Zain Asher is an anchor for CNN International based in New York. She anchors One World with Zain Asher airing 11am - 1pm ET. Asher also hosts Marketplace Africa, CNN International’s weekly business show about the continent and its place within global markets, and often interviews CEOs and world leaders from the region for the program. Asher has anchored major breaking news and business stories for CNN including the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the war in Ukraine, the Covid-19 pandemic, the US-China trade war, the August 2020 explosion in Beirut, anti-police violence protests in Nigeria, racial and economic inequality in America, the deaths of both Fidel Castro and boxing legend Muhammad Ali and the 2013 terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon. In 2014 Asher was a part of a CNN team sent to Nigeria to report on the kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls by Boko Haram militants in Chibok, Nigeria. CNN’s coverage of the horrific abduction was recognized with a prestigious 2014 Peabody Award.
With nearly 15 years at the network, Zain has interviewed heads of state, Fortune 500 CEOs, and some of the world's most influential leaders. A WIE Suite member as well, she recently led a masterclass on executive presence on camera and what it truly takes for high-impact leaders to command attention, convey authority, and connect with any audience. Here are some of her tips:
Before technique, before preparation, before delivery, there is belief. Asher was candid about the years she spent vomiting before live segments at CNN, trying every possible fix, from hypnosis to obsessive memorization, before she discovered the one thing that actually moved the needle: her own opinion of herself.
"If you have a low opinion of yourself in private, forget about being on television. If in your private life you have a low opinion of yourself and you struggle with fears and insecurities and feelings of not enoughness, it is very difficult for that not to bleed into your time on television."
After one week of deliberately feeding herself positive thoughts and quieting the internal critic, her boss pulled her aside and told her it was the best performance she had ever delivered at CNN. The lesson was unambiguous. Confidence is not a trick you perform for the camera. It is the interior work you do when no one is watching.
The words you choose matter. But how you deliver them matters just as much, if not more. Asher introduced the concept of paralanguage, the full spectrum of vocal and physical signals that communicate confidence independent of content: pacing, pausing, emphasis, and the deliberate use of silence.
"People are making judgments about you in the first five seconds, first ten seconds. Paralanguage signals your level of confidence."
She was careful to note that paralanguage is not a formula. The right delivery depends on the audience, the message, and the goal. But for executive presence specifically, slowing down, pausing intentionally, and eliminating filler words consistently signal emotional intelligence. The instruction is simple: practice these habits in private, in conversation, at the dinner table, so they become instinctive before the camera ever turns on.
In a media landscape saturated with information, the scarcest resource is genuine emotion. Asher pointed to personal storytelling as the single most powerful tool available to any speaker, noting that audiences are not hungry for facts. They are hungry for what is real.
She used founder Sara Blakely as the definitive example. Every element of Blakely's public narrative, from cutting the feet out of her pantyhose to starting Spanx on five thousand dollars in savings, is deliberately chosen to hit one note: I am just like you. Nothing in her story deviates from that message.
For founders and executives, the implication is direct. A compelling story is not simply a collection of impressive moments. It is a curated sequence of truths, each one reinforcing a single, resonant idea.
Emotional connection at scale requires more than sincerity. It requires craft. Asher outlined a range of rhetorical devices that elevate a message from informative to memorable, including repetition, parallelism, antithesis, and contrast. Used sparingly and with originality, these devices create the kind of moments audiences share.
"It's not what you do during your nine to five that will catapult you. It is what you do after your nine to five."
The mechanics of a shareable sound bite come down to three things: original language that has not been heard before, a delivery that slows and emphasizes at exactly the right moment, and genuine emotional resonance. Asher was clear that this is a practiced skill. Record yourself. Play it back. Notice when you have made the point, and learn to stop talking precisely there.
Asher's final and perhaps most enduring point was about what actually moves people to act. When the goal of a speech or interview is to sell, to inspire, or to build a following, the instinct to perform often works against the outcome. Audiences are acutely sensitive to the difference between a speaker who is trying to take and one who is genuinely trying to give.
"When you give a speech, just focus on being of service. Focus on serving others. That is always going to be the most. I think that's going to always strike people at their core, because it's real and it's honest and it's authentic."
She referenced Simon Sinek's foundational argument: people do not buy what you do, they buy why you do it. The speaker who walks onto a stage with a service mindset, genuinely invested in what the audience walks away with, will always outperform the one calculating the return. Authenticity, Asher argued, is not a personality type. It is a choice made before you ever take the stage.
