first novel, which has been requested by Kensington Press. Contact her at tresca@taconic.net.

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We are centrally located in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire close to the intersection of Interstates 89 and 91. As such we are in in the heart of New England and close to Boston and all of Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York and Maine.

Travel time from:

Albany, NY — 2.75 hours
Boston, MA — 2.25 hours
Brattleboro, VT— 1.25 hours
Burlington, VT — 1.5 hours
Concord, NH — 1 hour
Hartford, CT — 2.5 hours
Portland, ME — 3 hours
Portsmouth, NH — 2 hours