Who should speak at conferences?

Speaking at conferences is a great marketing opportunity to expose your company.
The questions is who who should speak and present the company?

Speaker requirements

The Founder, the Managing Director, the CTO, the VP Sales, VP Marketing or just an employee who speaks and presets well ?
Of course the choice will depend on the audience that has to be addressed. Sending the VP Marketing to a technical conference will not work.

• The speaker should be knowledgeable about the subject
• The speaker has to be confident during his presentation and he needs to be capable to answer the questions
• The speaker should be entertaining: speaking in public should be entertaining. The better entertainment, the more likely the audience will remember the speaker or your company. Show business is not far off. The same tricks apply.
• The voice of the speaker should not put people asleep but keep them awake
• The appearance of the speaker should be positive
• The attitude of the speaker should be positive or appear as positive
• The speaker should be comfortable about the subject or matters he is speaking about. Any sign of uncertainty will be noticed by the audience and might kill the general impression

Who to select ?

So who do you select as the speaker?
The most appropriate or most entertaining person in the company as the goal is to create brand of product awareness in order to generate leads.
Or the person with the biggest ego ?
As the person with the biggest ego is likely to be the highest in the hierarchy, he will promote himself as the best speaker which might not be the best for the company as his ego could spoil the impression of the company.

In your company who speaks at conferences ? and why ?