How to Use Data to Craft a Future-Oriented Thought Leadership Strategy

Thought leadership isn’t just about sharing your ideas—or gaining brand awareness by posting thought-provoking takes. At its core, thought leadership is a strategic practice: it builds trust with your audience, shapes narratives, and guides conversations across your industry. In a world flooded with algorithmic noise and AI-generated content, what cuts through is a bold point of view, a clear sense of direction, and a future-oriented mindset.

This trust is more than a nice-to-have—it’s your brand’s competitive edge and reputation insurance before a crisis hits.

A recent Edelman x LinkedIn report found that 75% of decision-makers have explored products or services they weren’t previously considering after engaging with strong thought leadership. In other words: this isn’t just about visibility. When done right, thought leadership can shape perception, drive influence, and unlock new opportunity.

So how do you build a strategy that’s not just reactive or inspirational—but genuinely future-forward?
Start with data.

1. Use Data to Define Your Strategic Pillars

💡 Insight: People don’t trust brands—they trust people. Leadership visibility is your differentiator.

A future-oriented thought leadership strategy starts with a clear and compelling point of view (POV). Your POV isn’t just what you believe—it’s how you make sense of change. It’s the filter through which you interpret signals, frame insights, and help your audience navigate what’s coming next.

Once clarified, your POV should guide 3–4 strategic content pillars—repeatable themes that shape your storytelling and signal what you stand for.

Example: If you're in automotive innovation, your POV might be:
"The future of transportation isn't electric vs. gas—it's a fundamental shift in how we define vehicle ownership, urban mobility, and autonomy."

This would guide pillars like:

• Autonomous logistics and last-mile delivery

• Urban infrastructure and mobility innovation

• Clean energy applications in aerial and ground transport

• Policy and regulation shaping the future of transit

From there, these pillars guide everything—from blog posts and LinkedIn content to keynotes, whitepapers, and executive interviews.

2. Use Data to Turn Chaos Into Context

💡 Insight: Relevance today depends not just on knowing what’s trending—but knowing what it means.

When evaluating the landscape, you may notice that most leaders focus on sharing what’s already visible. But powerful thought leadership speaks to what’s next—and why it matters.

This is where trend intelligence comes in. It helps you move from being reactive to becoming someone who adds clarity in moments of confusion.

Trend intelligence helps you:

• Spot early signals before they go mainstream

• Speak to emerging mindsets, not outdated narratives

• Align internal stakeholders around why things are shifting

• Power innovation with cultural context

• Avoid tone-deaf messaging or trend-chasing content

Example: A drone manufacturer with a POV on clean energy could use data on urban congestion, emissions targets, and policy forecasts to support thought leadership on how autonomous drones will revolutionize last-mile delivery and infrastructure monitoring.

By using data to provide context, you shift from thought leader to trusted guide.

3. Use Data to Tell Your Story—Powerfully and Consistently

💡 Insight: It’s not enough to share ideas. You have to package them to travel.

Even the best insights fall flat without the right format, delivery, and consistency.

A strong POV becomes even more impactful when paired with:

• Credible data points and third-party research

• Real-world examples from your company or clients

• Original frameworks or metaphors that make complex trends digestible

Then, amplify through a mix of formats that fit both your audience and your strengths:

• Punchy, graphic-driven insights for social

• Short-form videos that bring energy and storytelling

• Longer written pieces (like this one) to build authority

• Slides and one-pagers to support business development and speaking

Example: The CEO of a drone manufacturing company, aiming to establish thought leadership on the future of aerial technology, could use data on technological advancements (e.g., battery life improvements, AI-powered navigation) to create a 2-line insight + a chart showcasing the story of how drones will transform society. 

Whatever format you choose, the key is consistency and coherence. Every piece of content should reinforce your POV, ladder back to your strategic pillars, and reflect your unique voice.

When Strategy Meets Story: Why It Matters

When you combine thought leadership + trend intelligence + storytelling, you unlock a flywheel of relevance, resonance, and visibility.

You:

• Lead conversations instead of reacting to them

• Show up consistently and clearly across platforms

• Build long-term brand equity rooted in trust and clarity

• Spot white space others miss

• Navigate uncertainty with confidence and conviction

Final Thought

In 2025, authority won’t come from shouting the loudest.
It will come from showing up as clear, human, and ahead of the curve.

If you’re building a brand, leading a team, or shaping an industry—you can’t afford to just participate in the conversation.
You need to shape it.

Use data to define your voice.
Use strategy to structure your story.
Use thought leadership to move the future forward.

Need help developing a thought leadership strategy that’s both future-facing and true to you?
Let’s build it together.

How to Use AI Effectively in Executive Communications: 5 Strategies That Work

In today’s world, ‘Digital Transformation’ is poised to – at the very least – shake up almost every industry. Whether all of these innovations will lead to true transformation is yet to be fully realized, however there are plenty of ways in the here and now to use AI to transform your executive communications.

It must be said that while it may be tempting to automate every aspect of your communication strategy, authenticity remains the key to insightful communication. Therefore, each of these tips will focus on how to use AI strategically while making sure your communications maintain your unique tone of voice. 

Embrace AI Tools Strategically

“AI’’ is like a multi-tool, sure any of the tools in the arsenal could potentially unscrew a cork from a wine bottle, but in reality only one is the most efficient. With all of the apps that claim to be powered by machine learning, your first step is to pick one tool and see how it augments (or perhaps distracts!) from your current workflow.

A few helpful places to start are looking at tools that align with your immediate communication goals. Do you have employee or customer feedback? Explore using sentiment analysis to review feedback faster. 

AI-driven platforms like Gong or Qualtrics can analyze customer or stakeholder feedback to guide external messaging strategies. How so? These platforms are based on Large Language Models (LLMs) or artificial intelligence systems that are trained on massive amounts of data and can understand and generate human-like text. LLMs are at the backbone of the technology driving the “AI revolution.”

If you have Twitter/X feedback, email inquiries or simply survey responses, you can upload these or any text based data set to help you analyze sentiment quickly. Additionally, AI can also assist you in the first draft of a communications strategy responding to feedback or measure your current strategy against possible audience sticking points.

Enhance Content Creation with Perfectly Engineered Prompts

Leaders who regularly publish insightful, forward-thinking content establish themselves as credible voices in their industries. But thoughtful content takes time, so what are some ways to use AI to speed up that process?

Not sure where to start with a keynote presentation? Have a brainstorm session with AI then have it generate a first draft. AI tools like Jasper can assist executives in creating thought leadership content, such as blog posts, white papers, or speeches. Additionally, a tool such as Writesonic can guide a creative first draft to a technically better product (or one that is search engine friendly), modifying the content to take into account key words, word length of competitors, etc. 

Ensure Access to an Editor

While AI doesn’t replace human creativity, it can accelerate the drafting process and surface fresh ideas. Software like Chat GPT and Google Gemini can be the Editor you’ve never had. You have probably seen viral videos of people training AI to “Write a Song in the Style of the Beatles”, but did you know that you could train AI to rewrite a piece in your tone of voice? Train the tool you are using with some of your best work and then ask for rewrites on a current piece you can’t seem to get across the finish line. 

Not sure if your point came across correctly? Ask AI to Play Devil’s advocate and argue for the opposing team. 

Elevate an Argument with Data & Depth 

To establish credibility, your executive communications should include both personal experience and rich data points. AI can strengthen your arguments by assisting with primary research, allowing you to add relevant data or adjust your topic to fit current trends. But remember, it is always best to double check any data points an AI assistant pulls from the web. Mistakes can happen!

You may also use AI tools to help reverse engineer your specific point of view into Actionable Takeaways for your audience.

The prompt below is ready to use for you to try with your next piece:
"I want to create actionable takeaways for my audience based on [insert topic]. My key point of view is [insert perspective]. Can you break this down into 3-5 clear, step-by-step takeaways that help my audience apply this concept in a practical way?

Edge out the Competition 

Before locking in a topic, do a quick scan of existing articles or videos to see how others are approaching it. Identify the gaps—what questions did they leave unanswered? Where is the depth or practicality missing? If there’s overlap, don’t shy away. Instead, take the conversation further. Add fresh insights, reframe the discussion, or bring a new angle that makes it distinctly yours.

Hopefully the tools above can help you incorporate AI into your broader communication strategy and begin to create an AI Literacy that is crucial for future leaders.  

Not sure where to start when developing your Thought Leadership Plan? Download my free “Thought Leadership Checklist” and start defining your voice today. 

How Do We Make Sustainability More Inclusive?

During 2020 (aka the “Year of the Reckoning” that some have affectionately called it), how we can use our collective power to build an “inclusive” future/workplace/literally everything has been the subject of many thought pieces. However to build an equitable and inclusive path forward, we must center sustainability in that discussion as well.

‘Inclusive’ and ‘Sustainable’ are both Big Words, that while not ambiguous in meaning, seem to have become catch all words for companies signaling to people that they want to do whatever it is they do, better. 

However these terms at times find themselves at odds with each other as sustainably designed goods are currently by design not very inclusive, pricing out the average consumer and often only accessible by those with the highest amounts of disposable income.

If you perform a quick Google Search, you will find many articles listing the reasons why this is so (namely fare wages and supply and demand) and almost acceptance as the fact that anything better for you, the environment or the person who made it just HAS to cost more. 

Seastainable, a blog for a self-proclaimed social business, after running through this list writes “even if that’s the case, we should be okay with it, because this is the true price of consuming our products – a price that captures environmental externalities that we’ve chosen to ignore in the first place.”

But should that be the case? The premiumization of sustainable goods can sometimes simply be a fun case of virtue signaling, which can be noted as the performative act of an individual  equal to the green-washing or woke washing that most major corporations are often accused of.

An often cited statistic is “of those inclined to purchase environmentally friendly products, 3 in 5 (61%) would only buy green items if they cost the same or less than non-eco-friendly products.”

So how do we really make sustainability inclusive and bring more people to the party? 

1. Shifting Consumer Demand Toward Reusables. It is a tale as old as time, our forefathers recycled and repaired because in the end that was not only the more cost effective choice but sometimes was the only choice.

2. Increasing Consumer Demand for Sustainable Products. If you build it, they will come. But you can’t build a lot of it unless a lot of people come.  Behavioral research also shows time and time again, that when consumers see their neighbors or peer groups implementing a green behavior, they are more likely to do so as well.

3. Laws, Straight Up. As individuals we can do a lot to harness or collective power and Work on the System vs. Within it, and one such way is by showing up in our communities and engaging with our politicians for them to do more.  Canada declared that it will BAN (that doesn’t happen by accident) single-use plastic items by the end of next year. 

If you are currently investigating how to make sustainability more inclusive in your community, drop me a line!

Why is Sustainability Still Thought of as a Luxury Good?

Last week, Richard Florida published 6 Rules for Sustainable City Development and he underscored the importance of inclusive city planning. Florida didn’t define what he means by inclusion, but one can assume he is referring to the variety of voices that live, work and play in urban neighborhoods yet are often left out of the conversation by the affluent founders of services and products If you have been around this particular discussion for a while, your first thought might be, “well duh, including different perspectives should be everyone’s first thought!” But sadly, it isn’t.

The first time I really thought about this conversation was in relation to environmental sustainability. After stumbling on an episode of Shark Tank and seeing a team of entrepreneurs trying to market a $20 collapsible metal straw During this episode one of the shark’s raised the question, “Why would someone in a lower income bracket purchase this luxury good?”

It is a great question. When we think of the sustainable or ‘green’ innovations in the world of consumer goods, there are great companies doing great things! From recycled water bottles with new lives as shoes and coats to Tesla’s long range luxury electric vehicles, the world is making progress.  These items however are often just as much as a status symbol as they are a matter of conscientiousness and environmental consideration.

While understandably the business of innovation requires high profit margins, I believe there are still ways to bring small changes to our often forgotten populations. Companies like Chicobag collect reusable totes and grocery bags from those of us Marie Kondo-ing our collections and provide them to lower income families while government organizations like GrowNYC (full disclosure I am a regular volunteer here) provide organic groceries to New Yorkers while supporting local farmers and providing fresh food access to those on government assistance.

Thus, I think it up to all of us no matter the industry we work in to consider the methods which we can bring more voices to the table. Personally, my 2019 intention is to bring awareness of taking the conversation out of just certain circles to the mainstream of a generation hungry for change.