"For most teens, being a self-advocate is about as comfortable as taking their SAT college exams," notes Peggy Klaus, author of the book BRAG! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It (available in hardcover and paperback from Warner Books). A top Fortune 500 communication and leadership coach, Klaus has taught thousands of professionals the art of bragging with style and grace. Now, through her book and BRAG! programs for teens, she is teaching people of all ages how to brag—and get away with it. Klaus is also the author of The Hard Truth About Soft Skills—Workplace Lessons Smart People Wish They'd Learned Sooner (Collins, January 2008) and provides a variety of corporate programs for increasing soft skills mastery.

Klaus has mentored and presented to teens on communication, self-promotion and leadership issues through the CrossRoads Foundation/Backyard Project, the prominent Young Women’s Leadership School and Foundation in Manhattan, the Professional Business Women of California (PBWC), and Linkage’s Women In Leadership Summit. As president of Klaus & Associates in Berkeley, CA, she is a much in-demand consultant who has spent more than a decade advising the business and professional community in the art of self-presentation and promotion through speaking, coaching, and workshops for leading organizations including Levi Strauss, Disney, American Express, General Mills, JP Morgan Chase, Cisco Systems, and The Harvard Business School Alumni Association, among others.

Klaus’s colorful and frank advice is frequently sought out by journalists. She has been featured and quoted extensively in a wide range of media including ABC's 20/20, NBC's Today, CNN, Glamour, The New York Times, CNET, The Wall Street Journal, 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. Klaus has advanced degrees in drama, speech and theatre from the Royal Academy of Music and the Drama Studio, both in London.

A Philadelphia native, Klaus started off in Hollywood coaching entertainers for The Tonight Show and Cosby, along with 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 executive presence, women's leadership, self-promotion, “Presentation 101,” and crisis communication, among others.