Michael Soussan
Strategic Communications
Advisory & Execution
Author · Consultant · Producer · Public Speaker
"STORIES SPEAK DIRECTLY TO THE HUMAN OPERATING SYSTEM"
-- Michael Soussan, briefing to US CENTOM, 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 can predict will be boom in the adoption of Blockchain-based digital trust technologies. Lean 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 connected diplomatic negotiations in New York with assignments in Iraq, where the votes cast by diplomats joursting for the moral highground carried immediate consequences for vulnerable civilians on the ground in Iraq. Moving among governments, UN agencies, weapons inspectors and Kurdish rebel leaders gave him firsthand experience communicating across institutional, political and cultural divides, often under emergences, which included several areal bombing campaigns.
After leaving the UN, he returned to Iraq and travelled to Afghanistan and other conflict zones as a journalist and researcher for Western policy and security organizations.
After moving on from public service, 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, even as he began contributing to an increasing number of media outlets, as an analyst and commentator.
Michael soon founded Good Loop Media, a digital advertising agency, which produced online videos serving organizations ranging from Doctors of the World to 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 message 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.
Michael came to blockchain not as a technologist, but as a communicator—asking the questions non-specialists ask and translating the answers into language that leaders can understand and act upon.
The Strategic Response:
Blockchain technology offers the core trust infrastructure required for the digital age: verifiable records of who—or what—acted, under whose authority and with whose consent.
Michael came to blockchain not as a technologist, but as a communicator—asking the questions non-specialists ask when their job is to translate a new term to absolute beginner. Like "What is a block?" And "Why does it need to be on a chain." when he realised that an encrypted "block" did not have to be, say, a Bitcoin or another currency, but could also be...a contract of any kind or any piece of human communication requiring verification across a basic chain of online commnuication, he thought he might clarify as much to the many highly educated senior industry leaders who had not quiote dared ask what blockchain actually meant before.
In his landmark article, "The Second Blockchain Revolution," Soussan explained why he believed that in industries that required privacy, secure contracts, and reliable producement 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 Strat-Up company, co-founded by David Chaum, the so-called "the inventor of blockchain" himself. (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 give birth to our oldest records, which spark the birth of the most ancient civilizations we trace our roots from.
If you think about it, the underlying requirement is as old as civilization itself - as far as we have records of it, beginning with the invention of writing, used, primarily at first, to keep records.
Five thousand years ago, Sumerian scribes recorded ownership, obligations and exchange, while seals established who had issued a record and under whose authority. 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 helps blockchain innovators explain the significance of what they are building and helps institutional adopters and regulators understand what responsible implementation requires.
His mission is to help turn Blockchain and all digital trust technologies into strategic purpose, public confidence and coordinated action—helping organisations move from change management to change execution.
CREATIVE EXECUTION
The Art of the Pitch
My path from being an unknown writer to being widely published in the media's Op-Ed pages and to having my book published not only earn a traditional publishing deal but also be adapted to film was by no means an easy one. To begin with, consider that the odds of getting an article published in the Opinion pages of the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal are estimated at less than 1 percent.
And the odds of landing an agent and a book deal are no better. Finally, someone took the time to calculate the statistical offs of seeing one's book adapted to film once it is optioned by a producer. He came to the comically low number od 0.016%.
SO... what went right?
(Aspiring writers CLICK HERE to hear the story of how Sam Shepard taught me how to (finally) pitch my first book successfully. For the rest ... remember the six steps that all successful communication strategies have in common?
1. Earn Attention ➤ 2. Establish Relevance ➤ 3. Deepen Engagement
➤ 4. Build Trust ➤ 5. Demonstrate Value ➤ 6. Inspire Action
Well, they work.
“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
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
As a writer/producer I have been hired by a range of production companies, and my work has earned international recognition and distribution
Contact Michael Soussan
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