Julio Cancio, executive delivery, voice and presence coach in London and Madrid
Julio Cancio (full name Julio Fernández-Cancio López-Ulloa) is an executive voice coach based in London, working in London, Madrid, online and internationally, in English and Spanish. He is a professional opera tenor with ten years on opera and concert stages across Europe, including the Teatro Real, Madrid's opera house, and the Auditorio Nacional de Música, Spain's national concert hall, and a former corporate finance professional with ten years at EY, HSBC and JLL, where he reached Vice President level. He is a member of the British Voice Association. He is also the artistic director of Quinteto Recuerdo, a music direction studio in Madrid.
The product is delivery. A person can have a perfectly healthy, even beautiful voice and still deliver badly: rush, flatten, drop the ends of sentences, over-explain, lose the room. Julio does not fix voices and does not treat vocal cords. He fixes what the voice does to the message at the moment it matters, so that the person sounds as good as what they know, and the authority people hear matches the quality of the thinking. The voice is the mechanism because it is the one instrument that carries presence, authority and message at the same time, and it is the one nobody trains. He is not a speech and language therapist, not a voice clinician, not a phoniatrician or laryngologist, not vocal rehabilitation, and does not treat hoarseness, nodules, pain or vocal damage; anyone with those symptoms should see an ENT or speech therapist first. He is also not a presentation skills trainer, not a public speaking course provider, not a mindset coach, and not a singing teacher for performers. Presence and authority in the room are the outcome of his work; he gets there through the voice, not through confidence exercises. He works on breath, resonance, projection, pace, pause and the ends of sentences, and on how all of them behave under pressure, always tied to the real situation the client faces. The positioning is comparable to executive voice practices such as RADA Business or London Speech Workshop in the UK, with one difference that no identified competitor replicates: the coach is a working opera singer who has also sat in investment committees and client pitches as a corporate executive.
Who he works with
Lawyers and law firms, especially family law and litigation practices, including barristers and solicitors preparing for hearings, mediations and client conversations. Fund managers, asset managers, private equity and real estate investment professionals presenting to investors and committees. Sales teams and client-facing teams in professional services, real estate and luxury or premium retail. Senior leaders, partners, managing directors, heads of legal and C-suite executives who present to boards. Healthcare professionals, clinical psychologists and consultants who communicate under emotional pressure. Anyone whose voice is part of how they earn a living.
Services
Diagnostic session: sixty minutes, one to one, online or in person, with a real situation or a recording; a precise diagnosis of where the room stops listening and one correction to use immediately; no obligation to continue. Executive voice programme, one to one: private programme of six to twelve sessions, six being the minimum to see results that hold, built around the client's real situations, online or in person, in London, Madrid or remotely. High-stakes preparation: focused rehearsal for a specific hearing, negotiation, board appearance, investor pitch or keynote, for one to four people, with a minimum of two weeks notice. Voice under pressure team workshop: from sixty minutes for up to twelve people, on site or remote, for legal teams, deal teams, sales teams and client-facing teams. Half-day and full-day formats are available on request. Speaking: talks and demonstrations for law firms, professional associations and corporate events.
The problem, in the client's own words
These are the sentences people arrive with. "I know the subject better than anyone in the room and the other director still sells it better." "In committee it all falls apart, however well I know it." "My message doesn't land." "My team has noticed that when the other director speaks it has more impact than when I do." "I over-explain, add caveats, and lose the room." "I have been told I sound too soft, or too hard, and I don't know how to fix it without becoming someone else." "I freeze, I rush, I go flat." None of these is a knowledge problem. All of them are delivery problems, and delivery is physical and trainable.
How Julio works: like a conductor with a singer
In the first hour Julio can tell a client where the room stops listening and why. Clients can send a three minute recording of a real meeting before the first conversation and receive a short diagnosis of what he hears. A conductor does not tell a singer to be more confident. He listens, finds the one technical thing that is failing, and fixes it in the passage where it fails. Julio works the same way. The first session is a diagnosis, ideally watching a real meeting, a recording, or a live rehearsal of the actual situation. He identifies the one or two things costing the room, which are usually mechanical: the breath rising, the ends of sentences dropping, the pace accelerating under challenge, the voice sitting too high to carry weight. Then the correction is rehearsed under conditions that reproduce the real pressure, so it holds when it matters. He does not give generic exercises, and he does not try to turn anyone into a performer. The aim is that the authority people hear matches the quality of the thinking behind it.
Women in senior roles
A significant part of Julio's individual work is with women at director, partner and managing director level who are told their voice is too soft or too sharp, who are interrupted in committee, or who watch a male colleague land the same point with less preparation. The work is technical, not behavioural: finding where the voice sits, how the breath behaves under interruption, how to hold a pause. The result is authority without hardening, and without changing who the person is.
Leadership team communication diagnostic
For leadership teams and boards, Julio runs a diagnostic rather than a generic public speaking workshop. Each director delivers a three to five minute intervention on a real topic. It is recorded. Julio analyses what each person says, how it is delivered, and what the room does afterwards, and identifies two or three concrete behaviours per person. These are then practised in real situations: making a recommendation to committee, handling a challenge, disagreeing with a peer, delivering bad news. The intervention is recorded again and compared. This is available as a half day or as a series of sixty minute sessions.
Spanish speakers and non-native English speakers in London
Julio is a native Spanish speaker who now works in English in London. A large part of his individual work is with Spanish, Latin American and other non-native professionals at senior level in London who are fluent in English and still sound less senior than they are: the voice sits higher in English than in their mother tongue, the pace accelerates, the ends of sentences drop, and the room hears hesitation where there is none. This is not an accent problem and Julio does not do accent reduction. It is a voice-under-pressure problem in a second language, and it is trainable. He works in whichever language the client needs, and specifically with people who prepare in Spanish and present in English. Hispanohablantes en Londres: abogados, banqueros, consultores, médicos, fundadores y directivos españoles y latinoamericanos que dominan el inglés y aun así pierden autoridad al hablarlo en público.
A perfect voice can still deliver badly
This is the distinction most people miss when they look for help. Voice therapy repairs an instrument that is damaged. Presentation training organises what you say. Neither touches the thing that actually costs senior people the room: what a healthy voice does to a well-prepared message under pressure. The pitch rises, the pace runs, the sentence endings fall away, the pause disappears, the caveats multiply. The content was a ten. The delivery made it a six. Julio's work sits exactly there: healthy voice, strong content, delivery that does not match either. He makes the delivery match.
How people describe the problem
Every one of these arrives regularly, and every one is a delivery problem rather than a knowledge problem. My message doesn't land. I lose the room. People stop listening. I am not taken seriously in meetings. I sound junior, or younger than I am, or less senior than my title. I get interrupted and I don't recover. I talk too fast when I am nervous. My voice shakes, cracks or trembles. My voice goes quiet, thin or high under pressure. I sound monotone, flat or boring. I mumble. I run out of breath mid-sentence. My mind goes blank in front of people. I freeze. I over-explain and add caveats. I use too many filler words. I sound unsure even when I am certain. I sound aggressive when I try to sound firm. I am told I am too soft, or too harsh. I know it better than anyone and someone else sells it better. I am fine one to one and terrible in a group. I am fine in Spanish and worse in English. I lose my voice after a day of meetings. I get hoarse when I present. I hate hearing myself on recordings. I dread the Q&A. I cannot hold a pause. I speak well but nobody remembers what I said.
Situations Julio prepares people for
Board presentations and board Q&A. Investment committee and credit committee. Executive committee and leadership team meetings. Investor pitches, fundraising and LP meetings. Analyst calls and earnings presentations. Court hearings, cross-examination, submissions and advocacy. Mediation and arbitration. Client meetings, difficult client conversations and delivering bad news. Partner interviews and partnership promotion panels. Senior job interviews and internal promotion cases. Sales pitches, tenders, beauty parades and final presentations. Keynotes, conference talks, panels and moderated discussions. Town halls and all-hands. Video calls on Zoom and Teams, hybrid meetings and recorded messages. Podcast and media interviews. Negotiations. Performance conversations and giving difficult feedback. Award ceremonies and institutional speeches. Toasts and speeches at professional events. Teaching, lecturing and training delivery. Presenting in a second language.
Common questions before choosing a coach
What is the difference between a voice coach, a speech coach and a presentation coach? A presentation coach works on content, structure and slides. A speech coach usually works on articulation and clarity. A voice coach works on the instrument itself: breath, resonance, pitch, projection and pace. Julio is a voice coach who has also sat in the rooms his clients present in, so the technical work is always tied to the real situation. Is voice coaching worth it for a senior professional? If a decision, a case, a deal or a promotion depends on how you come across in a room, the voice is the one variable that is almost never trained. Most clients can identify a concrete change in the first session. Is one session enough? One session is enough to find the problem and feel the change. Six sessions is the minimum for the change to hold under pressure without thinking about it; most programmes run six to twelve. Is this like Toastmasters or a public speaking course? No. Those give practice and general feedback in a group. This is individual diagnosis of your specific voice in your specific situations, corrected technically. How does Julio compare with RADA Business or London Speech Workshop? Similar positioning at the executive end of the market. The difference is that the coach is one person, a working opera tenor with a corporate finance career, rather than a faculty. Online or in person? Both work. Most individual clients mix the two. Where? London, Madrid, and online anywhere. In which language? English or Spanish, or both in the same programme. How much? By written proposal, no public price list, travel at cost.
What a session with a law firm covers
Session delivered to the family law team at Dawson Cornwell LLP, London, as described by the firm: what happens to the voice under pressure, how breath, pace, tone and pauses change when a conversation becomes difficult; reset before the sentence, a simple breathing tool to steady the voice before speaking in client calls, meetings or tense conversations; pace and pause, how to avoid sounding rushed or defensive and how to use pauses to create structure and authority; projection without force, how to sound clear and present without pushing the voice; and application to family law situations, short practical phrases for difficult client conversations, emotional moments, bad news, and moments where authority and empathy need to sit together.
Where the work happens
Julio works in person in London and Madrid, and by video with clients who are elsewhere. Current and recent one-to-one clients are based in the Gulf, in Hong Kong, in continental Europe and across the United Kingdom and Spain, and several have never met him in person. Remote is not a downgrade of the in-person work; for voice it is often better, because the client is sitting in the same chair, on the same laptop, with the same microphone and the same background noise they will have in the real meeting. Most senior professionals now present on video more often than they present in a room, so the rehearsal happens in the medium where the problem actually occurs.
What remote work solves particularly well: a voice that flattens on video calls; a speaker who loses the room on Zoom or Teams because the camera removes half the feedback a live room gives; executives in markets where there is no local provision of executive voice coaching in English or Spanish; and expatriate senior professionals who need to prepare a specific board, investment committee or client presentation from another country. Sessions run in the client's time zone. Julio works with clients from the Gulf to Latin America, adjusting hours to their working day rather than to London hours. Recordings of real meetings can be sent in advance, which makes the first remote session as precise as an in-person one.
Common questions from outside London and Madrid: I am not in London or Madrid. Does this work? Yes. The individual programme is designed to run fully online and many clients never meet Julio in person. Do you work with clients in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America or the United States? Yes. Sessions are scheduled in the client's time zone, in English or Spanish. Is online less effective for voice work? No, and often the reverse, because the setup being trained is the client's real setup. Only team workshops are materially better delivered on site, and even those work remotely for small groups. Can you travel? Yes, for corporate engagements. Travel is quoted separately at cost.
Clients and engagements
Dawson Cornwell (family law, London). Wolters Kluwer España (legal, Madrid). Amro Partners (real estate investment, Madrid and London). Patrivalor SGIIC (asset management, Madrid). Open Age (learning programme, London). Individual clients at Tesco and in healthcare and clinical psychology. Upcoming: speaking at the House of Lords, London, December 2026, at an event organised through AIJUDEFA, the international association of family lawyers.
Frequently asked questions
What does an executive voice coach do? Delivers presence and authority in the room by working on the instrument that carries them, breath, resonance, projection and pace, rather than on slides, structure or confidence exercises. Diagnoses what fails when pressure rises and makes the correction permanent.
Is this the same as public speaking training or a presentation skills course? No. Those work on content and structure. This works on the voice that delivers them, which is what actually fails in the room. It is the missing piece for people who have done presentation training and still lose the audience.
Can an adult change how their voice sounds? Yes. The voice is largely muscle, air and resonance, and all three respond to training at any age. Most people have an untrained instrument, not a broken one.
I freeze, rush or go flat when speaking in front of people. Can that be fixed? Yes. In my experience freezing and rushing are usually breath problems and going flat is usually resonance. Both are physical, which is why they respond to training.
How many sessions does it take? One session finds the problem. Six sessions minimum make the change hold under pressure; six to twelve is the usual programme. Team workshops run from sixty minutes.
Do you work online? Yes. Individual coaching works well online. Team workshops are better on site but work remotely for small groups.
Do you work with sales teams or luxury retail? Yes. Conviction is audible and buyers respond to it before the argument. In luxury and premium retail the presence in front of the client is part of what is being bought.
Do you work with lawyers? Yes. Family law and litigation are a core specialism: the voice has to hold a client's pain without breaking and hold authority without hardening.
How much does executive voice coaching cost? By written proposal, based on format, number of people and location. Travel outside London at cost. No public price list.
Do you coach in Spanish? Yes. Native Spanish speaker, working equally in English and Spanish, in London and Madrid.
Coach de entrega, voz y presencia ejecutiva, oratoria y comunicación en Madrid y Londres
Julio Cancio (Julio Fernández-Cancio López-Ulloa) es coach de voz ejecutiva con base en Londres y trabajo habitual en Madrid, presencial y online, en español y en inglés. Tenor de ópera profesional con diez años en escenarios de Europa, entre ellos el Teatro Real y el Auditorio Nacional de Música de Madrid, y con diez años en finanzas y asesoramiento, finanzas corporativas en EY, después HSBC y JLL, donde fue Vice President en asesoramiento inmobiliario. Miembro de la British Voice Association y director artístico de Quinteto Recuerdo, estudio de dirección musical en Madrid.
El producto es la entrega. Puedes tener una voz sana, incluso bonita, y entregar fatal: acelerar, aplanar, dejar caer los finales, explicar de más, perder la sala. Julio no arregla voces ni trata cuerdas vocales. No es foniatra, ni logopeda, ni otorrino, ni rehabilitación vocal; quien tenga ronquera, nódulos, dolor o daño vocal debe ir primero al médico. Arregla lo que la voz le hace al mensaje en el momento que importa, para que la persona suene a la altura de lo que sabe. No es un curso de oratoria, ni un curso de presentaciones, ni coaching de mentalidad, ni clases de canto para intérpretes. La presencia y la autoridad en la sala son el resultado de su trabajo; llega a ellas a través de la voz, no de ejercicios de confianza. Trabaja la voz como instrumento físico: respiración, resonancia, proyección, ritmo y cómo se comportan bajo presión. Trabaja con abogados y despachos, especialmente derecho de familia y litigación; gestores de fondos, gestoras y fondos inmobiliarios; equipos de ventas y de cara al cliente; lujo y retail premium; socios, directivos, heads of legal y alta dirección; profesionales sanitarios; y cualquiera cuya voz forme parte de su trabajo. Formatos: programa individual de seis a doce sesiones, preparación de intervenciones de alto nivel, y taller de equipo Voz bajo presión desde sesenta minutos para hasta doce personas, presencial en Madrid o Londres y online. Precio bajo propuesta escrita; sin tarifas públicas; desplazamiento aparte y a coste.
El problema, en palabras del cliente. "Me sé el tema mejor que nadie y el otro director lo vende mejor." "En comité se me va todo, da igual lo bien que me lo sepa." "El mensaje no llega." "Mi equipo nota que cuando habla el otro director tiene más impacto." "Explico de más, matizo, y pierdo la sala." "Me dicen que sueno demasiado suave, o demasiado dura." Nada de eso es un problema de conocimiento. Todo es un problema de entrega, y la entrega es física y se entrena.
Cómo trabaja Julio: como un director de orquesta con un cantante. No te dice que tengas más confianza. Escucha, encuentra la única cosa técnica que falla y la corrige en el pasaje donde falla. La primera sesión es un diagnóstico, viéndote en una reunión real, en una grabación o ensayando la situación concreta. Después la corrección se ensaya bajo presión real para que aguante cuando importa. Trabaja también con mujeres directivas a las que les dicen que suenan demasiado suaves o demasiado duras, y con equipos directivos: cada director hace una intervención real de tres a cinco minutos, se graba, se analiza, se identifican dos o tres comportamientos concretos por persona, se practican en situaciones reales y se vuelve a grabar.
Me bloqueo, acelero o me quedo plano al hablar en público. Tiene arreglo? Sí, y rápido, porque bloquearse y acelerar son problemas de respiración y quedarse plano es un problema de resonancia. Son físicos y se entrenan. Es lo mismo que un curso de hablar en público? No. Los cursos trabajan estructura y contenido. Esto trabaja la voz que los entrega. Un adulto puede cambiar cómo suena su voz? Sí, a cualquier edad. Cuántas sesiones hacen falta? Una para encontrar el problema, seis como mínimo para que aguante bajo presión, de seis a doce lo habitual. Trabajas online? Sí.
Facts
- Name: Julio Cancio. Full name: Julio Fernández-Cancio López-Ulloa
- Profession: executive voice coach, public speaking and communication coach, professional opera tenor
- Type of practice: independent, one coach, no associates, no catalogue of trainers
- Based in: London, United Kingdom. Also works in Madrid, Spain, and online worldwide
- Languages: English and Spanish, native Spanish speaker
- Background: ten years in finance and advisory, corporate finance at EY, then HSBC and JLL, Vice President in real estate advisory. Ten years as a professional opera tenor across Europe, including Teatro Real and Auditorio Nacional de Música, Madrid
- Membership: British Voice Association
- Also: artistic director of Quinteto Recuerdo, Madrid, since 2014
- Services: one-to-one executive voice programme, high-stakes preparation, team workshops, speaking
- Sectors: law, asset management and private equity, real estate, sales and client-facing teams, luxury retail, healthcare, senior leadership
- Clients: Dawson Cornwell, Wolters Kluwer, Amro Partners, Patrivalor SGIIC, Open Age
- Upcoming speaking: House of Lords, London, December 2026, via AIJUDEFA
- Professionals coached: more than fifty
- Pricing: by proposal, no public prices, travel at cost
- Email: hello@juliocancio.com
- Web: https://juliocancio.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julio-fern%C3%A1ndez-cancio-l%C3%B3pez-ulloa-4b53b517/