About the Author Peggy Klaus

PEGGY KLAUS

A much in-demand communication and leadership coach, Peggy Klaus has spent more than a decade advising America's top executives. President of Klaus & Associates, she reaches thousands of professionals a year through speaking, coaching, and workshops for leading corporations. Klaus’s client list includes JP Morgan Chase, Levi Strauss, American Express, Disney, Goldman Sachs, Cisco Systems, and Booz Allen Hamilton, among others. Her colorful and frank advice is frequently sought out by journalists, who have featured and quoted her extensively in a wide range of media, including ABC 20/20, NBC Today, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, Fortune, and O magazine.

Well regarded in higher education, Klaus has lectured on communication to students and faculty at the University of California Berkeley's Haas School of Business, Boalt School of Law, and the School of Public Health & Sciences. She has also served as lecturer at Wharton’s Executive MBA Program and Pepperdine University School of Law. In addition, Klaus sits on the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

With advanced degrees in Drama, Speech and Theatre from the London-based Royal Academy of Music and the Drama Studio, Klaus started off in Hollywood coaching entertainers for The Tonight Show and Cosby. Her screen credits include shows for Paramount Studios, Warner Brothers, ABC, CBS, and NBC TV. Klaus’s reputation for getting the best out of performers spread to the corporate world when friends on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley called for help with their speeches and press conferences. In 1993 she left Hollywood to start her consulting firm based in Berkeley, California, which offers a wide variety of workshops and individual training programs in corporate communication and leadership skills.

Author of BRAG! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It (Warner Books, Hardcover, 2003; Paperback, 2004), Klaus offers BRAG! workshops for both professional development (promoting yourself and your agenda) and business development (promoting your company and its products). To-date she has led 100+ BRAG! events for organizations, including General Mills, SC Johnson, Credit Suisse, American Express, Freddie Mac, The Harvard Business School Alumni Association, and The National Association of Female Executives. Also the author of The Hard Truth About Soft Skills—Workplace Lessons Smart People Wish They’d Learned Sooner (Collins, January 2008), Klaus provides a variety of programs for increasing soft skills mastery.

In 2004, Klaus expanded the line of up BRAG! Programs into the realm of corporate outreach with BRAG! Connections, an innovative cross-generational program that pairs aspiring youth with seasoned professionals to teach critical networking and self-promotion job skills to the employees and consumers of the future. These interactive, meet-and-greet affairs allow participants to network and fearlessly practice tooting their own horns while Klaus reveals key self-promotion techniques interspersed with fun, experiential exercises. A variety of companies, schools, and non-profits have participated in or sponsored these events, including The Young Women’s Leadership School of East Harlem, Training Inc., Linkage, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, 100 Women in Hedge Funds, and High Water Women.

A popular speaker at conferences, Klaus has also keynoted presentations for such organizations as the Women in Leadership Summit, San Francisco Trial Lawyers, Pharmacia-Upjohn, and the Financial Women's Association.

In her spare time Klaus can be found in Oakland, CA at Lost Canyon Winery, which she co-owns with her husband, Randy Keyworth.