About Paul
Paul Quinn has over 30 years’ experience as a presentation coach, writer, and corporate seminar leader across a wide range of industries. He is the author of a forthcoming book about the power of asking as a vital skill in work, at home, and beyond.
Background
After earning a bachelor’s degree in Theatre Performance from Illinois State University, Paul studied improvisation under Don DePollo at Chicago’s Second City, appeared in television commercials for Ramada Inn, TimeLife Books, Shopko, and others; and co-founded The Idea Theatre, a Chicago-based touring troupe featured on the ABC television special “Just Say No!” with Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey. He later transitioned from actor to wordsmith writing more than 75 branding, educational, or training videos, many award-winning, on a wide range of topics for Encyclopedia Britannica, Sears, Allstate Insurance, Campbell’s Soup, Abbott Laboratories, and many others.
In partnership with World View Productions Ltd., Paul wrote over 20 videos for PepsiCo on workplace health and safety and helped many employee “stars” prepare for on-camera appearances. For TBA Global Events he wrote creative proposals for Audi and Walmart and had the pleasure of providing “comedy intel” for Whose Line Is It Anyway stars Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood.
Paul’s success in writing training videos led to his eight years as head of client coaching (training) programs for Chicago-based Unipro Marketing, then the second-largest tradeshow marketing and events company in North America. At Unipro he conducted seminars in the U.S. and abroad on customer engagement, sales, and presentation skills for clients including IBM, Xerox, FedEx, U.S. Postal Service, Bosch Automotive, Panasonic, LifeFitness, Maritz, LaSalle Bank, Tivoli Systems, Quintiles, Lucent Technologies, Sabreliner, and Amdocs.
For microfinance leader Opportunity International (see case study), Paul served as head writer for nine of the organization’s national conferences and coached many of the speakers, panelists, and breakout session leaders including ESL (English as a Second Language) speakers visiting the U.S. for the first time.
Paul partnered with Articulate Creative Services, Inc., forming a two-man team that coached multiple presenters for Weatherford International’s annual investor relations meetings, and coached 108 presenters in more than 40 unique presentations for the company’s 2020 sales meeting (see case study).
He has written speeches for C-level executives at Waste Management, Inc., Weatherford International, Abbott Laboratories, and Opportunity International and led workshops in presentation skills for McDonald’s Corporation (see case study), PepsiCo, The Signature Group, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, the Young Lawyers Section of the Chicago Bar Association, Northeastern Illinois University, and Minority Economic Resource Council, among others.
In addition to holding a bachelor’s degree, Paul is a 1986 graduate of a 350-hour Facilitator Training Program at Chicago’s Oasis Center for Human Potential, likened at the time to the Esalen Institute for the breadth and depth of its personal growth curriculum. He received practitioner certification in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) from the NLP Institute of Chicago.