Lori Nitschke

How do you say thank you? 🙏 Every #Thanksgiving week, professional communicators across America face their greatest seasonal challenge: finding new ways to express gratitude without sounding like they swallowed the company handbook. “Grateful for our incredible team.” “Thankful for a year of growth and collaboration.” “Appreciate the partnership.” We mean it. But why doesn’t it always feel like it? Because “thank you” has become an appendage to an email signature...the verbal equivalent of “sent from my iPhone.” I was surprised to learn the phrase comes from Old English þancian, meaning to think. To thank someone literally meant, “I have thought about what you did.” Fortunately, good communication and good gratitude aren’t that different. Here are some tips: 1.) First, slow down. Think about the best act of gratitude you ever received. It probably told a story — a beginning, middle, and end. Effective gratitude, like effective messaging, depends on timing and context. Give yourself the space to be thoughtful. 2.) Second, name something real. “Thanks for the help” is fine. “Thanks for catching that error before our big announcement” tells the person you noticed. Specificity is the currency of sincerity. 3.) Third, sound like yourself. People can spot forced gratitude a mile away. You don’t need to “underscore appreciation” or “celebrate unwavering collaboration.” Unless that IS authentic to your voice. As inboxes and social feeds fill up with thankfulness this week, take a moment to actually think about the person on the other end...which, fittingly, is where the word itself began. #corporatecommunications #writing #messaging #gratitude

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My point of view on corporate communications, on a snowy Sunday. After more than a decade leading communications through cycles of growth, crisis, and transformation, one thing is clear: the job has fundamentally changed. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer puts structure around what many communications leaders manage every day. Trust is fragmenting. Shared reality is eroding. People are retreating into smaller circles and local relationships. Employers, however, remain one of the most trusted institutions globally. That trust carries responsibility for how companies communicate, lead, and show up. (https://lnkd.in/eKfsdVAu) Reporting from Davos by Axios and Eleanor Hawkins shows the same evolution inside companies. Communications leaders are being pulled closer to the center of decision-making. CEOs and boards expect judgment, fluency, and speed. At the same time, many CCOs report low confidence advising on AI transformation and messaging. That gap matters because AI now shapes reputation, trust, and experience. (https://lnkd.in/eZpu_aZF) The implication is practical and urgent. Communications has to operate as a system. One that sets priorities, sequences messages, and connects every decision to business outcomes. Episodic messaging cannot keep pace with a fragmented information environment. “Substance over promises” requires discipline. Substance earns trust when it shows up as proof, consistently, in the right order, through credible messengers. That discipline matters even more when AI-generated summaries travel faster than context and perception forms early. Trust is increasingly local and relational. Communications leaders are now responsible for brokering that trust. Inside companies. Across partners. With customers. And with governments and media when it counts. Communications leaders now shape how strategy is understood, how decisions are explained, and how credibility is built over time. The job is to create clarity across difference, bring proof to the surface, and help leaders move with speed without losing trust. Communications work is leadership work.

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Sustainability communications feel riskier than ever, but my colleague Angela Almasy outlines five considerations to help companies balance the risks and opportunities. Read her latest post through the link below. 

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Two years into being a NJ resident and I am still in awe of how (relatively) easy it is to hop into New York. Meeting with reporters at their publication's HQ? Sure! Attending a communications conference in Times Square? No problem! Takeaways from a recent conference: • Trust will be the most important currency for brands in the next 5 years. The speaker who shared this echoed what we in the comms world have known for a long time, but he is right that trust is increasingly valuable and fragile. • AI is here, and those not building their AI literacy will quickly fall behind. Carve time for it just as you'd carve time to fill an open role on your team. I'll be curious to see how brands ensure these two themes -- trust and artificial intelligence -- coexist in their communications frameworks in the years to come.

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Just back from this morning’s Financial Communications Society "The Social Factor in Financial Services" event, hosted in Philadelphia by FS Investments. Dan Lawler and I enjoyed the chance to be in the room where smart, financial marketing minds converged on a singular platform: LinkedIn. The expert panel focused on how financial services brands and advisors are navigating (and often untangling) the complexities of LinkedIn. From authenticity vs. automation to the ROI of “likes” vs. real leads, one thing was clear: social media is no longer a side channel. LinkedIn is driving B2B trust, advisor engagement, and brand-building in financial services. It was a wealth of knowledge (and no, not the kind you measure in AUM). Some key learnings that stuck with me: • Organic posts > pre-approved bank of content Authenticity yields the highest returns over pre-approved content that can become just an echo-chamber of white noise in the feed when shared by all employees simultaneously. • Birthday cake photos can outperform product announcements Finding the crossroads between professional but personal content can yield high engagement, but contrived scenarios can be off-putting as they reek of inauthenticity. • AI can amplify, but the human voice still wins Helpful as a brainstorming, volume, or enhancement tool but human tone and timing still outperform automated outreach. Thanks to Lara Coleman (FS Investments), Ryann Bucher (Janney), and Mike Kazanjian (FIDx or FEDEX😁) for the transparency, humility, and real talk. And to the FCS for keeping the financial marketing community learning and laughing.

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In this latest article from EOS at Federated Hermes Limited’s Q2 Public Engagement Report, Dana Barnes, Navishka Pandit, Velika Talyarkhan and Michael Benedict Yamoah, PhD highlight some of the key votes from the North American, European and Australian proxy seasons. The article includes a look at German automaker AGMs, child safety proposals at #tech companies, and how US shareholder proposals have fared in a changing regulatory landscape. #AI #corpgov #HCM #stewardship #ESG #climatechange #remuneration #digitalrights #tax #ShareholderRights #InvestorProtection

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Sustainability communications feel riskier than ever, but my colleague Angela Almasy outlines five considerations to help companies balance the risks and opportunities. Read her latest post through the link below. 

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