“I used to stay quiet in intimidating meetings. Now I participate actively and reach out to senior leadership with confidence.”

As a Delivery Lead at AD Global, I work across data, advertising and marketing consulting, supporting around 25 people across multiple teams while managing key client accounts. My role requires me to contribute technically, oversee delivery, and increasingly engage with senior business leaders around their problems and how we can solve them.
As I moved up the value chain, I realised that technical expertise alone would not be enough. I could build and implement strong solutions, but communicating those solutions effectively to senior stakeholders was becoming equally important.
I remember several high-stakes meetings where I would explain our work in technical detail: the tools we used, the language, the approach, the output and how we automated the solution. The feedback I received was that while I was a strong executor and implementer, I needed to scale as a consultant. Senior business leaders wanted to understand their problems and business outcomes, rather than the technical details behind the solution. At times, I could see people losing interest during my explanations.
That was a clear signal that I needed to change how I communicated.
I joined Kapable looking for a structured way to improve my communication and overall professional expression. What I discovered was that effective communication involved much more than vocabulary or language. I needed to become more aware of how I was structuring my thoughts, whether people were following me, how I was engaging them, and how my body language was affecting the conversation.
Over the course of the program, I started seeing changes in my everyday interactions. I became more conscious of setting the context before making a point, giving people a clear sense of where the conversation was going, and making my communication more relevant to the person listening.
The difference became especially visible in meetings. Earlier, I could sometimes go blank when brainstorming moved quickly or when I felt intimidated by senior people in the room. Today, I am much more aware of my emotions in those situations. I can participate more actively, ask questions when I have them, and explain the intent behind my questions with greater confidence.
I have also noticed a change in how others respond to me. People who might previously have interrupted me are more willing to listen and let me finish because I am clearer about what I am trying to communicate. Senior leaders have started reaching out to me more, and I have been included in more executive and brainstorming conversations.
The journey has also changed how I look at leadership. I now understand that executive presence can show up in small things: making someone comfortable, anticipating conflict, understanding what another person needs to hear, and making sure a conversation ends with clarity.
What I am taking forward is a much stronger awareness of myself, my communication and how my message is received. I still have more muscle to build, but I now feel anchored in the direction I want to grow towards: becoming someone who is trusted for his expertise, can lead and mentor others, and can confidently represent his organisation in senior stakeholder conversations.
For me, the biggest change has been realising that the small communication habits I practise every day can compound into a much larger shift in how I show up as a leader.