Executive Communication in Action · Track 1 · Executive Presence & Meeting Flow

The room reads you before you speak.

Presence is not what you feel. It is what the room reads — and you can manage it.

~90 minutes
One focused session · live + async
One tool by Tuesday
An opening frame you use in your next meeting
Thinker-first
Goffman as your lens
Next cohort
mid-August 2026 · small by design

The problem

You have run hundreds of meetings.
The room still reads signals, not your intent.

You know what a well-run meeting feels like — and what the other kind costs you. This is not about being more confident. It is about what the room reads when you open: not your inner state, but the signals you manage. You are always being read. The only question is whether you manage it, or leave it to chance.

Why now

In 2026 there is a second reader in the room.

The AI that summarises the meeting builds its record from the same signals you give the people. It reads structure — or confusion — from how you open. Manage the frame, and you manage both readers at once.

The thinker — your lens

You don't borrow tips. You inhabit an architecture.

The lens is theirs; the practice is yours. You meet the thinker in an original reading, see the idea in use, then make it your own.

Erving Goffman
The Presentation of Self, 1959

Presence is a performance — not fake, but read. You meet the idea in a short original reading, then put it to work on your own openings.

The instrument

Manage the opening — four signals.

Not small talk. The frame. The specific moves that produce what a room reads as authority.

01
Purpose
Why this meeting exists, in one line.
02
Agenda
The shape of the next minutes, named.
03
Transition
How you move the room from one beat to the next.
04
Understanding check
How you confirm the room is with you.

What you leave with

Not tips. A capability.

Who conducts it

Thirty-five years of executive judgment — now in the AI era.

Sandra M. Szwarc, M.Sc. has spent 35 years training executives to construct meaning under pressure — across finance, industry, energy and healthcare, in four languages. Strategic Narratives is where that practice meets the AI era: the machine can describe; you decide what the data means.

FAAP — Storytelling & Game WritingVancouver Film SchoolColumbia Digital Storytelling LabM.Sc. UNIP + University of North Texas35+ years executive education17 DOI-registered worksIP registered (INPI · Zenodo · Biblioteca Nacional)

Fit4Global Learning Systems®

The other doors

Five Tracks. Take one — or make the journey.

Executive Presence & Meeting Flow is one of five Mini-Masterclasses in Executive Communication in Action. Each is a door: roughly 90 minutes, one usable tool, sold on its own or as the full program.

Begin

Manage what the room reads.

Join the next cohort, bring it to your team, or take it as a standalone. Part of the ECA full program — also available on its own.

Join the next cohort (mid-August)Bring it to your team
Is this about confidence?

No. It is about signal management — the moves that produce what a room reads as authority. Confidence is a by-product, not the method.

Does it work for virtual and hybrid meetings?

Yes — and in some ways it matters more there. The session uses both in-person and Zoom scenarios.

Do I need other ECA Tracks first?

No. It stands alone, and it is the recommended starting point for the full program.

When does it run?

The next cohort is mid-August 2026. Small by design.

Part of Executive Communication in Action — five Tracks, one capability: communication as judgment.