Case Study
Vanessa: Finding Confidence in a Second Language
Vanessa works in Learning and Development at Equinix, where much of her day is spent talking with people and helping them reach their goals. She is Brazilian, and around 90% of her working life unfolds in English. She came to us with a clear ambition: to step into leadership, and to be understood, fully and precisely, every time she spoke.
The Challenge
Vanessa’s work depends on connection. She spends her days in conversation, guiding others towards their objectives, and she needed to feel certain that people were truly receiving her, not just her words, but her meaning.
Speaking in a second language for most of her working life added a quiet pressure. She wanted the clarity in her head to arrive intact in the minds of the people she was talking to, whether managers, peers, or the executives she was increasingly presenting to.
And there was a bigger goal beneath it all. Leadership. She knew that leading means communicating, and she wanted to build the confidence to speak to any room and know she belonged there.
The Solution
A colleague at Equinix pointed Vanessa towards London Speech Workshop, and something on our website spoke to her straight away. What drew her in was the methodology: not coaching for its own sake, but an approach built around feeling comfortable, capable, and genuinely confident.
She began working with her coach, Zoe, on the Serlin Method®, with a particular focus on accent and clarity. What surprised her was that the work didn’t ask her to become someone else. Many of the techniques were things she already did instinctively, gesture, intonation, the shaping of a sentence, but now she was doing them with intention. That was the shift. The moment she began using these tools consciously, everything changed.
Zoe motivated her to speak, noticed the precise details worth refining, and created the kind of encouraging space where progress felt natural rather than forced.
The Result
The change was felt by everyone around her. People close to Vanessa began telling her she was expressing herself so much more clearly, and she felt newly prepared to present to other managers and to speak at executive level. Where there had once been uncertainty, there was now confidence, and a readiness to reach for the next stage of her career.
And here is the lovely part: Vanessa is only halfway through. She has completed 5 of her sessions and can already feel the difference in how she shows up. If this is the middle of the journey, she wonders, what will the end feel like?
“It’s not about what they are teaching, but the way they are teaching. My coach Zoe was wonderful, she always motivated me to speak, and always pointed out the exact details I could improve. I feel so much more confident and prepared to get to the next level. If I were you, I would give it a try.”
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