Presenting to Leadership: 10 Minutes That Could Change Your Career

How to prepare a 10-minute presentation for your CEO or board: a 5-slide structure, an opening line, handling tough questions and what to do after the meeting.

Wednesday afternoon, your manager walks over: "Next week, can you present this to the MD? You have 10 minutes." You nod, go back to your desk, open the 25-slide deck you used with your team last month, and start worrying about how to cut it down.

Presenting to leadership is a different skill from presenting to your team. Do it well and senior people remember your name as someone who thinks clearly and gets to the point, which often leads to new opportunities.

How executives listen differently

• Little time: your 10 minutes usually include Q&A, and may be cut shorter if earlier agenda items overrun
• Impact over process: they want to know how this affects revenue, cost, customers or risk, not how many steps your team went through
• They have to decide: executives come into the room to choose, approve or reject. If you do not say what you need, they will not know what to do with your information
• They interrupt early: be ready for questions from the very first slide

A 5-slide structure that works for almost any topic

1. One-sentence summary: "We propose to [do what] because [main reason], and today we are asking for [what approval]." An executive who only sees this slide should understand the whole story
2. Problem or opportunity: one or two pieces of data showing why this needs discussing now
3. Evidence: numbers or test results that support the proposal. One chart readable in five seconds beats a long table
4. Options: two or three paths, each with pros, cons, cost and risk
5. Recommendation and ask: which option you recommend, how much budget, people or time you need, and the next step if approved

Move everything else to an appendix. You do not present it, but you can open it instantly when asked. To practise getting to the point, see communicating with C-level executives.

A better opening than "Hello, today I will tell you about"

Open with the conclusion, not the background. Compare these two.

• The one that makes executives check their phones: "Today I will walk you through the background of the project. Our team started researching last quarter..."
• The one that grabs attention: "Customer cancellations have risen for three months in a row. The team proposes changing the renewal flow, and today we are asking for approval to test it with a small customer group for one month."

This is a hypothetical scenario. What matters is that within three sentences the audience knows the problem, the proposal and the decision needed.

Prepare for the questions executives often ask

1. "What is the impact?": answer with a number or a range, and say how you estimated it
2. "Why not the other option?": since you prepared options on slide 4, you can answer right away
3. "What are the risks?": be direct and bring a mitigation plan. Hiding risks costs more credibility than admitting them
4. "What do you need?": budget, people and timeline, clearly
5. "Who else supports this?": if you have already spoken with the teams involved, say so

If you are asked something you do not know, do not guess. Say "Let me check the exact figure and send it to you by tomorrow," and then do it.

Mistakes that cost you the opportunity

• Telling it in chronological order: time runs out just as you reach the conclusion
• Text-heavy slides: executives read instead of listening. See the design principles in building good slides
• Not stating the ask: the meeting ends with "Good, let's discuss later", which means nothing happens
• Arguing when challenged: listen fully, say thank you, then answer with data
• Not rehearsing with a timer: rehearse to finish in 6 to 7 minutes to leave room for questions

Executives do not need to know everything you know. They need to know enough to decide.

How to start preparing

1. Write the one-sentence summary before you build slides. If you cannot write it yet, your thinking is not finished
2. Ask your manager what kind of numbers this executive likes and what they often ask
3. Build the 5 slides using the structure above and move the rest to the appendix
4. Write at least 8 questions you might be asked, with short answers
5. Rehearse twice with a timer, once with a colleague interrupting you
6. After the meeting, send an email summarising the agreement and next steps the same day

To make your story more compelling, read storytelling at work, or walk your outline through AI Career Assistant and have it ask the kind of questions an executive might, before you walk into the real room. And for feedback from someone who has presented to leadership before, book a conversation with a mentor on Plants.work.