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

To celebrate the release of Camille Stewart Gloster’s new book, The Insider You Built: How Organizations Stay in Control of Autonomous AI Agents, we’re revisiting our conversation with Camille, CEO and Principal at CAS Strategies, LLC. Drawing on her experience at the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, Google, and other leading organizations, Camille shares how her career at the intersection of technology, cybersecurity, law, and policy has shaped the way she approaches leadership and influence. Camille discusses the importance of bringing diverse perspectives into conversations about emerging technology, creating policies rooted in values rather than specific technologies, and building collaboration across government, industry, and civil society. She also explains why people should feel empowered to participate in conversations about AI and cybersecurity, including through initiatives like The ABCs of Cybersecurity. As organizations increasingly navigate autonomous AI, the lessons from this conversation feel especially timely and offer a strong foundation for the questions Camille explores in her new book. Takeaways: Understand Stakeholders' Motivations: Before engaging in any negotiation or attempting to influence others, it's crucial to understand the motivations and priorities of the stakeholders involved. This knowledge will help find common ground and build a foundation for productive discussions. Articulate a Clear Vision: Successful leaders set a clear, affirmative vision that resonates with their audience's fundamental values and aspirations. This approach inspires and motivates people to align with the leader's goals and objectives. Foster Collaboration: It is essential to bring together various stakeholders, including the private sector, civil society, and different government agencies. Leaders must facilitate collaboration by highlighting shared goals and balancing different motivations to advance a common agenda. Be Transparent and Communicative: Open and transparent communication is key to building trust and aligning competing priorities. Leaders should consistently update stakeholders on progress, challenges, and any areas of confusion to maintain a candid dialogue. Encourage Proactive and Resilient Policies: Instead of reacting to threats or technological changes, focus on policies that protect core values and establish a proactive, resilient framework. This approach allows for better adaptation to future challenges and technological evolutions. Promote Education and Empowerment: Leaders should advocate for education and empowerment in technology and cybersecurity. Engaging communities and providing the necessary tools and knowledge will ensure broader participation and resilience in the digital age. Recognize the Importance of Diversity: Diverse perspectives are critical in addressing complex issues like national security, cybersecurity, and AI. Leaders should strive to include individuals from various backgrounds to foster innovative solutions and create an inclusive environment. Quote of the Show: “It is important for people to feel empowered in and through technology. There's a lot of opportunity- economic, career, and creative- and I don't want people to get or feel left behind."  Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/camillestewartesq/  Website: https://camillestewartgloster.com/casstrategies  Shout Outs: UK AI Summit: https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/ai-safety-summit-2023  Seoul AI Summit: https://www.csis.org/analysis/ai-seoul-summit  France AI Summit: https://franceintheus.org/spip.php?article11521  AIEO: https://www.epa.gov/tribal/american-indian-environmental-office-aieo  EU’s AI Act: https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/ 

Amanda Cage has spent three decades working alongside frontline workers, from hog processing plants in North Carolina to Head Start classrooms in Boston to construction sites where women were breaking barriers in the building trades. Today, as President and CEO of Shift Work Forward, she leads a national network of over 30 communities working to redesign how workforce systems operate so that economic opportunity reaches everyone, not just those who already have access. Her conversation with Anthony explores a question that cuts across every industry: Is individual influence enough to create lasting change, or does real influence require something collective? Amanda makes a compelling case that collective influence produces better solutions because it forces leaders to persuade, listen, and refine ideas through genuine pushback. She challenges leaders to check their ego, use language that respects the people closest to the problem, and stop designing solutions for communities without including them in the process. Amanda also shares what she learned leading Shift Work Forward through a major rebrand, including why the process is always harder, more expensive, and more emotional than you expect, and why it forces an organization to answer the most fundamental question: Who are you? Takeaways: Build influence through movements, not personalities. Individual leaders come and go, but a committed base of people sustains change over time. Collective decision-making produces better ideas because it forces you to persuade, defend, and refine your thinking through real pushback. Check your ego before trying to lead. Your experience is often not the experience of the people you are trying to help. Use language that respects your audience. Jargon and acronyms signal membership in a club, but they lock people out of the conversation. Disruption is not destiny. History shows that who is at the table during times of change determines the outcome, not the technology itself. A rebrand is soul-searching. It costs more than you expect in money, time, and emotional energy, but it forces you to define who you really are. Quote of the Show: "What's important to me at this stage is thinking about how we create the next generation of influencers? How do we create the next generation of talent to be influencers? And how do we create a group of people who are listening, who have access to, or who have experience, or who have a broader perspective because of the kind of experiences they were allowed to have?" Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandacage/  Website: https://shiftworkforward.org/ 

Lisa Lawson, President and CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, has built a career creating change. From her earlier years as a lawyer and lobbyist to now leading one of the nation’s largest philanthropies focused on children and young people, Lisa has seen how influence works across business, government, philanthropy, and local communities. In this episode of Chief Influencer, Lisa joins host Anthony Shop to discuss why some of the most powerful influence is local, how leaders can identify the right messenger for the right audience, and what it takes to build an “infrastructure of influence” that lasts beyond any one person. They also explore the importance of pairing data with human stories, giving people a clear role in the change you want to create, and using your own influence to elevate others. Lisa shares lessons from her work with young people, the science behind her book Thrive, and decades of work at the Annie E. Casey Foundation to show what long-term influence can accomplish. Takeaways: Some of the most powerful influence is local. Issues become more personal and less abstract when people can see how decisions affect the communities, schools, businesses, and people they know. The CEO isn’t always the right messenger. Effective influence means thinking carefully about the message, the messenger, and the timing, then equipping trusted voices with the information they need. Build an infrastructure of influence. Lasting change requires more than one influential person. It takes data, advocates, researchers, organizations, lived experts, and an ecosystem that can sustain the work over time. Pair data with stories. Data establishes the scope of an issue, but numbers alone rarely move people. Lisa says, “Data and a story is influence.” Give people something to do. Influence shouldn’t stop at helping someone understand a problem. Leaders need to be specific about the change they want to see and help people understand their role in making it happen. Listen before you build the solution. Lisa encourages leaders to engage lived experts early, compensate them for their expertise, prepare them to participate, and follow up so they know how their contributions made a difference. Be a gracious steward of your influence. A leader’s platform doesn’t have to be about self-promotion. Lisa sees it as an opportunity to give visibility and influence back to the people and organizations doing important work. Influence belongs to all of us. Lisa believes social media and declining trust in institutions have shifted influence beyond a small group of traditional power brokers, giving everyday people more ability to create change. Quote of the Show: “You need to be able to go from a simmer to a boil….So you can't just decide today, ‘Oh, I wanna influence X.’ You gotta be evergreen in building that infrastructure so that when the opportunity happens, you can boil and you can seize a moment where public will or political will might be in your favor.” Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawsonlisamaria/  Website: https://www.aecf.org/  “Thrive” Book Link: https://a.co/d/0ePCa4uS  Shout Outs: Thrive by 25 KIDS COUNT Network Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond UPS Foundation UCLA Center for the Developing Adolescent Solutions Journalism Network Soul Family Framework