'Executive presence' is vague on purpose, usually because the person giving you the feedback hasn't broken it down themselves. It's not a personality trait and it's not something you either have or don't. It's three learnable skills, and you can work on each one separately.
The first is framing what you say around the room's interests. Start by being clear about why you're speaking: what you need, what you need help with, what's going on. Then get to the point as succinctly as you can, so people understand as quickly as possible how it's in their interest to keep listening. What reads as 'presence' is usually just this: the person talking is visibly oriented to what the room cares about, not walking everyone through their own analysis and hoping they stay for the ending.
The second is storytelling, meaning the ability to give a number or a decision a context a non-specialist can hold onto. 'Defects dropped 12 percent' is a fact. 'We used to get three complaint calls a week on this line, now we get one a month' is the same fact with a handle on it. Executives remember the handle.
The third is composure under questioning. This one is mostly mechanical too. When someone challenges you in a meeting, mirror their question back before answering it, and take a breath before you speak. That pause reads as control, not hesitation. People who seem to have executive presence usually aren't calmer people, they've just built the pause into their habits.
Work on these three separately and the vague feedback stops being vague. None of it requires becoming a different person.
Orienting to the room's interests earns the attention; storytelling gives your facts a handle; mirroring a challenge back before answering reads as control, not hesitation.
