Leadership Spotlight

As part of our leadership spotlight series, we’re sitting down with leaders across Council Advisors—including our colleagues at SSA & Company, The Miles Group (TMG), and High Lantern Group—to share insights on leadership, execution, and what it takes to drive results in today’s business environment.

You work with leaders on complex, regulated issues. Where do you see organizations most struggling to make their messages clear and persuasive?

Earlier this year, we were running a communications workshop with a marketing team at a very large organization. During the discussion, the team’s leader said, when people present to her, “they always show their long division.” And she doesn’t want to see how they got their answer. She only wants to see the answer.

I think that’s right. For professionals working in complex, regulated spaces, they feel compelled to show their long division. They want to show the evidence for why their answer is right.

That may be a good strategy in math class. But it fails in a workday packed with a dozen meetings. Answers are better than explanations.

How does your Ph.D. in rhetoric, writing and language inform how you advise executives on high‑stakes communications?

A PhD in rhetoric is like Fight Club: the first rule is you don’t talk about it. But my years-long study of rhetoric taught me to love the word “argument.” It doesn’t mean bickering or point-scoring.  It means sharing a perspective, not just information.

What does “getting strategic positioning right” look like in a major healthcare or policy initiative?

I tell clients, probably too often, that the best argument you can make is when someone else makes your argument for you. If you get your strategic positioning right, you’re not talking about it. Other people are.

You’ve worked across geographies and sectors. Is there a lesson about leadership communication that has proven universal in your client work?

A leader’s perspective on what is happening outside an organization is far more interesting than what is happening inside it. A great way to begin any talk goes something like: “Last week I was in Tokyo, and someone told me…”

What keeps you at High Lantern Group after more than a decade, and how has the firm evolved in how it helps leaders tackle complex issues?

I’ve been here for more than a decade and a half! For those counting at home, that’s about a third of my life.

I’ve stuck around for so long not because how HLG has evolved, but because of how it hasn’t. Nothing is off-the-shelf. There’s no rinse-and-repeat. We’ve built strategies, frameworks, and processes for client work, but every project requires a fresh start. It’s exhausting. But it isn’t boring.