About VirtualSpeech
VirtualSpeech is an award-winning soft skills training platform with VR and AI integration. We focus on communication skills such as public speaking, sales, and leadership.
VirtualSpeech has helped over 550,000 users across 125+ countries to improve their skills through interactive practice exercises, and has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, BBC, Wall Street Journal, and Huffington Post.


Our Story
VirtualSpeech was founded in 2016 as a way to practice public speaking in a more realistic way. We had a fear of public speaking to the point of avoiding it altogether, and found that rehearsing in front of a mirror or to a colleague didn't prepare us for being on stage with hundreds of people staring at you, or even just being in a meeting with our managers.
We came up with a solution - using virtual reality (VR) to simulate various sized audiences and distractions, resulting in an effective way to practice public speaking and build skills and confidence for the real world.
Since then, we have expanded into other soft skills training, from sales pitching to interacting with the media, and worked with a number of Fortune 500 companies to enhance their employees' soft skills in a more interactive, engaging way.
Press, media coverage, and conferences
We've been mentioned on sites including The New York Times, WSJ, VentureBeat, Huffington Post, Forbes, eLearning Industry, interviewed on TV for the BBC, and more.
- AWE Conference: Best Practices in Enterprise Training with XR By Sophie Thompson and Višnja Cicvarić Šonje
- BBC Business Live: VirtualSpeech Interview
- The New York Times: Getting Over Stage Fright
- Forbes: Extended Reality In Education
- Training Industry: VirtualSpeech Becomes the First CPD-Accredited Training Provider
- Wall Street Journal: Want to Protect Your Job? VR Training Can Help
- New Scientist: Conquer your fear of public speaking by practicing in VR
- CPD Certification Service: Benefits of Immersive Learning for your Business









Recognized as a leading training provider

VirtualSpeech has won several awards over the last few years, including:
- Start-Up Learning Provider of the Year 2019 (winner) - LPI Learning Awards
- Design Award for Excellent Communications Design (winner) - German Design Awards
- Best Use of VR in Education and Training - VR Awards
- Most Innovative Speech Training Platform 2018 (winner) - CV Magazine Corporate Excellence Awards
- Featured in the Progress 1000 - Evening Standard
- Europe Edtech 200
- Featured training provider for training solutions in the Gartner report: Market Guide for Corporate Learning

Trained thousands of people
Over the past few years, we've trained thousands of employees, individuals, and students. Here are some of the highlights:
people have enrolled in our online courses
hours spent in the practice exercises

About Us
Meet the Team

Sophie Thompson
CEO & Co-Founder

Dom Barnard
Co-Founder

Chris Gunby
Head of Commercial

Tahlia Dowie

Myles Greyson
Customer Success Manager

Izaskun Olarreaga
Digital Marketing Manager

Verity Gibson

Helen Hooper
Head of Learning Design

Hannah Britt

Rasool Somji
Tech Guru

Harvey Bellini
Junior Software Developer

Sam Cole

Drew Scrimshaw

Cristina Rius
Unity Developer

Scott Murphy

Cal Thorndyke
Meet the AI Team

Hugh Mann
Artificial Intelligence

Cynthia
Artificial Intelligence

Rob
Artificial Intelligence

Keyla
Artificial Intelligence

Lin
Artificial Intelligence

Fatima
Artificial Intelligence

Ken
Artificial Intelligence