For a long time, I believed that good work and strong results would speak for themselves.

My career has taken me across consulting, banking, communications, entrepreneurship, incubation and ecosystem building. I have worked with different kinds of organisations and stakeholders, including at KPMG, the Government of Telangana and IIT Madras's incubation cell. At the time I joined the ISB Online's Mastering Executive Presence programme, I had taken up a senior leadership role as Director – Ecosystem at Wadhwani Foundation.

My mandate was to build the Foundation's ecosystem in Tamil Nadu by launching an accelerator programme for growth-stage businesses. The role brought me into regular conversations with entrepreneurs, corporates, ecosystem partners, government and other institutional stakeholders.

As the role became more senior and stakeholder-facing, I realised something that is easy to overlook when you are focused on delivering outcomes. Leadership is not only about what you deliver. It is also about how effectively you communicate, influence and represent the organisation. I was comfortable in one-to-one conversations, but I was less comfortable commanding a room. I wanted to become more intentional about how I showed up, particularly in team and cross-functional meetings.

That was the context in which executive presence became an important area of development for me.

When Results are no Longer Enough

There was no one dramatic incident that triggered the decision to pursue the programme. It was more of a growing realisation as I stepped into a larger leadership role. I had always been comfortable relying on my work and results to establish credibility. But I began recognising that, at a senior level, the ability to communicate an idea, influence stakeholders, negotiate effectively and create confidence in others is just as important as the underlying work.

That made me ask myself a simple question: how can I become more deliberate about my executive presence rather than leaving it to chance? For someone who has spent years building programmes and ecosystems, this was an important shift in perspective. Much of my work had happened behind the scenes, bringing people together, solving problems and making things happen.

But as the scope of my responsibilities increased, I also needed to become more comfortable being visible and representing the work. That was when a focused Executive presence Course became relevant to me. I was not looking to change my personality. I wanted to become more conscious of how I communicate and how I am perceived in different leadership situations.

Why ISB?

Wadhwani Foundation encouraged its leaders to continuously upskill. A colleague suggested that we consider a leadership programme, and we explored options including Harvard, ISB and other leading business schools. I chose ISB for a combination of reasons. There was the reputation of the institution, the relevance of the programme and the opportunity to learn from one of India's leading business schools.

I had always known ISB as a premier institution, but this was also an opportunity to experience the ISB way of learning. I wanted to understand executive presence not merely as a concept, but as a set of skills that I could consciously develop and apply in my career. That distinction was important to me. I was not looking for an Executive presence Program simply as a credential. I wanted something that could help me understand my own behaviour, prepare better and become more deliberate in the way I communicate.

Executive Presence can be Practised

One of the biggest shifts for me was understanding that executive presence can be practised and prepared for. It does not have to be treated simply as a personality trait. That changed the way I looked at the subject. I became much more conscious of the audience. When telling a story, I started thinking about why a particular part of the story matters to the audience and how to use logos, pathos and ethos while preparing a communication. That sounds straightforward, but it changes the way you approach communication. Instead of simply thinking about what I want to say, I now think more carefully about what the audience needs to hear and what I want them to take away.

Personal branding was another important realisation for me. Earlier, I viewed it somewhat abstractly, almost as a random way of positioning myself. I began to understand that personal branding is much broader. It includes our social persona, our presence on platforms such as LinkedIn, how we communicate and the verbal and non-verbal cues through which others experience us.

The negotiation component was equally valuable. Concepts such as anchoring, BATNA, ZOPA and Target Point gave me a much more structured way of approaching negotiations. I still believe these are skills that require continuous practice, but understanding the framework was an important first step. For me, that is where good executive presence training becomes useful. It is not about giving someone a formula for how to behave. It is about creating greater awareness around the choices we make when we communicate, negotiate and lead.

Preparing Differently Before I Enter the Room

The biggest change in how I operate has been the amount of thought I put into preparation before entering a room. I now make an effort to understand the agenda rather than simply going with the flow. I think about who is going to be in the room, what their perspectives might be and how I need to communicate with them. Even something as simple as dressing appropriately helps me feel more confident and intentional. I also think more carefully about the story I want to tell and the outcome I want from a conversation.

This has been particularly useful in stakeholder conversations and negotiations. I am now much more conscious of anchoring and of thinking through my BATNA, ZOPA and Target Point. I am still learning through practice. But I have taken significant steps towards becoming a more structured and confident negotiator. For me, the important part is not trying to appear more authoritative. It is being better prepared for the situation I am walking into.

The ISB Experience Went Beyond Online Learning

One of the things that stood out for me about the ISB experience was the combination of structure and engagement. Although the programme was conducted online over roughly three to four months, it went well beyond online modules and quizzes. The priming activities, integrative thinking activities and weekly social-learning sessions made the experience interactive.

We regularly discussed and debated our learnings with our peers and participated in group discussions, with reviews from guest faculty. The badges, scoreboard and certificates added a healthy element of competition and kept us motivated throughout the programme.

The valedictory experience at the ISB Hyderabad campus was particularly memorable. I was initially contemplating whether to travel for it, but a friend encouraged me to attend. That turned out to be an excellent decision. The workshop conducted by Prof. Deepanshu Sharma was engaging and elevated the learning experience for our cohort of around 40 participants. The campus tour also gave us an opportunity to experience ISB's infrastructure first-hand. That combination of online learning and an in-person culmination made the experience feel more complete.

Leading Myself Before Leading Others

The biggest change for me is that I have become more conscious of how I lead myself before I lead others. Executive presence, for me, is no longer about trying to appear a certain way. It is about preparation, awareness and authenticity. It is about understanding myself, understanding the audience and being deliberate about how I communicate.

The programme also contributed to an important shift in how I viewed my own professional journey. I had been doing pro bono consulting and advisory work for some time, largely helping startups and organisations with business and management-related challenges. The experience at ISB gave me greater confidence to recognise the value of this work and helped me take the step towards building it more professionally as an entrepreneurial journey, as a business and management consultant.

I have also become more conscious that results alone do not tell the entire leadership story. We need to be able to communicate those results, create a narrative around our work and build confidence among the people we seek to influence. In that sense, the programme helped me move from simply being focused on building ecosystems and delivering outcomes to being more conscious of owning my voice, presence, professional identity and narrative.

A Continuous Practice, not a Finished Skill

My career has taken me across different parts of the ecosystem, including consulting, banking, communications, entrepreneurship, incubation and now working with startups and founders. As I look ahead, I want to continue building at the intersection of entrepreneurship, innovation and ecosystems while taking on increasingly visible leadership responsibilities. The ISB programme has given me a stronger foundation for that journey. More importantly, it has made me realise that executive presence is not a destination. It is a continuous practice. It needs to evolve as our responsibilities, stakeholders and leadership contexts evolve.

That is perhaps one of the most useful things I took away from the experience. There is no point at which you can say you have completely mastered executive presence. Every meeting, negotiation, presentation and stakeholder interaction gives you another opportunity to practise.

Showing Up With Greater Intent

If you have already built credibility through your work and results, executive presence may initially feel like something you do not necessarily need. I would say the opposite. As you grow professionally, the complexity of your work increases, but so does the importance of how you communicate, influence and create confidence in others. Executive presence helps you become more intentional about that.

You do not necessarily need to become louder or more extroverted. You need to become more aware, more prepared and more deliberate about how you show up. That is an important distinction. Whether someone chooses an Executive Presence Certificate, I believe the value lies in what changes afterwards. The credential is useful, but the real test is whether you carry the learning into the next meeting, negotiation or leadership situation.

The same applies to an Online Executive presence Course. For working professionals, an online format can create the flexibility to learn alongside demanding responsibilities, but the learning still needs to translate into practice. An Online Executive presence Certification can formally recognise that learning, but the journey does not end there. Executive presence has to be built through repeated application.

That is how I now think about my own journey. I am not trying to become someone else when I walk into a room. I am trying to be more prepared, more aware and more intentional about the person and leader I already am. And ultimately, executive presence is not about owning the loudest voice in the room. It is about being intentional about the voice, story and confidence you bring into it.

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