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
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 came to strategic communications via journalism, international policy and intelligence analysis. He started his career at CNN's News Desk in New York. He subsequently worked as a Research and Intelligence Analyst for Preston Gates (a prestigious K Street law firm in Washington, D.C.), where he advised clients on legislative affairs, led congressional fact-finding missions and drafted policy papers that circulated on Capitol Hill and among departments and agencies of the U.S. Government.
He was subsequently recruited by the United Nations to help coordinate a newly established humanitarian operation that would become the largest in UN history and, exceptionally, report directly to the Security Council. Based in New York, with assignments on the ground in Iraq,
Michael’s efforts to strengthen accountability within the UN culminated in his his high-profile testimony before Congress, which helped spark the most far-reaching anti-corruption investigation in the organization’s history. After resigning from the United Nations, Michael joined the adjunct faculty of New York University’s Center for Global Affairs, where he taught international relations and communications. He also began to write, contributing to a wide range international media outlets as an analyst and commentator. This work led to further assignments in Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflict zones as a journalist and researcher for Western policy and security organizations.
Michael then founded Good Loop Media, a digital advertising agency helping a diverse portfolio of clients sharpen their public image and attract financial support for their missions.
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.
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.
Contact Michael Soussan
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