Michael Soussan
Strategic Communications
Advisory & Execution
Author · Consultant · Producer · Public Speaker
"STORIES SPEAK DIRECTLY TO THE HUMAN OPERATING SYSTEM"
-- Michael Soussan, briefing to U.S. CENTCOM, 2007
CONTRIBUTOR - OPINION & ANALYSIS
Published and interviewed by
Engagements
I advise exceptional leaders across the public and private sectors through moments of opportunity, transition or pressure—helping them navigate change with clear strategic purpose, and articulate the narratives that will be most effective at moving their priorities forward.
My work spans highly confidential engagements as well as public-facing external-relation campaigns & media productions. Whether this means integrating an existing team or building up new capacities and partnerships for growth, I engage selectively with leaders and organizations whose work I find compelling—and behind which I am prepared to put my judgment, relationships and reputation.
As a strategic communication advisor, I am building a growing practice around what I foresee will be a boom in the adoption of Blockchain-based digital trust technologies. Learn more
Profile
Michael began his career as a junior news producer at CNN before moving to Washington, where he worked as a research and intelligence analyst on K Street. Advising on legislative affairs and supporting congressional fact-finding missions taught him to assess complex information quickly, understand competing interests and translate analysis into communication that decision-makers could use.
Michael was then recruited by the United Nations to help coordinate a newly established humanitarian operation that would soon become the largest in UN history and, exceptionally, report directly to the Security Council. His work involved diplomatic negotiations in New York with assignments on the ground in Iraq. Liaising between governments and coordinating the work of 10 UN agencies, weapons inspectors and Kurdish rebel leaders gave him firsthand experience communicating across institutional, political and cultural divides, often during emergencies, including aerial bombardment during Operation Desert Fox.
After leaving the UN, Michael joined the adjunct faculty of New York University's Center for Global Affairs, where he taught international relations and developed a popular seminar about writing and public communication. While teaching writing he also began contributing to an increasing number of media outlets as an analyst and commentator, which led him to take further assignments in Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflict zones as a journalist and researcher for Western policy and security organizations.
Michael soon founded Good Loop Media, a digital advertising agency, which produced online videos for Doctors of the World or the Norwegian American Chamber of Commerce, among a diverse portfolio of clients seeking to sharpen their public image and attract financial support for their missions.
Michael’s efforts to strengthen accountability within the UN culminated in high-profile testimony before Congress and helped prompt the most far-reaching anti-corruption investigation in the organization’s history. His subsequent account was praised for its “provocative wit” and, in Forbes, its “crisp sense of the absurd.” His ability to distil complex, politically charged experiences into clear and practical lessons led to lectures, briefings for global compliance and risk-management teams, and advisory engagements across sectors.
Over time, these engagements converged into a growing strategic communications practice founded on a simple mission: to give leaders the clarity of purpose and implementation strategies required to move from change "management" to change execution.
That mission has acquired new urgency at a time when technological change is accelerating faster than society’s ability to understand, govern or trust it.
THE NEXT FRONT LINE
The Race to Restore Digital Trust
The kinetic conflicts that shaped Michael’s earlier career continue to demand his expertise. But the rapid erosion of trust across our digital environment is creating a new front line.
The technology may be new. The underlying challenge is not: how do we know who is communicating, whether that person possesses the authority to act and whether the resulting record can be trusted?
The Challenge:
Rogue AI can clone faces and voices, defeat familiar security checks and issue convincing instructions at machine speed. As identity, authority and provenance become harder to verify, payments, corporate communications and critical workflows become alarmingly vulnerable.
The Solution:
Blockchain technology offers the core trust infrastructure required for the digital age: verifiable records of who acted, under whose authority and with whose consent.
Michael came to blockchain not as a technologist, but as a communicator— by asking the simplest of questions. Like "What is a block?" And "Why does it need to be on a chain?" Realising that an encrypted "block" does not necessarily have to be a Bitcoin, or a currency, but can be ANY type of record, such as a contract or a ledger, is typically what unlocks the utility of blockchain to many adopters.
In his landmark article, "The Second Blockchain Revolution," Soussan explained why he believed that in industries that required privacy, secure contracts, and reliable procurement chains, a technology still associated principally with cryptocurrency could become essential infrastructure for digital trust. The article's reception opened new conversations with innovators and institutional leaders, including a consulting engagement with a West Coast start-up company co-founded by David Chaum, widely known as "the inventor of blockchain." (see article below)
Michael’s Strategic Communications practice is positioned at the centre of this global digital transition. While the technical landscape may seem intimidating to many, the challenge, at heart, is as old as the one that gave birth to our oldest known written records, which sparked the birth of written civilisation itself.
Think about it: our economy runs on records—who owns what, who owes what and who authorised what? Insofar as AI deep fakes undermine our trust in basic records and communications... If those records cannot be trusted, contracts become guesses, payments become gambles and fraud becomes the most efficient business model in town. The ancients understood this...
Five thousand years ago, Sumerian scribes first recorded ownership, obligations and exchanges, on clay tablets, with seals, which established who had issued a record and under whose authority. Digital seals we can rely on are what the game is all about. Otherwise we risk facing an era of COMMUNICATION REGRESSION in the age of AI. From clay tablets to contracts, deeds and corporate ledgers, economies have advanced by making consequential communications more durable, attributable and trustworthy.
Drawing on his experience across communications, intelligence, institutional accountability and compliance, Michael bridges the gap between innovators and adopters of blockchain & digital-trust solutions. He helps both parties translate technical capabilities into compelling use-cases that demonstrate value and helps clear the path to wider, profitable and secure deployment.
Rogue AI and digital fraud are forcing organisations to secure their online communications at unprecedented speed. The imperative now is to move from change management to change execution.
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
CREATIVE EXECUTION
The Art of the Pitch
My path from unknown writer to published commentator—and from first-time author to seeing my book adapted as a feature film—was by no means an easy one. Major opinion pages accept only a fraction of the submissions they receive. The odds of securing an agent and traditional publishing deal are scarcely better, while one estimate places the likelihood of an optioned book reaching the screen at just 0.016 percent.
So...What Went Right?
At each stage in the chain of events that took me from un-published to produced writer, I learned that it was far more useful to approach apparent gatekeepers as prospective collaborators—people being asked to INVEST their attention, judgment, reputation, time and/or capital to move an idea forward.
The discipline I had acquired through journalism, public policy and institutional communications helped me win support for the book and film. The demands of writing, production and promotion sharpened that discipline in return.
From op-ed pieces to press releases, book proposals to business pitches, intelligence briefings to keynote speeches, I have found that the most successful communication strategies consistently achieve six steps exceptionally well.
1. Earn Attention ➤ 2. Establish Relevance ➤ 3. Deepen Engagement
➤ 4. Build Trust ➤ 5. Demonstrate Value ➤ 6. Inspire Action
Taken together, these steps form the operating logic of my strategic communication method: the process through which an idea acquires allies, resources and momentum.
“Soussan landed the job of his dreams, working for the United Nations on the biggest aid program it had ever attempted. However, as anyone familiar with the tales of Soussan's fellow countryman Hans Christian Andersen will expect dark truths to emerge from the most innocent exteriors ... this book will come as a revelation!” -- The Sunday Times.
"Book of the year"
"Book of the week"
Non-fiction Choice
"A great book and a fun read!”
Fareed Zakaria, CNN
Contact Michael Soussan
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