Amy Jen Su - Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are immensely grateful to a number of individuals, without whom this book would not have come to be. First and foremost, a tremendous thank-you to Amy Gallo, who elegantly played the role of outside editor, relationship counselor, facilitator, reality checker, and friend in the most seamless, gracious way possible. She was indispensable in bringing this book to life. We are fortunate to have worked with our wonderful Harvard Business Press editor, Jeff Kehoe, who helped us shape the ideas and vision we had for this book. His invaluable guidance and continued enthusiasm for the project kept us energized throughout the writing process. We would be remiss not to mention our literary agent, Giles Anderson, who reached out to us after reading our Harvard Business Review blog and provided countless pieces of advice as we navigated the book process.

We have amazing coaching clients. Every day we feel honored to work with them and humbled by their commitment to being the best leaders they can be. We are grateful to each of them for sharing their journeys and allowing us into their worlds. They often say that they learn from us, but they are the true teachers. We also thank the sponsors of each of our coaching clients, who provided honest and insightful feedback that helped crystallize the Signature Voice framework, best practices, and tools.

We are grateful to all of the participants in our Signature Voice training programs. Over very short periods of time, they open themselves up to our coaching and feedback and this new way of seeing their leadership presence. We thank them for the honesty and candor they bring to these programs. The anecdotes, questions, and thoughts that theyve shared over the years pushed our thinking and deepened our understanding of what it means to have leadership presence.

While we have partnered with many client organizations, there are a few in particular that we need to acknowledge for believing in us and pioneering the Signature Voice training and coaching programs in their organizations: Mary Lyons and the original PRTM team; Katy Strei, Carole Tilmont, and the whole Med-Immune Leadership Development team; Mary Ellen Joyce and Marina Augoustidis at Brookings Executive Education; Keisha Berkely at the National Institutes of Health; the Leadership Development and HR team at Freddie Mac; and Jane Brock-Wilson and the team at Berkshire Partners. A special thank-you to our colleagues and friends Kathy Gallo of the Goodstone Group and Laura Daley, who generously supported us early on to broaden the reach of our Signature Voice work.

This book would not have been possible without the amazing selfless support of the rest of the Isis Associates team. All of our Isis colleagues have touched this project and us in tremendous ways: Pam Krulitz, for her constant willingness to brainstorm and talk about the Signature Voice model and engage in mutual learning; Nina Bowman and Erin McCants Parker, for drinking the Kool-Aid and joining the team to support our growth; Amber Romine and Steve Kullback, who demonstrated commitment to learning the ins and outs of the Signature Voice model and facilitating the training at numerous client sessions; Jenny Sheehan, our executive assistant extraordinaire, who always manages to say the right thing and take the right step to create order out of chaos; and to Emily Sopha, our operations manager, who has supported Isis and this book in so many countless ways.