Peggy Klaus
President, Klaus & Associates
A much in-demand communication and leadership coach, Peggy Klaus has spent more than a decade advising America's top Fortune 500 executives. She reaches thousands of professionals a year through speaking, coaching, and workshops at leading corporations and organizations. Her client list includes JP Morgan Chase, Levi Strauss, Chevron Texaco, American Express, Disney, Goldman Sachs, Pharmacia Upjohn, General Mills, Cisco Systems, UNICEF, and Booz Allen Hamilton, among others. Klaus's colorful and frank advice is frequently sought out by journalists. She has been featured and quoted extensively in a wide range of media including
ABC 20/20, NBC Today, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, Fortune, and O Magazine.
Well regarded in higher education, Klaus has lectured on communication to students and faculty at the University of California Berkeley's Haas School of Business, Boalt School of Law and the School of Public Health & Sciences. She has also served as lecturer at Wharton's Executive MBA Program, Pepperdine University School of Law, and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Additionally, Klaus sits on the Kennedy School of Government’s Women’s Leadership Board.
With advanced degrees in Drama, Speech, and Theatre from the London-based Royal Academy of Music and the Drama Studio, Klaus started off in Hollywood coaching entertainers for The Tonight Show and Cosby. Her screen credits include shows for Paramount Studios, Warner Brothers, ABC, CBS, and NBC TV. Klaus's reputation for getting the best out of performers spread to the corporate world when friends on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley called for help with their speeches and press conferences. In 1993 she left Hollywood to start her consulting firm Klaus & Associates-based in Berkeley, California—which offers a wide variety of workshops and individual training programs in corporate communication and leadership skills.
Author of BRAG! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It (Warner Books, Hardcover, 2003; Paperback, 2004), Klaus offers BRAG! workshops for both professional development (promoting yourself and your agenda) and business development (promoting your company and its products). To-date she has led 100+ BRAG! events for organizations, including General Mills, SC Johnson, Credit Suisse, American Express, Freddie Mac, The Harvard Business School Alumni Association, and The National Association of Female Executives. Also the author of The Hard Truth About Soft Skills—Workplace Lessons Smart People Wish They'd Learned Sooner (Collins, January 2008), Klaus provides a variety of programs for increasing soft skills mastery.
In 2004 Klaus expanded the line of up BRAG! programs into the realm of corporate outreach with BRAG! Connections, an innovative cross-generational program that pairs aspiring youth with seasoned professionals to teach critical networking and self-promotion job skills to the employees and consumers of the future. These interactive, meet-and-greet affairs allow participants to network and fearlessly practice tooting their own horns while Klaus reveals key self-promotion techniques interspersed with fun, experiential exercises. A variety of companies, schools, and non-profits have participated in or sponsored these events, including JP Morgan Chase, The Young Women's Leadership School of East Harlem, Training Inc., Linkage, Merrill Lynch, 100 Women in Hedge Funds, and High Water Women.
A popular speaker at conferences, Klaus has keynoted presentations for such organizations as the Women in Leadership Summit, San Francisco Trial Lawyers, Pharmacia-Upjohn, and the Financial Women's Association.
In her spare time Klaus can be found in Oakland, CA at Lost Canyon Winery, which she co-owns with her husband, Randy Keyworth.
