Top 10 Best Speech Coaches in Singapore and Hong Kong

Do you have a fear of public speaking or have trouble communicating successfully at work? Luckily, speech coaches can tackle both those obstacles and so much more. For those looking for vetted options, here are our picks for the top 10 best speech coaches in Singapore and Hong Kong. They’re based on an entire speech coach rating criteria (detailed below) and are definitely worth checking out. 

Speech Coach Rating Criteria

Yoodli works with thousands of speech coaches around the world. They range from TEDx trainers, speech-language-pathologists, executive coaches, to Toastmasters World Champions of public speaking. We picked the top coaches based on whether they met the following criteria:

1. Train clients both in person and in virtual settings (Zoom-coaching)
2. Work with individuals, groups, or enterprises
3. Are currently open to new clients
4. Have the best reviews on the Yoodli AI speech coaching platform. 

Best Speech Coaches in Singapore and Hong Kong

If you’re looking to improve your speech, look no further. Take a look at our picks for the top 10 best speech coaches in Singapore and Hong Kong, in no specific order. 

Charmaine Yee (Singapore)

You might recognize Charmaine Yee’s name from her time as a television producer at FOX Sports Asia or from her radio presentation days at Kiss 92FM. You might’ve even caught her other work in television, from starring in commercials to interviewing celebrities like Melissa McCarthy, Henry Golding, or Avril Lavigne. However, you might’ve realized Yee is also known for her presentation and public speaking coaching. 

Yee offers public speaking coaching sessions (as well as videos) both in-person and virtually. These focus on not only public speaking, but also building confidence. Within these coaching sessions, she hones in on developing soft communication skills and teaching hard communication skills. 

Jacky Lim (Singapore)

Jacky Lim is a communication coach with a specialty and concentration in high-impact sales communication. 

Although he has a plethora of trainings — from storytelling for sales to leadership and social selling with LinkedIn — one of Lim’s many areas of interest is public speaking.

Lim’s public speaking course, “The Charismatic Presenter™,” aims to help clients better engage and connect with their audiences during presentations. People who take this course learn about human psychology in relation to public speaking, methods to improve your stage presence, and proven tips to combat the fear of public speaking. 

Specifically, this program includes instruction on how to: 

• Target your presentation objectives based on your audience
• Combat public speaking anxiety 
• Build confidence
• Create presentations in a more timely manner
• Use body language and other non-verbal cues to enhance your message
• Improve impromptu speaking using existing frameworks 
• Feel comfortable managing and responding to Q&A sessions
• Give better presentations overall 

Perry Lam (Hong Kong)

Perry Lam is an executive coach, as well as a leadership facilitator and international business leader. He has over two decades’ worth experience in global, regional, and national leadership roles. 

In terms of Lam’s coaching, he has a handful of specialities and areas of expertise. These include helping his clients with business storytelling, persuasive communication, and presentation skills. Other areas in which he has experience in include:

• Cultural diversity
• Leadership
• Executive development
• On-boarding

His coaching can help elevate a client’s executive presence, especially effective, engaging communication. His coaching sessions are exclusively in English.

Lam often works with C-suite executives, CEOs, and other business leaders in government organizations, Fortune 500 corporations, and non-profit organizations across Asia.

Leaven Academy (Singapore)

Leaven Academy is a hub of incredible programs, from financial literacy to education and career guidance to leadership. However, its communication program stands out in particular. 

This program has two courses that focus on two critical aspects of speech, respectively: interpersonal communication and public speaking. 

The interpersonal communication course has one primary module and that is conversational skills. This class will teach clients how to start, hold, and end a conversation successfully. 

On the other hand, the public speaking course has a handful of modules, including: 

• Communication fundamentals, which helps people understand what a good public speaker looks like as well as the 3Vs of public speaking
• Verbal communication, which includes speech planning structure and how to impact your audience
• Vocal communication, which helps folks learn to use their voice and practice using methods to engage your audience  
• Visual communication, including using body language and other visual clues
• Overcoming anxiety, which helps people understand where pre-speech anxiety comes from as well as how to turn it into excited energy
• Audience engagement, which explains various causes for low engagement and how to keep your audience’s attention 
• Effective visual aids, including the types and how to make your visual aids more interesting
• Art of storytelling, which helps people learn how to make their story more interesting to captivate the audience and how to use stories to emphasize your message 
• Impromptu speech, which shows folks how to think of a structure for impromptu speeches and how to successfully deliver one 
• Crowd management, which instructs people on how to engage various audiences and their dynamics, as well as tailor your presentation to those respective audiences 
• Virtual presentation, which shows folks how to adapt their speeches in real-time and how to successfully communication virtually

In terms of the best speech coaches in Singapore and Hong Kong, this one might be the most thorough option on our list. 

Heather Hansen (Singapore)

Heather Hansen is an experienced speech coach who specializes in improving connected communication, building confidence, and developing communication cultures for companies, particularly for international professionals.

Because Hansen’s background is in the global English communication field, she’s also an advocate fighting against microaggressions and language- and accent-related inequities. Her ultimate goal is to make sure all voices are heard. She also works for the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School’s executive education programs as an external industry expert in communication. 

Hansen is a TEDx speaker as well. Her 2018 talk — “2 Billion Voices: How to Speak Bad English Perfectly” — received over 190 thousand views and is often cited by university professors in their respective courses.

She’s also the author of a couple of books, such as “Powerful People Skills” and “Unmuted.” 

Akash Karia (Hong Kong)

Akash Karia is an experienced public speaker who’s sought out by entities like FedEx, Bristol Myers Squibb, the government of Dubai, E&Y, Wrigley’s, and Sony. 

He uses research-backed methods and translates them into actionable tips. He offers services like workshops, training programs, and keynotes which he can then tailor based on the client and their needs. However, he also provides three pre-made programs clients can opt for, including: 

• “Leading for Innovation” 
• “High-Performance Habits” 
• “Winning through Well-Being”

Although he’s based in Hong Kong, Karia also travels globally to work with clients. 

Karia has also written 12 books which have been translated into six different languages. 

Manoj Vasudevan (Singapore)

In 2017, public speaker Manoj Vasudevan won the world’s largest speech contest — beating out 30,000 other speakers — with his speech, “Pull Less, Bend More.” You can watch Vasudevan in his natural element giving this speech below:

With Vasudevan’s vast experience and expertise, it’s a no-brainer that he’d be included in a list of the best speech coaches in Singapore and Hong Kong. In a nutshell, he helps clients become better leaders, influencers, and speakers to improve communication skills in both their personal and professional lives. He’s the CEO of Thought Expressions, where he offers services like professional coaching programs, in-house corporate training, and executive leadership coaching for your team. 

He’s also the author of international bestselling books, including “How to Become the World Champion of Public Speaking” and “Mastering Leadership the Mousetrap Way.” 

Ernest Chen (Singapore)

Speech coach Ernest Chen has a number of achievements to his name. For one, he founded 10 Toastmasters Clubs in Singapore, including the first-ever Mandarin-speaking Toastmasters Club in the world. He’s also the director and founder of the Asia Speakers Association

In 1993, he earned the Distinguished Toastmaster title. He’s also judged international speech contests as a chief judge.

On top of all this, Chen offers speech coaching to people looking to improve their communication skills and conquer their fear of public speaking. His courses and workshops include: 

• “Power Speaking and Presentation Skills,” which aims to help folks build their confidence and organize and deliver engaging presentations and speeches
• “Dynamic Master of Ceremonies,” a one-day workshop that helps people become the best emcee they can be
• “Train the Trainer,” which is tailored to those who want to one day become a public speaking trainer or life coach
• “Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking,” which provides folks with the tools they need to overcome the fear of public speaking
• “Successful Power Speech Writing Workshop,” which helps people learn how to write speeches for all occasions
• As well as an upcoming course called, “Business Broker – How to Buy and Sell the Business”

Chen is also the author of “Earnestly Speaking,” a bestselling book on public speaking.

Brian Hodgson (Hong Kong)

For 33 years, Brian Hodgson has been a public speaker as well as a member of Toastmasters International in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and in Australia. In fact, he frequently represents Hong Kong in various speech contests in Asia and has won more than 50 contests. 

Hodgson offers public speaking instruction at four Hong Kong universities. He also provides presentation training for Fortune 500 companies in Hong Kong, as well as one-on-one coaching sessions with folks from all industries, from manufacturing to media and finance. 

He founded Public Speaking.hk and provides many services, including corporate training, emcee events, public courses, and of course, individual training. 

Check out the biggest presentation question Hodgson gets asked all the time:

Benjamin Loh (Singapore)

As a self-proclaimed “communication Jedi,” Benjamin Loh stands out as one of the best speech coaches in Singapore and Hong Kong. His goal is to help people improve their public speaking skills through presence and practice strategies. 

Loh is the founder of Flare Communications Coaching, which was created to give business leaders the tools they need to excel in effective, persuasive communication. He also helps clients navigate and understand an ever-changing virtual landscape. 

To do this, Loh uses tried-and-true methods and tools through his SPEAK speech coaching method. In this context, SPEAK stands for: 

• Self-awareness
• Platform skills
• Entrepreneurial selling strategies
• Actualization and appreciation
• Knowledge and internalization

He uses this model for his three main programs, which are: 

• “Speech Booster” program: A 2-hour session that costs $1,188
• “Speech Enhancement” program: Four 8-hour sessions for $3,888
• “Speech Mastery” program: Six 12-hour sessions for $5,688 

The Bottom Line

You simply can’t go wrong with these top 10 best speech coaches in Singapore and Hong Kong. However, if you don’t have a budget for a speech coach right now, you can always try a free resource like Yoodli. As an AI-powered speech coach, Yoodli analyzes your speech and provides you with metrics and actionable insights about factors like your body language, filler word usage, and speech pacing, among other analytics. 

Compelling communication is a learned skill that anyone can work on. Don’t let your fear of public speaking stand in your way — start practicing your communication skills today.