Top 10 Speech Coaches in Europe (excluding UK)

Speech coaches can completely transform not only the way you speak, but also how you think of public speaking in general. If you’re looking for a speech coach, you’re in luck. We carefully curated a list of the 10 best speech coaches in Europe (excluding UK) based on their experience and background, the programs and coaching they offer, and their reviews online, (among other factors) to help with your search. 

Speech Coach Rating Criteria

Yoodli works with thousands of speech coaches around the world, ranging 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 Europe

Check out the top 10 best speech coaches in Europe, in no particular order. 

Ioana Jongsma (Denmark)

Ioana Jongsma is a speaker coach with a variety of experience. She’s coached top executives spanning across industries like healthcare, legal, policy, finance, banking, automotive, and finance. Specifically, she’s helped them improve their presenting and communicating skills in English. 

Jongsma has also worked as a consultant for conference organizers and keynote speakers, as well as a TEDx coach and TEDxOdenseWomen Denmark curator. 

Her main services can be narrowed down into two main categories: public speaking workshops and one-on-one speech coaching. 

In her group workshops, Jongsma focuses on the most common needs of speakers to shape her program. She helps speakers find their own voice and understand the science behind storytelling. Her classes also create a family of speakers who can practice, collaborate, and learn from each other. 

On the other hand, her one-on-one coaching focuses on the individual. Jongsma helps folks get the most out of her teachings, and she helps clients not only find their story, but also hone their speech delivery. She also feels that it’s important to help the individual redefine how they think about public speaking. 

She also has a speech coaching diary, which she uses to share:

• Backstage stories featuring her experiences from events and her methods for speech coaching 
• Resources or other helpful tools 
• Lessons she’s learned along the way
• Interviews of speakers explaining their own thoughts and experiences

Check out her Q&A session about the art of public speaking below:

Catherine Aygen (France)

Based in France, Catherine Aygen is a neurolanguage coach who specializes in helping French professionals build their international communication skills. 

Aygen provides a number of services, such as public speaking, presentation skills, and how to navigate online meetings in which there are different accents. She helps clients build up their confidence and abilities to better cultivate meaningful relationships with international clients, colleagues, and partners. 

Although Aygen was born in England, she moved to France to be closer to her and her partner’s families after earning a master’s in linguistics. Because she speaks French nearly fluently, she has a personal understanding of some of the hurdles non-native speakers can face. 

You can find more information about her services on her website. Aygen also has a blog — written in French — that details global English and public speaking skills improvement. 

Melanie Hussell (Belgium)

Communication coach Melanie Hussell empowers clients to improve their English speaking (especially when it comes to business) and to build their confidence when doing so.

She helps non-native English speakers practice and hone their skills for business English. Hussell also assists teams in: 

• Gaining the confidence to attend global, online conferences in English
• Building necessary English language and grammar knowledge to improve clients’ presentation and writing skills
• Working on other aspects of effective communication (such as appropriate body language and virtual presence)
• Feeling comfortable presenting face-to-face or online through business English
• Answering complicated questions and participating in online events and meetings in English
• Improving English vocabulary and pronunciation to better communication during conversations and when networking

Hussell not only helps both teams and individuals in reaching their English communication goals, but she also has a helpful, informative blog where users can find info about anything from call-to-actions to PowerPoint presentation tips. 

Lisa Marie Gelhaus (Italy)

Lisa Marie Gelhaus is the founder of WordWorks, which is the American School of Public Speaking. This start-up focuses on helping Italian international companies improve their persuasion and oral communication skills. Her background is in communication arts — particularly rhetoric — and political science.

Since 2004, she’s offered her services as a freelance corporate trainer and communications consultant. In addition to that, Gelhaus is the Vice President Public Relations (VPPR) of Toastmasters Two Towers in Bologna, Italy. Since November of 2018, she’s been an active Toastmaster.  

Gelhaus’ ultimate goals for her clients — which include managers, professionals, and entrepreneurs, among others — is to assist them in engaging, effective communication so they can accurately communicate ideas. 

Courses are available in a handful of languages, including English, Italian, and even Arabic. Clients can get training at a professional venue or at their company. These courses are also personalized to the clients’ goals. They run 16 to 40 hours, spanning across 4-hours sessions. 

For those interested, you can contact WordWorks for a proposal. 

Amalia Sterescu (Romania)

Amalia Sterescu is a personal branding strategist, facilitator and developer of leadership programs, as well as a public speaking coach. She has an added specialty in career transitions.

In terms of public speaking coaching, Sterescu has two main options: instant coaching and her coaching program. 

With instant coaching, Sterescu offers a 90-minute Zoom session where clients can grow in the areas of not only public speaking, but also personal branding, career transitioning, and leadership. This instant coaching session costs around €250.

On the other hand, her program includes six 2-hour Zoom sessions where clients can explore the same aforementioned categories; however, the main difference is the number and length of sessions, as well as the price, which runs about €300.

Antoni Lacinai (Sweden)

Antoni Lacinai is a speech coach, facilitator, and MC expert who’s successfully led seminars, conferences, and panel discussions across the globe. 

Lacinai’s training and coaching can advance clients’ understanding to make them better team members, leaders, and sales representatives, among other roles. His services will improve leadership abilities, presentation skills, meeting communication competence, and facilitator capabilities. These coaching and training offerings can be online and in either individual or group sessions. 

Specifically, Lacinai can help with things like: 

• How to engage and better support remote teams
• Understanding the advantages and disadvantages to virtual leadership and communication
• Finding your primary audience
• Speaking confidently, with empathy and clarity
• Leveraging storytelling abilities during presentations
• Improving body language
• Asking the right questions 

Lacinai also provides coaching and training to advance effective workplace communication. These programs include focuses such as: effective communication; world class customer meetings; communication as a leader; effective meetings; hybrid leadership; and self-leadership, goal setting, and motivation.

You can watch his TEDxVasa talk about communication truths everyone should know below:

Rebecca Williams (Portugal)

Rebecca Williams is a self-described story coach who aims to help people speak confidently so that audiences listen. She emphasizes the fact that effective communication can be a learned skill, as opposed to something you have to be “naturally” good at. 

Williams has a specialty in training future leaders and offers three main services: workshops, brand story creation, and coaching. 

Her workshops are a great resource for teams looking to work on their communication skills. The training Williams offers can not only help speakers learn to make meaningful connections with their audiences, but also to encourage listeners to take action. Her classes can be customized for teams depending on their goals, whether it be brand storytelling or presentation skills. 

Williams’ brand story coaching leverages one-on-one interviews with the client to help narrow down their story and message through narrative storytelling — essentially the what, how, and why of a client’s story. Her work in brand coaching is perfect if you’ve had a hard time developing an elevator pitch for yourself. 

Of course, she also offers both one-on-one and small group classes to help build clients’ confidence and skills when speaking to flourish in their career or business, for example.

Alyson Garrido (Netherlands)

Alyson Garrido is a facilitator, speaker, and an International Coaching Federation (ICF) accredited professional certified coach (PCC). She’s also a founding partner of New Zealand’s Systemic Coach Academy.

She helps clients with a plethora of things, including career advancement and job searching. Garrido’s coaching uses a strengths-based approach to help clients with communication skills like salary negotiation, career direction, performance reviews, interview prep, and specialized leadership and communication methods.

Garrido can assist in identifying obstacles and exploring clients’ goals to help them take their communication skills and performance to the next level. She provides clients with an expert skills assessment to better target their goals. This is a catalyst to creating actionable steps that clients can use to build their confidence in communication, especially in professional settings.

Her services are unique in that she not only offers one-on-one coaching, but also an email package for people who might be a bit timid about personalized coaching at first. Garrido’s career change email course is totally free and provides clients with exercises and tools to target their dream career journey, no matter the industry. This course takes place over six weeks. 

Elizabeth Van Den Bergh (Belgium)

Elizabeth Van Den Bergh is a Belgium-based speech coach who speaks five languages and has been in business since 2013. Her perspective on public speaking and compelling communication is that it’s a learned skill that can have a huge impact on an audience or listener. 

Van Den Bergh offers both individual and group public speaking coaching and has three main programs: 

• “Outloud” online program: The most budget-friendly option, this program is tailored to entrepreneurial women who want to learn how to communicate with their business or project in mind. 
• “Powerful Presence” group program: This is a high intensity option that falls in the middle of the price range and is tailored to women who want to improve their speaking skills in a safe space. 
• And one-on-one private coaching: The most expensive option, Van Den Bergh’s one-on-one coaching is more intense and the quickest way to work on compelling communication skills and confidence (anyone can take these one-on-one lessons) 

Manuela Lanza (Spain)

Manuela Lanza, a speech coach based in Spain, has a specialty in helping clients find their personal brand. 

Lanza’s background is as a broadcast journalist for CNN, so she knows a thing or two about effective public communication. She leverages her experience and the tools she learned during her time as a journalist to advance her clients’ careers and help them grow their business, among meaningful communication coaching. 

She helps people with glossophobia — a fear of public speaking — as well as anyone looking to improve their skills and confidence. 

Lanza offers many services, but her four main areas are her:

• Public speaking program, which features specialized masterclasses with hot seat coaching and actual public speaking practice
• On-camera program, where Lanza breaks down impactful speaking with a number of steps and uses hot seat coaching to form a community of confident speakers 
• One-on-one mentor coaching (both in-person in Ronda, Spain, or online), which gives clients personal mentoring, feedback, and coaching to achieve their aspirations
• The free speaking hour, which is an event that’s free of cost and shows speakers how to be charismatic and successfully network with experts across the globe

The Bottom Line

These top 10 best speech coaches in Europe are vetted experts committed to helping folks improve their communication. You can complement your speech coaching with a free resource like Yoodli. Yoodli — a communication coach powered by AI technology — offers users free metrics by analyzing their speech and speaking patterns. These insights include things like pacing, filler words, and even body language analysis, like facial expressions and eye contact. 

Effective communication is a valuable skill, no matter what industry you’re in, and it’s worth investing some time, dedication, and practice to elevate your abilities.