Skip to content
Sign in
Artwork for The ACE Masterclasses Podcast
BusinessCareers

The ACE Masterclasses Podcast

ACE Masterclasses

Practical conversations about the hard skills companies expect but rarely teach.

Nick Breukelman and Mark van der Burgt spent years working in consulting and large corporate organizations before starting ACE Masterclasses. In this podcast, they talk through the things they had to learn on the job: how to structure information that arrives as a mess, build a storyline people can follow, write a slide that says something instead of simply describing what is on it, put together a business case, and understand where AI helps and where it still does not.

No lengthy theory or corporate fluff. Just practical skills you can use the next morning.

Play
Open in
  • 2 episodes
  • Avg 24 min
  • English

Episodes 2

NewestOldestLongest
All2Unplayed2In progress0Played0
  • S1 · E2
    September 9 · 20 min

    Ep 02. Why 9 Out of 10 Documents Don’t Get Read

    People spend evenings and weekends perfecting decks, send them a week in advance, and still arrive at a meeting where nobody has read them. Why does this keep happening? In Episode 2, Nick Breukelman and Mark van der Burgt explore why decision documents become too long and how to make them easier to read, discuss and act on. They cover the 10-page rule, cover memos, SCQ, the pyramid principle, appendices, stakeholder management and the difficult art of killing your darlings. A practical conversation about building documents around the decision and respecting the reader’s time.

    • Transcript
  • S1 · E1
    August 2 · 27 min

    Ep 01. Why Didn’t Someone Teach Me This?

    Why do companies expect people to communicate clearly, structure complex information and build decision-ready presentations, while rarely teaching them how to do it? In this pilot episode, Mark and Nick have an open conversation about the hard skills that made the biggest difference in their own careers and eventually led them to start ACE Masterclasses. People kept asking for the full conversation after the clips, so here it is. Listen to the episode and let us know what you think of the format and what you would like them to explore next.

    • Transcript
Showing 1–2 of 2 episodes