Peggy Klaus

President of Klaus & Associates in Berkeley, CA, Klaus is a much in-demand consultant who has spent nearly a decade advising some of America's top Fortune 500 executives in the art of self-presentation and promotion. She reaches thousands of professionals a year through speaking, coaching, and workshops for leading organizations including Levi Strauss, Disney, JP Morgan Chase, General Mills, NAFE, Count Me In, 100 Women in Hedge Funds, and The Harvard Business School Alumni Association, among others. Her colorful and frank advice is frequently sought out by journalists, and she has been featured and quoted extensively in a wide range of media including ABC's 20/20, NBC's Today, CNN, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Glamour, Working Mother, and Family Circle, among others.

Also well regarded in higher education, Klaus has lectured on communication to students and educators at the University of California Berkeley's Haas School of Business and School of Public Health & Sciences. Most recently, she has served as a lecturer at Wharton’s Executive MBA Program. In addition, Klaus sits on the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has also mentored and presented to teens on communication, self-promotion and leadership issues through the prominent Young Women’s Leadership School and Foundation in Manhattan, Professional Business Women of California (PBWC) and The CrossRoads Foundation/Backyard Project.

Klaus has advanced degrees in drama, speech and theatre from the Royal Academy of Music and the Drama Studio, both in London. She started off in Hollywood coaching entertainers for The Tonight Show and Cosby as well as producing and directing. Her screen credits include productions for Paramount Studios, Warner Brothers, ABC, CBS, and NBC TV.

Klaus’s reputation for getting the best out of performers spread to the corporate world when friends on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley started calling for help with their speeches and press conferences. In 1993, she left Hollywood and started her consulting firm which offers a wide variety of workshops and individual training in corporate communication and leadership skills, including crisis communication and management, women's leadership, executive presence, and presentation 101, among others.

Klaus is also a frequent speaker at conferences. In keynote presentations, she has addressed the Women in Leadership Summit, San Francisco Trial Lawyers, Pharmacia-Upjohn, and the Financial Women's Association, among others. Over the last two years, she has led some 50 BRAG parties and workshops for leading organizations nationwide.

In her spare time, she can be found in Oakland at Lost Canyon Winery, which she co-owns with her husband, Randy Keyworth. Klaus was born and raised in Philadelphia.