Persona Media

We believe in the power of thought leadership to drive your influence, build trust, and serve at scale.  Our clients have included leaders at SANS Institute, Center for Internet Security, World Economic Forum, AWS, Upwork, Salesforce, Gateway Church, Asset Funders Network, Phillips Foundation, Marguerite Casey Foundation, along with startups, founders, speakers, consultants across the U.S.  

Our current clients include global leaders and organizations in national security, AI, cybersecurity.  

Each engagement is carefully assessed for fit, and accepted if we can provide meaningful value to you and your audience. A tailored team and work plan is built around you and your influence objectives.

CEO; Thought Leadership Strategist

I speak on the why and how of modern thought leadership. I’ve spoken at CMO Huddles, National Cybersecurity Alliance’s Convene Conference, various ERGs, network events, meetings and on panels, virtually and in person. If your audience needs to represent your brand, I can show them how.

Guest Speaker

Today's leaders share their own thought leadership journey. And I teach the tactics of personal writing, speaking, monetization, B2B revenue, and how to serve at scale. Shape the future of your field.

Host | How To: Thought Leadership podcast

SecurityBiaS

Advisor

Level Up Ventures

Mentor

DIY Influence

You’re a leader. Now it’s time to become a thought leader. So we built a learning network! Learn to market yourself and monetize your subject matter expertise in a supportive community. It’s time to bet on yourself.

Founder

SecureTheVillage

Head of Thought Leadership

The Webby Awards

Jury Member

Chief

Member

Citizens Committee for New York City

Chief Marketing Officer

Communities Foundation of Texas

Assistant to the Chief Philanthropy Officer

UC San Diego

Corporate Communications

Thought Leadership Strategist | AI, Cybersecurity, National Security | 15-year founder | Social media obsessed | Build your influence to serve at scale.

If you’re reading this, you have influence. Everyone does. It’s just a matter of how adept you are at welding it to get what you need done. Stick around to learn from a thought leadership strategist for startups, executives, and orgs in AI, cybersecurity, national security. 

I’ve seen thought leadership win when marketing impact is dull in an AI-powered world and the customer journey is fragmented and self-driven. 

I’m obsessed with how ideas spread, how people earn trust, and how our brightest minds can serve at scale. 

Equally obsessed with sharing these ideas that I learn in client work and studying the leadership field with all interested in expanding their influence. 

In my work, I advise and create thought leadership toward revenue and influence, and to help clients create a more secure tomorrow. 

At my firm, Persona Media, now 15 years in, my team and I develop and execute visibility strategies, from idea and interview to live thought leadership content. We embed within executive and stakeholder ecosystems, partnering with your organization's comms, product, and policy teams to align with strategy behind what’s being built and align thought leadership to bring about those revenue and influence objectives. 

Every message we craft is grounded in trust, discretion, and a deep respect for the complexity and consequence of their work. A handful of examples of our work: 

Our client engagements often begin with board members in quiet conversations asking our help to make their C-suite comfortable and confident (palatable!) on camera. 

We work alongside crisis comms to adapt statements into something palatable the humans and social platforms. 

We take keynotes from our clients and turn them into TikToks, blogs, articles in major publications that your PR team can work with. 

Our thought leadership content becomes the best performing marketing content on your brand channels.

I am based in Dallas with my brilliant communications strategist and YouTuber husband and two daughters. Here, there’s always a notebook open, books consumed, nerding out over 'the future of,' sci-fi, and tech, cooking avoidance, and the outdoors. 

I teach weekly, speak often, and host the How to Thought Leadership podcast. My first book, coming in 2026, is a reinvention field guide to align on what you want, what the market wants from you, and how to MVP that brand in AI-first world.

What Ryan shares here, #ThisIsThoughtLeadership. While I don’t know him, I do believe we deserve the support and the care of our networks when we go through it.  

If you’re not sure if you should share something, run a quick gut check: “If I read this from my peer, would I be glad / grateful / better for having read it / able to help somehow because it was shared?”

Why open up to people? Fake will fail. LinkedIn is like Starbucks. Pretend like nothing‘s wrong at your normal hangout, and eventually you’ll stop showing up, because you run out of energy for fake pretty quickly.  

Life is one big ball of human complexity across work, beliefs, our people, what we love and what breaks our hearts. 

We are made of each other. I’ll be a better human for what Ryan Delany shared. Ryan, thousands of us are thinking of you and your kids.

Julie Michelle Morris

Head of Thought Leadership, AI & Cybersecurity. Founder. Startup mentor. How To: Thought Leadership, the book (releasing 2026), podcast, Substack newsletter.

Founder and Chief Analyst at Coffee Trading Academy, LLC

*Personal Tragedy*

I wrestled with whether or not to write this.

Last Saturday, my wife of 16 years passed away in hospice care. Andrea had been in a coma-like state for the previous 2 weeks. She went into cardiac arrest after an asthma attack while I was out getting pizza with the kids. No warning, no chance to say goodbye. 

A consoling friend said to me, "life, as it turns out, is incredibly fragile." Very true, and for someone who manages risk, my emotions were completely unprotected.

We have two wonderful children together: my daughter Devika who is 14 years old and son Logan who is 11.  

Normally, I only post things here about the coffee market or my business, and at first I wasn't going to say anything about what happened. My business is about understanding the dynamics of a complex world and advising people about price risk. Talking about my personal life doesn't really fit into that.

Fortunately for me, my team has been wonderful making sure that everything hums along smoothly without interruption while I console my family and make funeral arrangements.

So why am I writing this? Well as I see it, I had 3 choices. 1) I could hide this tragedy and smile and continue to post about the coffee market like nothing happened, 2) I can withdraw and let my team run the show while I rest in solitude or 3) I can be honest about what happened and what I'm going through.

I love the coffee community and it has been my home for almost as long as I was married. I joined ECOM in 2010 about a year after I had been married. My daughter Devika was born when I was working in India trading coffee. My wife became pregnant with my son Logan when we were trading coffee in Uganda.

One of the wonderful things about this little black drink, is that coffee is a social glue. We often come together over a cup of coffee to share what's going on in our lives and to discuss things that are important to us.

Well, as we drink our coffee this morning, I'm sharing with you what's going on in my life, and telling you what is important to me. My wife, my kids, my many friends and colleagues, and my greater coffee family are what's important.

Over the past week as I struggled to make sense of this, I have been surprised by how quickly memories of Andrea are fading. I was so used to having her around in the present, I never made an attempt to save those precious moments for the future. 

So here is my risk-management suggestion for you. The next time you have a happy moment with someone you love, make an effort to commit those moments to memory. Drink in that moment and think to yourself "I want to remember this." It's a way for you to be present in the moment, but also preserve that moment for the future.

Have a great weekend my friends. Enjoy your time together. Remember those happy moments. I know for sure, that you will be glad you did.

--
Memorial Website: https://lnkd.in/eEr2He4Z
--

If you read a single post from me all year, this is the one. We are giving brilliant, qualified people this terrible career advice. 

Sat next to a brilliant person at Life Time Fitness this week. (Half the people there work for themselves, and we all take calls in the cafe.) 

She was absolute fire on that call. Clearly a genius in revenue and operations for an entrepreneur client. 

I could barely contain my curiosity, even if i felt intimidated by how sharp she clearly was. (I’ve learned that I kick butt also, and not to feel that way for long.) 

Asked about her work. She said very vulnerably she was actually out of work, and that was just a short term project… 

then she confessed she was running out of savings while APPLYING FOR ADMIN ROLES. 

I felt my literal pulse race in my ears as she described this awful advice she had been given, doomed to fail:

I call this the pretzel: the process of shrinking and twisting experience and expertise into a small, bland package to apply for a job they clearly DON’T FIT and WON’T GET. 

HOW are people saying this straight-faced to each other…? Go, waste your precious time, energy, self respect and literal savings chasing a needle in a haystack.

An ADMIN …. when people hiring want someone cheap, young, unencumbered by experience and willing to work without boundaries?

What I told my brilliant new friend: 

You may never work a W2 again. Ever. 

They say you’re “too expensive” “overqualified.”

It’s time you accepted that this is ACCURATE. 

And this is the BEST time to accept that this is where most of the job market will be in the next 3-5 years. 

Don’t you want to be ready for the future? 

Rather than find yourself here in another year after you’ve sold your house, trying to unsuccessfully pretzel for the slim chance of some role that didn’t pay and you’d despise, while you become LESS READY for the future by the day? 

Never listen to that advice again. 

You’re here at the perfect time to figure out how to build a service-based business. 

I’ve worked for me for 15 years come January. 

If I can do it - ANYONE CAN.

Here’s what you need to do (I do this also, every six months). 

1: I figured out where I am exceptional. 

2: I asked the market what it was willing to buy today. 

I am so determined. It keeps me focused and fear to a reasonable volume. 


I implore you - take the reins of your life and future. 

Stop listening to advice from people NOT walking the path they recommend you travel.

Listen to people on the same journey RIGHT NOW and have validation all over the place. 

Read in my free Substack about my journey, how I am working for me as breadwinnner, how thought leadership nurtures potential clients - It’s all there. I’m writing a book with so many stories of how people are using this simple proven advice to get their career future ready.

https://lnkd.in/gHb2h29y

Thank you for reading and sharing.

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My preteen daughter announced to her brand new orthodontist that she needed braces to fix her overjet and overbite. He was annoyed. 

Not her fault. She had done massive research about her options.

I, of course, am proud momma… but said 🤷‍♀️, “welcome to my life.”

She was exactly right, even down to how long she would need the different stages of treatment. 

We have been told we can’t do things… 
Like start businesses. That most businesses fail… come on. 

We do not need to accept that. 

I personally believe 70%+ of us will need to become the head of our own service based business in the next 5 years. 

The knowledge is out there.

It’s time to take the reins like my kiddo did and LEARN.

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