The team slide sounds simple, but how much information should you include? Should you include photos? What if you have twelve people to introduce? Is there a difference if you're presenting live vs. sending the deck as a PDF?
This post covers what typically goes on a team slide, what you can leave out, when to break the standard rules, and which layout works best for different situations.
What Goes on a Team Slide
Most team slides pull from the same set of elements. The question is which ones to choose: you don't need to be including all of these at once.
The non-negotiables:
- Name
- Title or role
Usually included:
- Photo
almost always, though there are exceptions (more on that below) - Short description
1-3 sentences about background, expertise, or what they contribute
Situational additions:
- Company or university logos showing where someone has worked or studied
- A specific project role — what this person is doing on this engagement
- Years of experience or a notable credential
- Contact information or a social link — especially useful for shared PDFs
- A fun fact or personal detail — common in casual introductions and onboarding
- Awards or recognition
Note: The most common mistake is including too much of all of these at once. A photo, name, title, and one sentence is almost always enough for a live presentation. Everything else serves a specific purpose. If you can't name that purpose, it probably doesn't belong on the slide.
The Format That Best Fits Your Situation
Small Team: 2-3 People
With a small team you have room to breathe! Each person can have a larger photo, a fuller description, and the slide still feels clean.
This two-person layout includes photos, names, titles, and description for each member that is long enough to include multiple bullets. There is also a sidebar where you can list information that encompasses both individuals: why they are the perfect complementary duo, or information on company or experience context. The sidebar is useful for small teams because it lets you add team-level framing ("combined 40 years of experience" or "previously at X and Y") without crowding the individual bios.
In this layout example, you have three people in a row with photo, name, title, and a long description for each. Though the sidebar is missing, this layout includes a footer section with checkmarks where you can include information that is about the full team. It also includes a strong title and subtitle so you can frame the introduction before the individual bios ("Who you'll be working with" or "The team behind this project").
Mid-Size Team: 4-6 People
Four to six people is a tricky range to design for. You have too many people for truly generous spacing, but not so many that you need to strip everything back to just a photo and name. The temptation is to squeeze everyone in with smaller photos and shorter bios, but you have to be careful not to get too crowded.
The best approach is to decide upfront what the slide's one job is: is it to show who these people are as individuals, or to show the team's collective structure and capability? The answer determines whether you lead with bios or with roles.
This clean, modern layout pops by introducing a background color in the header of the slide. In it, each of four team members gets a photo, name, title, and a short description. The layout is well-balanced for four: each person gets enough room to feel like an individual. This type of layout is great for project teams, founding teams, or client-facing introductions.
→ Our Team is Built for Flexibility PPT
An alternate layout gives you more personality than the usual slide. In this example, the photo of each member is much larger and each member is allowed to show individuality and personality in their pic. The name is included in a field that is superimposed on the photo to give the photo even more room! Slides like this work really well for pitch decks, internal presentations, team introductions, cool companies that want distinct branding, and anyone else who wants to stand out and make their team have a specific character.
You still get all the important fields like name, title, and description, but your photos do double duty by the nature of their size and the fact that you can infuse your company ethos and personality directly through them.
Designed specifically for department and team introductions, this six-person team slide gives you one slide per person for extra breathing room. As you click through, the next person is highlighted and you can go through them one at a time.
Each team member is highlighted in a different color and you have a decent amount of room to cover their role, their main objectives, and how they accomplish those. These details can be for the person individually or for a sub-team or department they are leading.
Large Team: 8 or More People
At this scale, accept that individual descriptions won't fit and focus on names, photos, and titles presented cleanly. Your audience isn't going to absorb detailed bios for ten people. But they can still scan the slide to get a sense of team depth, seniority, and diversity.
In the slide template above, options for 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12 members are all included in the download. Each person gets a photo, name, and title. At this size that's the right amount of information: clean, scannable, and doesn't try to do too much.
→ Meet Our Industry Specialists Slide
In this gridded layout for introducing a large team of experts (think advisory boards, project teams, product teams), we've significantly reduced the size of the photo to allow for a couple of bullet points of information. In a situation like this, the collective depth of expertise is the point, so a very succinct summary of prior roles or education or last projects or awards can be accommodated this way.
When the Slide Will Be Shared as a PDF
A team slide in a live presentation and a team slide in a document someone can read on their own time and click on are doing different jobs. For decks and slides you share, links become much more valuable! A LinkedIn URL lets the reader learn more without cluttering the slide with a full bio. A clickable link in a PowerPoint is easy to add and transfers perfectly when you export the slide to a PDF.
This sample team slide includes a full team of three and yet looks so clean with so much white space. That's because there are only sections for a photo, name and title, and the rest of the information has been outsourced to a set of links for each person. This means no clutter and yet a wealth of places one can click to read everything they need to about each person. Here, there are links for LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, but you can swap in our own little icons or delete the ones you don't need to use. Useful links could point to LinkedIn, project portfolios, your company website pages, and more.
When you send your deck out for review as a PDF, the person reviewing it has more time to read, and also doesn't have you there live, as in a presentation, to fill in the gaps and elaborate. So you can also include team slides or single-person bio layouts that are much more complete and full – something that doesn't make sense in a live presentation, because you wouldn't want your audience to stop listening to you in order to read a detailed slide.
When You Want to Show Where People Have Been
One of the most effective elements on a team slide (this is common in pitch decks) is a row of company or university logos showing where your team members have previously worked or studied.
A logo does something a bio sentence can't: it's recognized instantly. "Previously VP at Google, Harvard MBA" takes five seconds to read. The Google logo and the Harvard shield are processed in less than one. For investors and sophisticated clients who know the landscape, a logo row shows credibility fast.
The best placement is directly below each person's name and title: small, but prominent enough to be seen.
When You Want to Show How the Team Fits Together
Most team slides show people side by side but don't show how their skills relate to each other. For pitches and consulting proposals where the combination of the team is the argument, this format can be extremely persuasive.
In the team layout above, three overlapping circles each show one person's area of expertise, with the overlapping section showing why this exact combination of skills is the winning combination. The bullseye center represents what only this specific team can do together. It's a more visual, more memorable way to make the "why us as a team" argument. In the sidebar, you can speak more at length about each person's area and contribution.
When the Goal Is Roles and Responsibilities, Not Bios
Sometimes your audience already knows who the people are. What they actually need to understand is who does what, whom to go to for which decisions, and how accountability is structured.
→ Roles and Responsibilities Slide
Here, each person gets name, title, and a clear bulleted description of their responsibilities and scope. At the bottom of each column is a section for the main deliverable that they are responsible for with additional emphasis.
→ Team Roles & Responsibilities Slide
This organized slide shows the members of your team or project, as well as their roles and responsibilities. The slide has a table structure where you can show the different roles on your team or project, how many members help with that role, and what their main tasks or responsibilities are. The focus is on each role, rather than each person.
In this five-slide set you get an intro into the full team, plus individual slides for each person with more room for background and role detail. Useful when the team introduction is substantial enough to deserve more than one slide and you want each person to have a genuine moment.
Quick Reference: Which Layout to Choose
- 2 people » Team & Leadership Slide
- 3 people » Three Person Team Slide
- 4-6 people » Team Slide With Descriptions
- 8-12 people » Large Team Slide (8-12)
- Shared PDF » Leadership Team Slide
- One leader in depth » Leadership Bio Slide
- Show where team has worked (logos) » Pitch Deck Team Slide
- Show how skills overlap » Venn Diagram for Teams
- Roles and scope, not bios » Team Roles Slides
Need More Examples?
Browse the full team & bio slide collection. The best part is that you can filter it by the number of team members you have and see only the relevant-to-you layouts.