Your introduction should be long enough to allow the audience to shift their focus from whatever they have been doing and focus their attention on the speaker. They should not, however, constitute a separate speech. Confine your remarks to three to five minutes, with five minutes being the absolute maximum. Prepare your Remarks Carefully. In order to answer the audience's basic question of why they should listen to this person, well ahead of the time of the speech, request a resume or biographical statement from the speaker.
Many speakers already have such materials prepared.
Do not use them as the text for your introduction however. Instead, use them as sources for facts which will appeal to the audience's own experience and preference and which directly relate to the announced topic of the speech. In this way, you can prepare the audience to receive the speaker with interest and respect. If the speaker is a distinguished person in the discipline or subject field and the audience is composed of professionals who are in that field, cite publications and awards which establish the speaker's credibility. Be careful to read all titles fluently and pronounce all words correctly.