This article appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek’s January 24-30, 2011 edition. The print edition includes photographs that are missing in the on-line copy.
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By helping workers find their inner voices, Toastmasters has become a behemoth
By Joel Stein
The 1,500 people walking around the Desert Springs Marriott appear as diverse as the Pitt-Jolie family. Yet despite being of both genders and of every age and race, they all seem like old, white insurance salesmen. They’re confident, friendly, and wearing boxy blazers affixed with thick, plastic name badges. And they’re probably not people the Pitt-Jolie family would hang out with.
They gathered in Palm Desert, Calif., last August for the annual Toastmasters International Convention. While Toastmasters has been teaching people how to improve their public speaking since 1924, the nonprofit started aggressively pushing for international growth when Daniel Rex became executive director in 2008. The 250,000-member organization now adds global Toastmasters at about 10 percent per year. (Much of the growth comes from India and Sri Lanka, places where people want to learn business skills—and English.) This month, Toastmasters begins its 2011 International Speech Contest in which 38,000 contestants from 113 countries compete for the chance to walk around a hotel next summer in a boxy suit and name tag—and the title of World Champion of Public Speaking.
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