The Listening Shift

Janie van Hool understands both speaking and listening profoundly. She began her career as a professional actor, training at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before embarking on 12 years of work in the theatre, in TV, as a voiceover artist and conference presenter.

She went on to gain an MA in Voice and then an MSc in Performance Psychology. The combination of her academic research together with her experience as a performer has given her a unique perspective on how to articulate messages with confidence and skill, and informed her work as a coach, advisor and skills teacher to business leaders.

Over the last 20 years she has developed leaders in a wide range of organizations, from mining in Australia to investment banking in New York and everything in between. She has crafted tactics, strategies, frameworks and tools to enable leaders to inspire others through impact, influence, presentation, storytelling and connection. Her fascination with how people communicate has helped countless leaders make a difference to themselves personally, and to the people they lead.

More recently she has volunteered as a listener with Samaritans - a UK charity dedicated to listening to people in distress. This has helped her complete the circle of communication insights that have been her life's work, by recognizing fully the incredible power of being heard.

Her first book - The Impact and Presence Pocketbook - was published in 2004.'