Influence is not built by posting more content for the sake of being visible. It comes from building relationships, telling stories people remember, joining meaningful conversations, and consistently showing up in ways that feel human. In this special live episode of Chief Influencer, host Anthony Shop brings together Rudy Soto of the National American Indian Housing Council, Bryan Myers of [solidcore], and Erica Pyatt of LinkedIn for a conversation about how leaders can use their personal influence to advance something bigger than themselves. They explore why relationships should be built long before you need them, how stories and data work together to move people to action, and why leaders should think of platforms like LinkedIn as places for conversation rather than simply another distribution channel. The panel also tackles the growing role of AI in personal branding, the fear that keeps leaders from putting themselves out there, and why consistency may matter more than getting every post exactly right. Takeaways: Relationships are everything. Build connections without knowing exactly where they will lead. The person you meet today may become a collaborator, advocate, or important connection years from now. Influence is rooted in feeling. Facts can inform people, but creating an emotional connection is what can make an idea stick and inspire long-term action. Pair stories with data. Data can show people what needs to happen, while storytelling gives them a reason to care enough to act. Treat social media like a conversation, not a press release. Effective leaders do more than broadcast organizational announcements. They add their own perspective, engage with others, and create value for the people they want to reach. Consistency lowers the stakes. Posting more often makes every individual post feel less consequential while helping leaders develop their voice and confidence. Use AI as a tool, not a crutch. AI can help refine ideas and accelerate the writing process, but leaders still need to ensure what they publish sounds like them and reflects their actual perspective. Personal influence can advance a bigger mission. A leader's visibility is not only about building a personal brand. It can help amplify an organization's expertise, create relationships, and open doors that otherwise may never appear. Quote of the Show: “Relationships are everything. You never know how we could be helpful to one another.” - Rudy Soto Links: Rudy SotoLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rudy-soto-7b22136/?isSelfProfile=false  Website: https://naihc.net/  Bryan MyersLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/myersb/?isSelfProfile=false  Website: https://www.solidcore.co/  Erica PyattLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericapyatt/?isSelfProfile=false

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 LeceaLinkedIn: 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 KellerLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-keller-b188b94/  Website: https://www.liechtensteinusa.org/  Kathryn Godburn SchubertLinkedIn: 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 

Maria Ghazal, President and CEO of the Healthcare Leadership Council, has spent her career at the intersection of business, healthcare, and public policy, building consensus among leaders who don't always agree. At HLC, she brings together CEOs and C-suite leaders from hospitals, health plans, pharma, medical devices, and technology to find common ground on healthcare's biggest challenges. Before that, she led the Business Roundtable's work on its landmark Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, convincing 181 of America's most powerful CEOs to individually sign a document redefining the role of business in society. In this conversation with Anthony, Maria reveals how influence is built through intentional design: narrowing HLC priorities to three strategic buckets instead of 27, keeping membership deliberately small to foster trust, mapping the hidden currents of influence in Washington, and creating convenings where leaders don't just listen but roll up their sleeves and commit to action. Her career offers a clear lesson: influence isn't about having the biggest platform or the longest list of priorities. It's about earning trust through process, building relationships before you need them, and translating conversation into consensus. Takeaways: If everything's a priority, nothing is. Hone your focus to what you can actually drive consensus around. Influence without action is not influence. Convenings must translate into public policy positions, comment letters, and Hill briefings, not just good conversations. Keep the room small enough for trust. HLC deliberately caps membership at 50-60 so leaders can build real relationships across competing sectors. Map the hidden currents of influence. Staff, think tank leaders, and behind-the-scenes experts often shape decisions more than the household names. Start with a listening tour. When joining HLC, Maria met every member individually before making a single strategic change, and that process built the trust she needed to act. Build relationships before you need someone's support. The Business Roundtable statement succeeded because trust with legal teams and advisors already existed. Quote of the Show: "At the end of the day, influence is still having the right relationships, being able to take those relationships, put them into public policy positions, and bring them to the right people." Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-ghazal/  Website: https://www.hlc.org/  Shout Outs: Business Roundtable Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan Nneka Chiazor / Public Affairs Council  Priya Parker / The Art of Gathering