Best Public Speakers: Jessica Tan

Jessica Tan is a Singaporean business executive, currently the co-chief executive officer, executive director and executive vice president of the Ping An Group. We identified Jessica as one of the best public speakers because of the energy felt from her vibrant gestures and the passion heard in her emphatic voice.

by Stephanie Bickel

The best public speakers event we reviewed: Jessica talks about creating Ping An Group’s facial recognition technology.

Jessica’s greatest public speaking skills:

Big, grand gestures: Nothing stands out more than Jessica’s big, vibrant grand gestures. She is very animated when she speaks and you can’t help being pulled into her dialogue. Her passion and energy is infectious! (:00, :17, :30, 1:57, 2:35)
Warm facial expressions and laughter: Jessica’s personality immediately jumps out at you as she smiles and laughs to start the interview. She carries this throughout the interview as she uses engaging eye contact and smiles often to soften her face. (:00, :06, :54, 2:57)
Strong vocal presence: She projects her voice well and speaks with a lower pitch that commands the room. Jessica also uses an emphatic tone to highlight important numbers and key points. (:00, 1:57, 2:35)
Distinct, memorable statements: Jessica immediately begins with a sharp, definitive comment, “we never take no for an answer”. She also uses other statements throughout that stick with you. For example, “In Ping An, you learn how to release your agenda. Everything is possible, it’s about how you get there.” (:00, 2:55)

What Jessica could do to improve her public speaking skills:

Slow down and pause to minimize filler words: Jessica has a fast speaking rate, and because of this, she uses non-words - “uh”, “um”, “like”, “right”. She could benefit from using strategic pauses to eliminate these fillers and allow the audience to catch up to her message. (:06, :39, 1:15-1:30, 3:05)
Eliminate fidgeting and unintentional movement: Because Jessica is so animated when she speaks, there is also a lot of unnecessary movement that can be distracting to an audience. She moves the frame of her body and head frequently, she touches her hair and face, and she fidgets with her hands. We recommend keeping the frame of the body still and resetting to a neutral position in between gestures. While sitting, this is placing your hands shoulders-width apart on a table or on your legs. (:06, :26, :33, 1:34)

Great leaders and speakers start with Speak by Design. Learn the techniques and build the skills with us. Speak by Design University is the only leadership communication program in the world that gives you access to self-paced learning, group coaching and training and, most importantly, private one-on-one coaching. Learn more and register at http://www.speakbydesign.com/join