Hilary Jeffs

The day job

Hilary set up Jawsmith in 2006. Before that she had spent more than five years running communications training programmes, as European Media Training Manager at Weber Shandwick and head of broadcast at hblmedia. Her own description of the route into it is short: a career in newsrooms, and a lot of time since in committee rooms and boardrooms, without any ceremony about it.

The work is media training, presentation training, executive presence coaching, crisis simulation, and preparing people to give evidence to Select Committees. She has trained cabinet ministers, celebrities and senior executives at companies including Microsoft, Oracle, Coca-Cola, BT, Lloyd's of London and Barclays.

She is particularly well versed in education and careers, having worked with Ofqual since it was set up, with QCA before that from 2002, and with UCAS and the Exam Results Helpline. Which is why episode four, the results day episode, is the one where she stops asking the questions and starts answering them.

She has a degree in mathematics.

What she brings to the show

Experience was Hilary's idea. The format is hers: take one story from the news, put it on the couch, and let a psychologist explain the people in it.

Her half of the conversation is the professional read on how something was said. When Jon Ossoff took apart Pete Hegseth in a Senate hearing in episode two, Hilary is the one explaining why forensic, calm questioning beat a raised voice. When the new Prime Minister faced Kemi Badenoch at the despatch box in episode seven, she is the one asking Peter what gravitas actually is, because teaching it is her job and she wanted a straight answer.

There is a neat symmetry in the pairing. Hilary prepares witnesses to face Select Committees. Peter has given evidence to one.

Elsewhere

Jawsmith