Recorded live at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, in partnership with Global Ties US and National Digital Roundtable, this special episode brings together four leaders who have solved the same problem in very different rooms: how do you build trust when institutions are losing it? Katie Schubert (CEO, Society for Women's Health Research), Alejandra de Lecea (The World Bank Group), Christina Maruna (LinkedIn), and Matt Keller (Embassy of Liechtenstein) join Anthony Shop to unpack why, in an era of declining institutional trust, people carry messages further than logos can. The throughline: influence online is not about reach. It is about who says it, who reshares it, and whether the right people engage.

The conversation also gets practical about the parts leaders struggle with most. Katie shares how peer pressure, not staff persuasion, is what finally gets CEOs to prioritize LinkedIn. Matt explains how a three-person embassy competes for attention without flooding the zone, and why resonance with the right audience beats likes from friends and family. Alejandra walks through how she sells influence to a board that wants impressions, and Christina offers a warning against the cookie-cutter amplification that reads as inauthentic. The panel closes with Anthony's See, Say, Do framework, a simple way to report return on influence up the chain without drowning in metrics, plus live questions from embassies, the DC Mayor's Office, the National Gallery of Art, and the US Global Leadership Coalition.

Takeaways:

• Send a person, not a logo. Executives' posts earn far more engagement than company pages, so leaders who only clear their calendars for TV hits are missing where the audience actually is.
• Pick the right messenger per message. Official resources belong on the institutional page; personal stories, expertise, and relationships belong to individuals who can add what a brand cannot.
• Amplify with intent, not copy-paste. Coordinated cookie-cutter reposts read as inauthentic; a reshare with your own thinking, or a comment from the company page, builds far more.
• Build a constellation, not a single voice. Train staff at every level to show up, so influence does not live or die with one principal or one ambassador.
• Measure influence with See, Say, Do. Track what the right people saw, who said something (a reshare from the right organization beats a thousand anonymous likes), and what they did next.

Quote of the Show:

• “When it comes to punching above your weight, it’s really the quality of the stuff that you’re putting out that matters. For us, it's really about quality over quantity." - Matt Keller

Links:

• Alejandra de Lecea
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandradelecea/
  • Website: https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/home
• Christina Maruna:
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-maruna/
• Matt Keller
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-keller-b188b94/
  • Website: https://www.liechtensteinusa.org/
• Kathryn Godburn Schubert
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathryngschubert/
  • Website: https://www.swhr.org/

Shout Outs:

• The British Embassy, Washington
• Katherine A. Brown
• Global Ties US:
• National Digital Roundtable
• George Washington University College of Professional Studies
• PRSA-NCC

Amy Pisani has spent 30 years building trust in one of the hardest arenas for it: vaccines. As CEO of Vaccinate Your Family, she leads an organization founded by former First Lady Rosalynn Carter and former Arkansas First Lady Betty Bumpers, and she has watched the country's information landscape shift from a lack of information to outright disinformation. Her career offers a master class in a kind of influence most leaders never have to attempt: persuading people who are afraid, without judging them, while the loudest voices in the room profit from fear. Amy and Anthony explore how listening builds trust before you ever need it, how to pair science with the right messengers, and why leading with story before data might be the most underrated move in influence.

Takeaways:

• Build coalitions before you need them. Betty Bumpers raised Arkansas vaccination rates from the 20th to the 70th percentile in two years by bringing together everyone who touched children's lives, not by waiting for systems to change.
• Meet people with empathy before information. Rosalynn Carter's posters said "Please immunize your child by age two." The word "please" reflected a philosophy: persuade through care, not commands.
• Lead with story, then bring the data. When Amy brought a mother from rural Virginia to Capitol Hill, the story of distance and barriers opened minds, and the data that followed made it credible.
• Find the movable middle. You cannot reach everyone. Focus on people with real questions and shared values, and answer them honestly without forcing a decision.
• Give your team permission to experiment. Vaccinate Your Family was early on Facebook and is now on TikTok because leaders gave younger communicators freedom to try new channels, and because Amy's founders once gave a 26-year-old the same freedom.
• Influence works better as a pull than a push. Amy defines their approach as removing barriers and answering questions, not selling. As she puts it, "It's just about getting to the heart of the matter, and it's keeping somebody from dying."

Quote of the Show:

• “We lead with empathy. We’re all the same, right? It’s about finding that conversational piece where you can find yourself in the conversation, and then communicating clearly about the science.”

Links:

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/amy-pisani-385a4514
• Website: https://vaccinateyourfamily.org/

For decades, digital media promised interactivity. What we got instead, as Joe Ruffolo puts it, was "watching TV shows on computers and pretending like we have a digital experience."

Joe has been at the center of that evolution since the beginning. He helped build CNN Interactive in the '90s, led ABC News Digital, served as an executive producer on a National Geographic series with BBC Studios and James Cameron at OceanX, and now leads 2WAY, a live video platform built around bringing audiences directly into the conversation. His career offers a front-row view of what happens when leaders stop broadcasting at people and start inviting them in. Anthony and Joe explore why the shift from audience to community changes everything, how leaders can extend into new platforms without losing the heart of their brand, and why trust and participation are inseparable.

Takeaways:

• Build communities, not just audiences. An audience receives; a community participates. The organizations that create genuine two-way experiences will earn deeper trust and longer engagement.
• Stay anchored to your brand's core as you experiment. New platforms and technologies should extend what you stand for, not replace it. Joe's rule: understand the heart and soul of the brand, then translate it into new spaces.
• Trust requires identity, not anonymity. Communities where people are known to each other, where faces and names are visible, naturally foster more respectful and productive conversations.
• Influence flows in both directions. The best ideas don't always come from the top. Leaders who listen to junior team members and let them experiment create cultures where innovation actually happens.
• Use your own product. You cannot lead what you do not experience firsthand. Joe encourages everyone in his organization to host shows and participate in the platform themselves.

Quote of the Show:

• "Audience is a one-way experience, and community is a two-way experience."

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-ruffolo-4898b/
• Website: https://2way.tv/

Shout Outs:

• Peter Cherukuri
• Mark Halperin and Mark Penn / Harris X
• Tim Armstrong
• Ted Leonsis (quoted: "They can't love us if they don't trust us")
• Anna Palmer / Punchbowl News
• Jenny Abamu / WAMU
• Bryan Myers / Solidcore