Executive Communication & Influence for Senior ICs and Managers
Wes Kao
Co-founder of Maven (a16z, First Round)
This course is popular
17 people enrolled last week.
Strong communication is a force multiplier
Update: The March 2026 cohort is 97% full. Over 1,500 tech operators have taken this course. If you've been thinking about joining, I'd love to see you in class.
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If you're a high performer, you likely got to where you are because of your raw talent and ability to execute.
But now that your scope has grown, your ability to increase impact depends on how well you influence others.
No one teaches you how to do this beyond the basics...
Until now.
In this 2-day intensive course, you will learn practical ways to:
Influence stakeholders to get buy-in
Prevent avoidable back-and-forth, friction, pushback
Write/speak more clearly and concisely
Pitch your ideas to increase chances of getting a yes
Appeal to impatient executives with high expectations
During the course, you will be drinking from the firehose.
You won't become a different person overnight. But my goal is to help you dramatically improve your competence and confidence in a condensed period of time.
With continued practice, you and your team can move faster. You can spend less time figuring out how to say what you want to say. You can prevent avoidable friction.
You can accomplish more of what you want--and have more fun in the process.
What you’ll learn
Sell your ideas, manage up, gain buy-in, and increase your impact. Sharpen your skills via hands-on exercises, deep dives, scripts, and more
How to move fast when you only have a few minutes of your leadership team's attention
How to handle unexpected questions with finesse
How to get senior leaders to seek out (and truly listen to) your input
How to reduce cognitive load for your manager
How to share the rationale behind your recommendations
How to focus on the punchline if you tend to be verbose
How to get buy-in with less back and forth
How to know the right level of detail to share
How to be more concise (without sacrificing important context)
While writing well takes years to master, we'll focus on simple ways to improve and edit your work
You'll practice during in-class exercises and in the optional homework
You'll see other students' writing, which gives rare visibility into different approaches and styles
How to apply core principles to a range of situations, including managing up, down, and laterally
Practice "reading" situations and subtext with more accuracy so you can make better decisions
How to get enthusiastic buy-in and collaboration from colleagues outside your team
Learn directly from Wes
Wes Kao
Co-founder of Maven. Co-founder of altMBA. Followed by 300k+ operators in tech
Who this course is for
Senior individual contributors (ICs). Marketing leads, PMs, engineers, program managers, UX designers, etc. Minimum 3+ years of experience.
People managers and leaders (heads of, team leads, directors). You run a team and have to get buy-in upwards and x-functionally.
Teams who want shared language so you can move faster, give feedback faster, have shared expectations, and persuade folks outside your team.
Prerequisites
You are open-minded and intellectually honest
There's a difference between "I know this" vs "I do this." This course is for operators who are strong and want to get even sharper.
You are looking for a condensed, intensive experience
This is not for you if you want a slower-paced course over several weeks. This is a 2-day intensive designed for busy operators.
You will continue practicing after the course
This is not for you if you expect to become excellent in communication overnight. You will need to practice ongoing to build muscle memory.
What's included
Live sessions
Learn directly from Wes Kao in a real-time, interactive format.
Access to recordings, templates, scripts
Lifetime access to course resources: full recordings of both days of the workshop, Q&A recordings, etc. Refresh your learning whenever you need to.
Like-minded peers
Students have said they love learning from fellow operators and practitioners.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Bonus content
Takeaway one-pagers, implementation guide, book recommendations, script bank, and more.
Hands-on practice
The course is over 65% interactive. You'll learn through real-life examples, Q&A, hands-on exercises, and tactics you can apply immediately.
Live teardowns
Wes will do live teardowns to dissect a selection of students' exercises, in real-time. Students say this is one of the best parts of the course.
In-class exercises
Each day features 3-4 hands-on exercises (exclusively available in the course). You'll hear live feedback from Wes on a select submissions, so you can hone your intuition for what "great" looks like.
Course syllabus
4 live sessions • 13 lessons
Week 1
Mar
19
Day 1: Executive Communication and Influence with Wes Kao
Thu 3/194:00 PM—7:30 PM (UTC)Mar
19
Day 1: Bonus Q&A with Wes Kao (optional)
Thu 3/197:30 PM—8:30 PM (UTC)Optional
Course Day 1 [Click to expand]
Schedule
Live sessions
8 hrs / week
Thu, Mar 19
4:00 PM—7:30 PM (UTC)
Thu, Mar 19
7:30 PM—8:30 PM (UTC)
Fri, Mar 20
4:00 PM—7:30 PM (UTC)
Fri, Mar 20
7:30 PM—8:30 PM (UTC)
Testimonials
- "Wes dissects the you-know-it-when-you-see-it finesse and framing that separates good communication from great communication. Highly recommend learning from her--one of my favorites for insightful, practical advice with lots of concrete examples to learn from and apply."
Caitlin Hudon
Data Scientist @ Figma - “I've learned so much from Wes: how to influence, write better, communicate with my manager, and more. She shows real, practical examples which lead to "aha" moments of how I could have been doing things 10x better—things I wish I knew years earlier. I highly recommend learning from Wes if you get the chance."
Jordan Cutler
Senior Software Engineer @ Pinterest - "Finally - someone who beautifully articulates the ‘holy shit’ moments I get when working with high performers. Every article l've read from Wes Kao seems to perfectly articulate some of the golden nuggets of advice l've had passed down to me throughout my career - and none of it is the generic stuff you usually see online."
Kevin Ha
Director, Sales Analysis & Insights @ Sephora - “Wes’ frameworks generate great discussions with my team. I really enjoyed the pieces about managing up and about how work requests aren't favors. Thanks for consistently sharing such valuable insights--I've learned a lot.”
Amanda Butler
Senior Manager, Documentation @ Unity - "Wes’ content is the most helpful, practical, concise advice I've ever seen on so many topics and norms that are often unspoken. Recently in a situation at work, leaning on her frameworks helped me compartmentalize, do the right thing, and come out better for it."
Katey Basye
Staff Product Designer @ ServiceNow
If you're a fan of Wes Kao's Newsletter, we will go even deeper to practice these concepts in the course
Frequently asked questions
Student comments from Zoom chat
Latest student reviews:
$850
USD