She's calculated that during her career, she's conducted more than 12,000 individual private coaching sessions with executives, managers, and technical experts across the country! And that doesn't even include the many organizations and groups she's consulted with over the years.

Melinda Henning has been teaching people to be effective communicators since the 1960s. Starting out as a high school English teacher, she later worked with some of the toughest students around: prison inmates, psychiatric patients, acting-out adolescents, and athletes-with-an-attitude. And an early stint as a probation officer left no doubt that she can work with just about anyone. (When someone suggests they might be a "difficult" client today, Melinda just smiles.)

During the past 15 years, in addition to her own private work with top executives and managers, Melinda was Senior Trainer and Sales Associate with Frederick Gilbert Associates, where she was instrumental in developing and marketing the acclaimed PowerSpeakingŪ program of FGA. In the 80's, she also developed and brought to market the pioneering Doing Business By Phone™ series of seminars for sales and customer service professionals, still being presented. Prior to that, she worked with a number of the Bay Area's other top training organizations and with the University of California.

"Today, I'd rather watch a good business speaker than go to a movie," says Melinda, who gave her own first public speech as a sixth grader. "I've always been fascinated with the power a person could gain with just the right turn of phrase, or a meaningful pause. Now words and ideas are my stock in trade! And people expressing their opinions to make good things happen! I cannot imagine better work!"

Melinda Henning has successfully combined her experience in education, training, and business (including an MBA in Marketing) to build a coaching practice centered on her personal belief that, as she puts it, "one person can make a difference…by speaking, - that is by speaking well, and with conviction."

Do Melinda's methods work?

Here's what a few of her clients have said:

"Melinda Henning was instrumental in preparing us for our worldwide venture capital roadshow, and we came back with even more funding than we sought. She also made a significant difference in our critical presentations to the FDA."
-Thomas M. Loarie, Chairman and CEO, KeraVision, Inc.

"You took me from feeling frightened in front of an audience of fifteen, to feeling disappointed if my audience is fewer than two thousand!"
-Suzanne Mattingly, Ph.D., Vice President of Marketing, SciMagix, Inc.

"One hour on the phone with you was worth your entire full day fee to me!"
-Deborah Steele, Communication Consultant

"Would I hire her again? Are you kidding? I've Melinda-cized my entire company!"
-Bob Dunkle, CEO, SciMagix, Inc.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Melinda is a member of the National Speakers Association, the American Society for Training and Development, and Meeting Professionals International.