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 previous efforts trying to bring greater accountability to the UN system (which culminated in a high-profile congressional testimony that helped spark the most far-reaching anti-corruption investigation in United Nations history) also attracted a separate roster of more discrete clients, like global compliance teams and the risk management groups of large international corportations, who, typically, sought out Michael's advice, often after a guest lecture or a corporate speaking engagement. Such engagements refined Michael's experience in offering timely and precise strategic communications solutions tailored to the needs of specific leaders and their teams.
The Next Front Line
The Race to Restore Digital Trust
Are you human—or AI?
That is the question that will lead entire industries to adopt blockchain for more than just payments,mbut to secure much larger parts of their digital communication flows.
Rogue use of AI is placing the security of human communication under direct attack. An impostor can now clone a face, mimic a voice, defeat familiar security checks and issue convincing instructions at machine speed.
When companies and governments can no longer determine who communicated, whether that person possessed authority or whether a record was altered, contracts, payments and critical operations all become vulnerable.
This is information regression. Five thousand years ago, Sumerian scribes used some of humanity’s earliest writing to record ownership, obligations and exchange. Seals established who issued a record and under whose authority.
From those clay tablets to signed contracts, notarized deeds, bills of exchange and corporate ledgers, civilization and commerce have advanced by making consequential communications more durable, attributable and trustworthy.
The rogue deployment of AI is reversing that progress. It is making forgery cheaper, impersonation scalable and once-reliable evidence suspect.
AI may represent a more advanced form of intelligence, but when used without effective standards or safeguards, it makes the information environment on which human intelligence depends less reliable—and therefore less useful.
Blockchain can restore essential assurances to the digital world. Combined with identity and provenance systems, it can create verifiable records of who—or what—acted, under whose authority and with whose consent. Its next wave of adoption will extend beyond cryptocurrency and payments to contracts, corporate communications and the critical workflows on which institutions depend.
Michael’s Strategic Communications practice is positioned at the centre of that transition - moving forward from the regressive effects of rogue A.I. and FORWARD, helping institutions that never anticipated the threats of unregulated AI to restore a digital trust layer that is inherent to Blockchain, and essential to the process of doing business with confidence.
Drawing on his experience across communications, intelligence, institutional accountability and compliance, he helps blockchain innovators explain the significance of what they are building and helps institutional adopters and regulators understand what responsible implementation requires.
His role is to turn technical capability 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
Advisory Services - Creative Engagements - Speaking Engagements
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