JEFF SIMMERMON

EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT, STORYTELLING ADVISOR, AND SPEAKER COACH

I develop executive communications and business storytelling that make complex ideas clear, credible, and memorable.

I help executives, experts, and communications teams clarify high-stakes messages, develop speeches and presentations, shape corporate narratives, and tell stories that connect with their audiences.

Together, we find the real message, structure the story, and strengthen the delivery so people stop looking at their phones long enough to understand it, trust it, and remember it.

CORPORATE AND INSTITUTIONAL EXPERIENCE
Time Warner Cable · CGI · Inter-American Development Bank · InVision Communications ·
PBS Stories From the Stage · Burning Man Project

WRITING AND PERFORMANCE
This American Life · The Moth · Newsweek · The Paris Review Daily · SoHo Playhouse · 800 Pound Gorilla Records

What I Help With

Executive Communications

Get the story straight before the stakes get high

I help leaders and communications teams shape corporate narratives, leadership messages, speeches, talking points, and consequential communications for both internal and external audiences so the central idea is clear, credible, and useful to the people who need to hear it.

Executive Communications & Storytelling

Speaker and Presentation Coaching

Turn expertise into a presentation people can follow and remember.

I merge corporate credibility with the craft and discipline of 18 years in storytelling and stand-up comedy to help executives, keynote speakers, and subject-matter experts develop the story, structure the material, use humor naturally, sharpen the language, and strengthen delivery ... without sanding away the speaker’s own voice.

Speaker Coaching

Expert Translation and Contributor Development

Make complicated material simple without making it simplistic.

Through workshops, editorial development, and one-to-one coaching, I help experts and contributors identify what matters, connect it to an audience, and move from raw material to a clear, engaging final story or presentation.

I help you lose the bathwater, keep the baby.

Workshops

Selected Communications and Storytelling Work

Explaining a major service outage to 24,000 customers

TIME WARNER CABLE · CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS AND CORPORATE STORYTELLING

When an underground electrical fire severed a fiber-optic trunk line, 24,000 customers lost cable, internet, and telephone service. I turned the technical explanation into a clear visual story that major technology outlets could share, redirecting the public conversation from corporate failure toward understanding what happened and how crews repaired it.

The resulting post on “Untangled” (Time Warner’s corporate blog) replaced an abstract corporate outage with a specific, human account of what happened, what the repair required, and what the company was doing about it.

Read “Subterranean Fires and Melted Fiber-Optics,” the archived Time Warner Cable post.

High-stakes communication · Technical translation · Digital crisis response

Taking seven contributors from raw material to broadcast

PBS STORIES FROM THE STAGE · CONTRIBUTOR DEVELOPMENT AND BROADCAST PREPARATION

I coached seven storytellers from around the United States, helping them turn raw material into clear, engaging stories without losing their individual voices. They submitted recorded performances, tested their stories before live audiences, and received detailed critique from me and the group during weekly Zoom sessions. By the taping, their stories were production-ready for national PBS broadcast, and they’d become a connected group invested in one another’s success.

All seven contributors progressed through development and rehearsal to the March 19, 2026 broadcast taping. The resulting episode aired in May 2026.

Contributor development · Editorial coaching · Broadcast preparation

Helping a senior leader earn trust during rapid growth

INVISION COMMUNICATIONS · EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS AND SPEAKER COACHING

During a period of rapid growth, Jill Tanner needed to earn the trust of employees who experienced her as distant and intimidating, “like the principal.” We developed an offsite keynote about caring for her mother, who had MS, while trying to maintain a normal teenage life. By sharing the personal experience behind her composed exterior, Jill allowed employees to see a more vulnerable and relatable side of her leadership.

Executive coaching · Leadership narrative · Speaker preparation

About Jeff Simmermon

I spent five years directing digital communications at Time Warner Cable, translating complicated operational and technical information for customers, journalists, executives, and employees. On my first day there, I also told my first story onstage, in the back room of a biker bar where the path to the stage led you between the dart players and the dart board.

Nearly two decades later, I’ve performed stories on public radio, television, and stages around the country. That experience taught me how people actually listen: what earns their attention, what makes an idea land, and what they’ll remember after they leave the room. I bring that knowledge, along with the judgment I developed in corporate communications, to consulting, speaker coaching, and workshops.

I’m based in Brooklyn and available for freelance engagements and relevant full-time roles.

Clarify something complicated

Whether it’s a leadership message, keynote, corporate narrative, or difficult subject, I can help you find the real story, shape it for the audience, make it human, find the humor that’s already there, and strengthen the delivery.

Brooklyn, New York · Available for remote, New York-based, and select on-site work elsewhere