Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Comms Confidential: The Podcast

This conversation explores the recognition of the need for change and the decision to take a leap into something different. Sarah Kissko Hersh, founder of Type A Consultancy, discusses the internal whisper that signals the need for change and the courage to pursue a new path.

Learn more about Type A Consultancy at https://www.typeaeveryday.com/
Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahkisskohersh/

Takeaways

• Recognizing the need for change
• Taking a leap into something different

What does it really take to turn creative campaigns into lasting credibility?

In this episode of Comms Confidential, host Joe Gallo sits down with Sofie Diskin, who leads trade PR at The Martin Agency, one of the most influential creative agencies in the world. Sofie shares what it’s like to run communications inside an ad agency—where PR, creativity, and business growth constantly collide—and why agencies must think and operate like brands in their own right.

Together, they unpack the tension between PR and advertising, how trade PR extends far beyond campaign launches, and the role earned media plays in building reputation, momentum, and trust. Sofie takes listeners behind the scenes of viral campaigns, narrative backlash, and Cannes main-stage moments, offering a candid look at how credibility is built—and rebuilt—over time.

If you’ve ever wondered:

• How PR actually drives business growth inside creative agencies
• What effective thought leadership really looks like
• How to align comms goals with growth, talent, and reputation
• Or when patience is the smartest PR strategy

This episode pulls back the curtain.

Amanda Russo shares her journey from a terrorism analyst to the Director of Communications for the Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI). She discusses the challenges and opportunities in her transition, the role of CCI as a trade organization, and the communication strategy at CCI. Amanda also provides insights into preparing for congressional testimony, measurement and merchandising of work, and advice for PR practitioners.

Takeaways

• Transitioning from one career to another requires adaptability and a willingness to learn.
• Active participation in meetings and saying 'yes' to new opportunities are key to professional growth.

Chapters

• 00:00 Journey from Terrorism Analyst to Comms Director
• 05:59 Transition to Crypto Council for Innovation
• 20:05 Preparing for Congressional Testimony
• 27:59 Measurement and Merchandising of Work

What does it take to build a crowd of thousands—not with a product or a pitch, but with pure joy? Vincent Chapman has the answer.

From Little League fields in Northeast Texas to sold-out Savannah Bananas stadium tours watched by millions, Vincent built a career and a personal brand by treating joy as a deliberate, repeatable strategy rather than a mood. His viral 2015 video caught the Bananas' attention. Six years later, they came calling. Now he dances in front of 100,000 people and speaks to corporations about what they get wrong about connection.

In this episode, we discuss the two rules of Vincent's Joy Movement, what corporate America misses by measuring people as numbers, how 95% of what he does on the field is completely improvised, why trust unlocks performance better than control, how to build a personal brand that outlasts any single platform, and much more.

Learn more about Vincent at https://www.thedancingumpire.com/

What does it take to build PR for a brand that doesn't believe in red tape? Sam Bauman has the answer.

From local TV news anchor in Michigan to media relations lead at one of the most creative sports entertainment brands in the world, Sam spent ten years reporting the news before the Savannah Bananas called him to help make it. He built their media relations function from the ground up — navigating live game chaos, a zero-red-tape philosophy, and Jesse Cole's core belief that attention beats marketing every time.

In this episode, we discuss knowing your brand goes deeper than a logo or colors, the bar-with-no-sound test for live content, building brand identity across six teams in the Banana Ball Championship League, scenario planning for live sports sideline storytelling, what a mic'd-up home run interview taught Sam about preparation meeting improvisation and much more.

Takeaways

• Transition from News to PR
• Embracing Creativity and Freedom
• Putting Fans First Expanding the fan base through diverse entertainment
• Intentional brand building for different teams

Chapters

• 00:00 Origin Story and Transition
• 06:15 Embracing Creativity and Freedom
• 19:07 Brand and Fan-Centric Approach
• 25:13 Expanding the Fan Base
• 32:27 Intentional Brand Building

What does it take to build a B2B brand that journalists actually want to cover and does that change when the journalists no longer need a masthead?

Aaron Berger, Principal and Co-Founder of A/M Partners, has the answer. From a Washington DC cab to Ketchum, Mastercard, IBM and now his own firm, Aaron has seen the industry evolve rapidly.

In this episode, we discuss why prestige media validates rather than drives B2B sales, the need for a hybrid top-down and bottom-up media strategy, why independent journalists now matter as much as major mastheads, getting comfortable with uncertainty and with clients leaving and much more.

Connect with Aaron Berger on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-berger-0934101a/

Check out A/M Partners at https://am.partners/

Chapters

• 00:00 The Origin Story
• 06:06 The Rise of Independent Journalism
• 11:36 Measurement in B2B PR
• 19:30 The Shift to Fractional Work
• 25:18 The Evolution of Fractional Work
• 31:06 Learning from Business Operations

Adrianna G. Bevilaqua started college as a pre-med student. She ended up as Chief Creative Officer of M Booth and the path in between tells you everything about how great creative instincts actually develop.

In this episode of Comms Confidential, Adrianna unpacks the frameworks behind her creative process: her small data vs. big data approach, the Culture Mark tool M Booth built to map brand archetypes in culture, and why diverse media consumption is non-negotiable for anyone trying to forecast what's next.

They also cover the cultural trends reshaping communications in 2026: cognitive revivals, the monoculture era, the rise of GEO, and what AI's growing influence means for the future of PR. An added bonus: how Adrianna convinced a client to put a chronic insomniac comedian to sleep in a Macy's window, and why that campaign is still a masterclass in organic storytelling.

Takeaways

• Evolution of creativity in PR
• Impact of cultural trends and shifts in 2026 PR's role in culture and the need for retraining
• The significance of cultural insights and diverse media consumption

Chapters

• 00:00 Journey to Chief Creative Officer
• 08:51 Pushing Boundaries and Abandoning Safe Ideas
• 13:50 Trends and Cultural Shifts in 2026
• 21:08 The Monoculture Era and Chronically Offline Trend
• 26:22 The Future of PR and Culture
• 36:08 Cultural Insights and Predictive Analysis
• 43:06 The Role of PR in Culture and Media Consumption

Ashley Jacobson shares her unconventional journey to PR, highlighting the transferable skills acquired from a background in theater and corporate sponsorship. She discusses the challenges of transitioning from theater to PR, overcoming imposter syndrome, and balancing creativity with reality. Additionally, she provides insights into working with celebrity talent and the transition to ad tech. The conversation covers Ashley Jacobson's transition to the ad tech industry, her role in corporate marketing, and the adoption of AI and automation in marketing. It provides insights into the ad tech ecosystem and the strategic role of corporate marketing in building the company's brand. Additionally, it explores the differentiation between AI and automation and their impact on marketing initiatives.

Takeaways

• Unconventional Path to PR
• Transferable Skills Transition to Ad Tech
• Understanding Ad Tech Ecosystem

Chapters

• 00:00 Journey to PR
• 09:43 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
• 16:29 Working with Celebrity Talent
• 30:42 Corporate Marketing and Initiatives

Brooke Kruger founded KC Partners in 2009 out of the financial crisis, built the business by treating candidate relationships the same way she ran media relations on the agency side, and has spent 16 years placing senior communications professionals at high-growth tech companies, VC firms, agencies, and corporations. This episode is a practitioner briefing on the current state of comms hiring: what AI fluency actually means in an interview room, why references now need to be ready within an hour, how companies are ghosting candidates and what that costs their brand, and what a clean hiring process actually looks like from both sides of the table.

Connect with Brooke at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookechilenkruger/ and KC Partners at https://kc-partners.com/

How does a comms team actually build the case for hiring someone dedicated to AI? Erin Miller has the answer.

Erin Miller is VP of Global Corporate Communications at Yahoo, where she's spent the last two years helping reposition a 30-year-old brand for a new era. Her path runs from Porter Novelli and Condé Nast through Meta and Handshake to Yahoo, nearly two decades built on the same instinct: relationships outlast any one job.

In this episode, recorded live at Cannes Lions, we discuss how Yahoo built the business case for a dedicated AI operations hire inside its comms team, what actually works (and doesn't) for first-time and repeat Cannes attendees, how Yahoo measures impact beyond the festival, and much more.

Connect with Erin at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinfrostmiller/

What does it actually take to move a communications team from prompting to building?

Enter Dan Lewis, a trained lawyer who became the first social media lead at Sesame Workshop, wrote Cookie Monster’s Reddit AMA, and built a daily trivia email newsletter to more than 100,000 subscribers over 15 years without a dollar of paid acquisition. Now he writes the Comms Stack to help comms pros figure out AI the same way he figures out everything: by building in public.

In this episode, we discuss the difference between prompting and building, how to structure a comms AI tiger team, why not hiring junior practitioners is the real AI mistake, the Beehiiv vs. Substack decision, what 15 years of daily writing teaches you about creative endurance, and much more.

AI is shaping every aspect of the communications field. From content development to agents that can help with crisis plans, there's no avoiding it anymore.

In this episode of Comms Confidential, Adam Pratt, the Director of Issues and Government Communications at IBM, and Tiffany Guarnaccia, the CEO and Founder of Kite Hill PR, discuss the difference between using AI and building systems, information hygiene before any implementation, measuring productivity shifts from admin to strategy, the agency-client AI relationship, human oversight as AGI approaches, AI skills stratification in the communications industry, and much more.

What does it actually take to prove the value of internal communications? Regine Nelson and Keith Berman have the answer—and they don’t agree on everything.

Regine Nelson went from travel PR in 2003 to PayPal and a string of in-house tech roles, taking a six-year break to raise three children before returning as sharp as she left. Keith Berman started as an FM rock radio DJ, became a journalist for a decade, and transferred every skill he had into corporate communications—a career arc he'd tell you at a party whether you asked or not.

In this episode, we discuss how to measure IC impact without hard metrics, the push/pull distribution framework that drove a 625% increase in open rates, why every M&A playbook fails on execution, using AI for listening and workflow automation, the career path from external to internal, and much more.

Find Keith Berman at https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithberman1/

Find Regine Nelson at https://www.linkedin.com/in/reginenelson/ and https://www.reginenelson.com/

Susan Oguche spent 20 years climbing the comms ladder, from P&G to Nike to CCO of the Cleveland Cavaliers and now the founder of Brilliance Communications.

In this episode she breaks down:

•  The three-stage journey from doer to strategist to trusted advisor and why you can’t skip the rungs.

•  Why adaptability is the one superpower that scales across every company culture.

•  How her lean Cavs team became early AI adopters when the tools were barely ready.

•  What she’s building now for mid-market clients navigating GEO and content infrastructure.

•  The AI ethics question she can’t stop thinking about and why trust erosion is the biggest risk for all of us.

Closing principle: “Be a learn-it-all, not a know-it-all.”

Find Susan at linkedin.com/in/susanoguche and brilliancecomms.com

Communications, rebuilt from the middle out.

After fifteen years inside big agencies, what finally makes a PR pro walk away from the steady paycheck and bet on himself? Adam Belmont has the answer.

Adam Belmont is the founder of A-to-B Strategies, a fractional strategic communications practice based in Dallas. From his first internship at Edelman to more than a decade across Ogilvy and ICR, where he rose to managing director, Adam spent his career putting other people in the spotlight before deciding it was time to turn it on himself.

In this episode, we discuss leaving agency life, the rise of the fractional PR model, building a referral pipeline before there's an opportunity on the table, running LinkedIn as a storefront instead of a website, pitching podcasts the way you'd pitch a journalist, the question that finally pushed him to start his own firm, and much more.

Connect with Adam at https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambelmont/.

Eighty percent of PR professionals know they need to network. Fewer than half actually do it. Monique Kelley has the answer.

From a decade on the agency side at Weber Shandwick, to leading internal and external communications at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, to a full-time professorship at Boston University’s College of Communication, Monique Kelley has now built a consulting practice with no website and no marketing spend, almost entirely through relationships.

In this episode, we discuss the AI blind spot that nearly tanked a client’s gym launch, the three-step framework behind her book Redefining Networking, why introverts often out-network extroverts, internal networking and executive sponsorship, what her Boston University students get right that older generations didn’t have the chance to learn, and much more.

Connect with Monique on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/moniquekelleygigliotti/
Check out Redefining Networking at https://www.redefiningnetworkingbook.com/

When is the right time to build your professional network? Daniel Méndez Aróstica has the answer, and most communicators miss it.

From landing in the US from Chile in December 2015 with no local network and a newborn, to starting CommsJobs, one of the largest open job-sharing communities for communicators on LinkedIn, Daniel rebuilt his professional life from nothing and then built the thing he wished had existed.

In this episode, we discuss why networking works best when you need nothing from it, how a single hashtag grew into country and regional groups around the world, why Daniel refuses to own or monetize any of it, and much more.

Connect with Daniel at https://www.linkedin.com/in/commsjobs/
Join CommsJobs at https://www.thecommsjobs.com/subscribe or https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12960212/