Vocal coach and public speaking expert David Pope delivered a masterclass on how to find your voice during a recent event organised by the Ellevate Network, Dubai. Sharing his advice on vocal warm-up and confident delivery, David demonstrated the power of the voice in engaging, energising, and inspiring an audience.
Introducing participants to the significance of speaking style, David cited examples of famous personalities to demonstrate the unconscious judgements made about people based solely on the sound of their voice. Discussing how vocal improvement can transform perceptions and promote trust, David also revealed how information retention is increased with simple changes in speech delivery.
Starting the session with a physical warm-up, participants participated in exercises to establish the correct posture, expand the lungs, and adopt the diaphragmatic breathing technique for optimal voice projection. Going on to explore the importance of enunciation and articulation, David engaged participants in different tongue twister challenges to demonstrate how the tongue, jaw, teeth, lips, and palate all play a part in speech clarity.
Turning to techniques around vocal delivery, David explained how intonation, word stress and pace variations are fundamental tools in keeping an audience engaged. Through a range of speaking exercises, participants could practice varying their vocal styles and test the session’s lessons around good volume, dynamic intonation, pace variation, voice projection and precise articulation.
A long-established professional in the field, David has 30 years of experience in vocal coaching, having coached CEOs, senior partners and executives in person and virtually in Hong Kong, India, Dubai, Singapore, China, Korea, Japan and Australia. Beginning his career in London at the BBC, David has since worked in commercials, documentaries, TV series and radio drama. Based in Hong Kong as Managing Director and Senior Voice Coach at All Voice Talent, Hong Kong Living voted David a top Hong Kong Influencer in 2020.
Organised by the Dubai chapter of the global professional women’s network, Ellevate, the event was hosted in partnership with Omnicom Media Group at their headquarters in Dubai Media City. The event welcomed members of the Dubai Ellevate Network, guests, and representatives from partner organisations.
Ellevate is one of the largest communities of women at work, with its headquarters in the USA. Ellevate consists of a powerful coalition of ambitious and supportive women who show up for each other, mobilising their collective power to change the culture of workplaces, making them more equitable places. Ellevate Dubai offers a range of networking in-person and virtual events to help women develop professional networks while fostering relationship-building with local members without centring everything around promotional business talk.
For further information, please check https://www.ellevatenetwork.com/chapters/30-ae-dubai
