Susie Dent has crafted her entire career from an unswerving passion for words and her belief in the power, influence and effectiveness that rich and precise communication can bring.
Best known for her long-standing role on Channel 4’s ‘Countdown’ (as well as its spin-off show, ‘8 out of 10 Cats does Countdown’), Susie is on a mission to help people understand how words matter for influence and clear communication. More unexpectedly, she also believes that jargon can be good.
Companies all over the world face daily challenges in communicating effectively with their staff and customers. Different demographics, industry-specific lingo and personal interpretations are all potential barriers to success. Susie helps audiences gain a new appreciation of the value that precise language can bring, and suggests ways in which they can integrate this into their own personal and business communication.
Susie is a warm, considered and fascinating speaker, weaving entertaining yet educational stories into her presentations, drawn from a lifetime’s observation of times when language has both helped and hindered. Her presentations have a fun and interactive element too: with ‘Countdown’ inspired games and activities that bring her message to life. These sessions also help to gather feedback, enabling a leadership or management team to refine their own messages and the way they communicate them. Her clients include Axa, The Gateway Alliance, King (makers of Candy Crush Saga) and MAG Interactive.
After studying languages at Oxford and Princeton, Susie spent a number of years working as Editorial Director for Oxford University Press before her television career took off in 2003. She contributes regularly to Five Live Breakfast, BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain, Radio 4 and Audible podcasts, has a weekly column in the Radio Times and on Mental Floss, and is also a Spokesperson for the Oxford English Dictionary. She has written a number of books including What Made the Crocodile Cry” and her latest book, Dent’s Modern Tribes: The Secret Languages of Britain” published in 2016.