Recorded live at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, in partnership with Global Ties US and National Digital Roundtable, this special episode brings together four leaders who have solved the same problem in very different rooms: how do you build trust when institutions are losing it? Katie Schubert (CEO, Society for Women's Health Research), Alejandra de Lecea (The World Bank Group), Christina Maruna (LinkedIn), and Matt Keller (Embassy of Liechtenstein) join Anthony Shop to unpack why, in an era of declining institutional trust, people carry messages further than logos can. The throughline: influence online is not about reach. It is about who says it, who reshares it, and whether the right people engage.
The conversation also gets practical about the parts leaders struggle with most. Katie shares how peer pressure, not staff persuasion, is what finally gets CEOs to prioritize LinkedIn. Matt explains how a three-person embassy competes for attention without flooding the zone, and why resonance with the right audience beats likes from friends and family. Alejandra walks through how she sells influence to a board that wants impressions, and Christina offers a warning against the cookie-cutter amplification that reads as inauthentic. The panel closes with Anthony's See, Say, Do framework, a simple way to report return on influence up the chain without drowning in metrics, plus live questions from embassies, the DC Mayor's Office, the National Gallery of Art, and the US Global Leadership Coalition.
Takeaways:
- Send a person, not a logo. Executives' posts earn far more engagement than company pages, so leaders who only clear their calendars for TV hits are missing where the audience actually is.
- Pick the right messenger per message. Official resources belong on the institutional page; personal stories, expertise, and relationships belong to individuals who can add what a brand cannot.
- Amplify with intent, not copy-paste. Coordinated cookie-cutter reposts read as inauthentic; a reshare with your own thinking, or a comment from the company page, builds far more.
- Build a constellation, not a single voice. Train staff at every level to show up, so influence does not live or die with one principal or one ambassador.
- Measure influence with See, Say, Do. Track what the right people saw, who said something (a reshare from the right organization beats a thousand anonymous likes), and what they did next.
Quote of the Show:
- “When it comes to punching above your weight, it’s really the quality of the stuff that you’re putting out that matters. For us, it's really about quality over quantity." - Matt Keller
Links:
- Alejandra de Lecea
- Christina Maruna:
- Matt Keller
- Kathryn Godburn Schubert
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathryngschubert/
- Website: https://www.swhr.org/
Shout Outs:
- The British Embassy, Washington
- Katherine A. Brown
- Global Ties US:
- National Digital Roundtable
- George Washington University College of Professional Studies
- PRSA-NCC