Dev Luthra is an executive presence and presentation skills coach with 40 years in performance, theater, acting, and executive coaching. He received formal actor training at East 15 Acting School and the nationally-renowned Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts. As a professionally trained actor, he brings a range of performance-based techniques into his executive coaching work with clients. Dev has coached and instructed hundreds of individuals in leadership roles from the C-suite to mid-level and early career executives, including in-transition individuals, with particular emphasis to services professionals focused on customer relations and non-native English speakers with accent enhancement needs. Coaching clients include Analysis Group, GTE, Fidelity Investments, Bioarray, Shire, Mercury Systems, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Netcracker, and Applied Predictive Technologies. In addition to Dev’s work on cultural linguistic skills, including accent abatement, he integrates into his executive presence training use of status as a dynamic tool, facilitation skills, and non-verbal communication. His approach in the use of storytelling and anecdote to make complex information accessible is particularly effective in helping his clients to enhance vocal impact in live and remote settings.
Dev has an exemplary track record with clients in high stress and high stakes situations, helping them to de-stress and develop preparation routines for many types of meetings and presentations. His whole body approach to speaking is particularly effective. According to a recent executive client:
“Dev was able to give me two or three pieces of very focused feedback which dramatically improved my presentation style for two separate types of audiences: Formal Board of Directors and upset customers. I have also incorporated his feedback into my daily, informal meetings, e.g. discussions, which has made me much more commanding –a “speaking from power” standpoint-- or more team oriented, depending on my goals and with whom I am speaking. Overall, I have found the coaching sessions extremely helpful in improving presentation skills as well as general communication style.”
Born in the UK to an English mother and an Indian father, Dev has lived and worked on three continents, making him particularly sensitive to the needs and experience of non-native English speakers and individuals with language development needs. He performs regularly in the local theater scene, having just played Iago in a local production of Othello. He is also artistic director of And Still We Rise Productions, a theatre company - whose actors are all people impacted by prison - dedicated to telling the story of those affected by the prison system. Dev lives in Jamaica Plain and enjoys backpacking with his wife and visiting his children and granddaughter.