Ideagen Radio
Ideagen Radio
2025 Global Leadership Summit: Joseph Eannello, Wendy Atlin, Lyle Sandler & Julia Geffner — Leadership, Innovation, and the Power of Story
What if the missing piece in your biggest initiative isn’t budget or talent—but the story that carries it forward? We sat down with a true DC operator, a chief growth officer building sustainable tech, a global education leader, and a design author to map how courage, narrative, and community turn complex ideas into real outcomes.
From the Hill to the boardroom, we break down how to move beyond “policy will happen to us” and into proactive influence: build bipartisan relationships early, frame your idea for the political moment, and give lawmakers a story they can retell to constituents with confidence. On the innovation side, we explore why technology only scales impact when it’s wired to social and environmental value—treating AI and sensors as connective tissue across farmers, consumers, and communities.
You’ll also hear a powerful design framework—Play, Design, Tell (PDT)—that replaces fear with curiosity, upgrades “minimum viable” to “maximum valuable,” and turns scattered data into meaning that moves people.
We dive into the engine of future leadership: hands-on, multicultural learning. With students from over 100 countries, real-world projects teach perspective, agility, and collaboration—skills that translate directly to coalition-building and systems change. Threaded through every segment is a simple mandate: courage is the fuel, story is the vehicle, and design is the road that keeps you moving toward impact.
If you’re ready to turn ideas into policy traction, transform data into narrative, and build innovation that actually serves people and planet, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who leads teams or policy, and leave a quick review telling us the one idea you’ll put into practice this week.
The Idea Gen Global Leadership Summit. We have our next Power Panel. Let me introduce Wendy Atlin. Wendy, Chief Growth Officer for Excel One. Lyle Sandler, author of Universal Principles of Storytelling for Designers. I hear a theme here. Joe Ianello, partner, Capital Council, sir. And let's see. We had Julia Gefner, CMO of Summer Discovery. George, can we take that seat? I think we have one extra seat here. Thank you. And so, ladies and gentlemen, this is what you call a power panel. When you when you when you look or you check Chat GPT and say, give me an image of a power panel. Here you have it. Here you have it. I'd like to begin with Joe Ianella. Joe is someone who knows how to navigate Washington, D.C. like no other. He is a partner at Capitol Council, as I mentioned. He knows the appropriations process. That makes him a very popular gentleman around appropriations time for organizations looking for, trying to obtain funding from the federal government. And knows how to navigate the intricacies of that process again, like no other. So drawing on your experience, Joe, in both policy making and coalition building, Joe, how can global leaders leverage bipartisan relationships to advance the large-scale initiatives that impact both communities and business?
SPEAKER_02:Well, thanks, George. I appreciate it, and thanks to everyone who's here. What an incredible day of panels and speaking today. And uh that I was asking George about this before the panel started about the idea gen. Where's the we're generating ideas? All of us in here in this room, sort of bouncing off each other. Some of the great things that we're working on. The essence of what I do at Capitol Council in Washington, D.C. is taking some of those ideas of which there are no shortage when you're in Washington, D.C., and putting them in context for the moment that we're in, the political moment, and you know, trying to rise above the fray of whatever that might be. So you have this area of noise that's below us here, and then what we're going to do is think about in a bipartisan way how to capture what you're doing and deliver that to an audience of policymakers, of lawmakers in Washington, DC, and let them think about how this could influence what they're going to be doing, the policies that they're making. So something I say to all clients as we get into our, so Capital Council is multi-client government affairs firm, something I say to all of our clients or prospective clients is you don't want to be thinking just in terms of defense. You can fall into that trap where you say, oh, policy is going to happen to me, and then I better react to it. And that could be a danger zone to be in. You want to be thinking proactively about relationship building, about putting your idea into context. So that's really what we do. Um and there are many, many opportunities to continue to do that in Washington. So I'm happy to be here, George.
SPEAKER_04:Thanks. So well said, Joe. Always. Wendy Atlan, Chief Growth Officer for Excel One, we heard from your CEO today. Extremely inspiring, I think, for everyone to hear and see what Excel One is doing. And so you focus on sustainable solutions. Wendy, how can business integrate innovation and intelligence to drive both meaningful, societal, and environmental impact?
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. So, first of all, an honor to be here, and uh delighted to be here with Sanjay as well, representing XL1. I think foremost, um something that has to be germane to the infrastructure, to the process, to the DNA of the company in order to foster that continued areas of innovation and intelligence. What really has been profound today is more the co the sense of community, the sense of using technology as that connected tissue. Companies can't just predicate technology on uh on any AI. It has to be based on social value and business imperatives. Sanjay was very on point stating that it's all about the advancement of species. It's about the advancement of not just looking at the sense of self, but everyone else that is invested in that overall ecosystem. Whether or not it's the um and farmer, whether or not it's the consumer, it all has to be part of that entire life life cycle and a chain of value. So in order to realize outcomes, I really do feel that it has to be endemic in process and people and in technology, the overall outcomes for making a difference, especially in the current state. Um, we're still standing looking at it from a political angle. We have to look at it from social and sustainable and building resiliency in the entire mechanism. Once we have that as a standard, I don't think there's any limitations on what we can achieve. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04:How inspiring is that? And we saw the video. It's thank you. Yeah, it leaves you you know just stunned at what is possible.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And you know, that's just the start. That's just a baseline of what actually can be, you know, uh what the potential is. Right now we haven't set any thresholds, so quite excited about this journey. And everyone that has participated today is part of that evolution and that journey. So we feel very grateful and an honor to be here, George. So thank you.
SPEAKER_04:Well, like I like to say, changing the world is not easy. If it were, we wouldn't be here right now. So we're, you know, it's it's a process. Leadership is is an imperfect art, isn't it? We heard about all the different angles of what is leadership. It's courage, as Peter Cunio would say. I agree with Peter. I think it takes courage to get up in the morning and to keep going, especially when you're facing sometimes headwinds that are like you're in a uh a vehicle testing chamber with a wind tunnel.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_04:But yet you get up and you show courage, and and I think that that is really what what we're talking about here. Lyle Sandler. We talked a lot about storytelling today. Uh people get excited with storytelling. You know, life is a story, and like I say, after all, life is a series of moments. How would you like to spend those moments? Royal hair spending this, it's a it's a privilege for us to be spending these moments with you all. And Lyle, you're the author of universal principles of storytelling for designers. Right. That's incredible, right? That's to me inspiring. And so, storytelling, Lyle, is a powerful tool in both business and design, as we know. We I suspect that's true. Yes. And understanding that that's true, and with overlay an overlay of the context of leadership, how can leaders then use storytelling to inspire their teams and drive change across their organizations?
SPEAKER_03:Well, thanks, George. Appreciate it, and great to be here. Um a day full of stories. That's what it's been, it's a day full of stories. Um storytelling is the human superpower. That's our superpower. No other species tells stories. They communicate, but they don't tell stories, which is really important. Um I'll I'll answer this using a bit of a metaphor. And I was told never to answer a question with a metaphor, but I'll do it. I'll break that rule. Um, think about a pendulum. What is a pendulum? It's a weighted bob attached to a string that swings back and forth. On one side, you have storytelling, something we do every day. Actually, we even we tell stories to ourselves almost on a consistent basis. Those things we keep in our mind until some incentives us to share it with others. On the other side of the swing of this pendulum is innovation. Innovation will never happen without story. So that's the momentum. That's what I encourage leaders to do, which is consistently tell stories, and that momentum will consistently move. That's the momentum leaders should be looking for. Now, there are things that block our ability to do this. There are three things actually that I've observed over my career. Number one, it's work without play. If you can't, as a leader, introduce the lack of fear associated with play, with daydreaming, with just being creative, you're gonna have an issue. The second one is execution without design. We are so enamored with things like MVP, minimal viable product. Why do we ever use the word minimal and viable? It should be maximum valuable product, right? So that's the second thing that gets in the way. And then the third thing is data without storytelling. So when you really think about it, data is nothing more than pulling a single note out of a beautiful piece of music. If I played it right now, none of us would appreciate it. But if you join it with another piece of data, it becomes a story. And you know, I could give you an example. One of my mentors, John Williams, the composer. Two of the greatest notes ever put together. And those notes are the thing you hear when you're at the beach and decide whether you should go in the water or not, because there might be a shark or not. But if you hear it, it's an immediate, that's a story. So what I encourage the leaders that I work with, and I call it PDT, which is play design tell, it's a methodology. And I say, allow these three things to be part of your universe, your culture. You will innovate and you will reap the rewards of it.
SPEAKER_04:You know, it's it's incredible. You know, composer, mentor, come on, wrote the book. I mean, these are all things that are incredibly inspiring. I'd like to sort of hear behind the curtain, like you know the Wizard of Oz analogy, you know, you thought, you know, what was behind there, and then there was a guy, you know, pulling all the little strings and everything. You all are sitting in different sectors here, and you've seen by what's behind the curtain. And as it relates to leadership, Washington, summer learning, technology, you name it, you all have this, you know what's behind the curtain. We're all looking out at it like, okay, there's technology, and here's this curtain, and you don't know what's behind it. Or Washington, D.C., my gosh. You might want to close the curtain sometimes, but you open it again. Whatever it is, and that's a joke because I'm there too. But the idea is that you all are experts. And so, Julia, you're you're dealing with such a profound program, you know, at Summer Discovery, helping students learn summer learning, leadership. We have a program together, the ID Gen Future Global Leaders Academy. You know, this is profound work. So, what are you what is the secret to leadership that you see?
SPEAKER_00:So, I think the secret to leadership is actually the community that we build is part of our summer programs. So we really bring together students from around the world. We have 110 countries represented, and across our entire portfolio, we are 40% outside of the United States, which means that our students have the opportunity to learn from students of all different backgrounds and cultures. We partner with schools from around the world, we partner with guidance counselors, we partner with government organizations as well as other scholarship organizations to make sure that students can come together to have that hands-on learning. And it really is about hands-on learning, being in the classroom, doing something, forming a point of view, and learning about something that you're passionate about that allows you to propel into future success and be a future global leader.
SPEAKER_04:That's awesome. And because chivalry is not dead, I will ask Wendy. Wendy, what do you see behind that tech curtain? You showed us the drones, so I know you're flying above everything.
SPEAKER_01:We do.
SPEAKER_04:But what else? What is really happening? What is leadership really about, Wendy?
SPEAKER_01:Leadership is about that ability to actualize and enable that vision, that outcome. So the drones aren't just about the technology. It's not about how high we can go. We do have the specific sensors that determine, you know, the appropriate degree of moisture in the clouds, the soil's ability to absorb that rain, but it's bigger than that. It's looking at it from a magna perspective of value towards an overall ecosystem outcome. So it's vision.
SPEAKER_04:Vision.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:Lyle. Um, courage and lack of fear and the willingness to step out just a little bit. You don't have to jump off, you just have to step out.
SPEAKER_04:Can you can you go to your like neighbor's backyard and maybe jump off a stool first or something? I do it every day. Love it. And Joe Ianello, Washington. Tell us, what do you know?
SPEAKER_02:I I I would be stuck to try to match anything that uh Peter said with respect to how you be a leader, right? But pulling back the curtain, I'm gonna jump off of what Lyles had to say. I mean, telling, you know, sort of selling your idea to a policymaker, to a lawmaker is the s essentially storytelling, right? Because they have a world that they need to tell the same their version of the same story. They have a constituency, a voter base, or whatnot. Um, so when you're thinking about your own values, you know, how do you message that? How do you explain to them where there's alignment and how they can then make progress based on what you've told them?
SPEAKER_04:That's an incredible piece of perspective because even in Washington, I mean, you know, you get all these groups that come to Washington and they want to tell their story. A story, how do you rise above the din? You have to have a powerful story. It's this number of people served, or this is the impact we're having, or whatever it may be. You have to have everything is a story, is what we're finding out. Oh, and by the way, you need the courage to tell that story. Absolutely. Because what if you never told the story? There's no greater navigator of Washington than Joey and Ella. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_02:And we know that. You bag yourself to it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, well, uh you know, I just so I want to close with uh what's your final call to action, Wendy?
SPEAKER_01:I think in current state, leadership really you know dictates a sense of strong sense of commitment, community, and again, visionary outcomes.
SPEAKER_04:And how can folks find out more about Excel 1?
SPEAKER_01:A few ways. Um, one, we do have our website, which is www.xl1.com. We're also featured on LinkedIn, and we are also going to be featured on October 15th.
SPEAKER_04:There you go. By yours truly. The aging global, yes, indeed.
SPEAKER_03:Wild. Tell stories. Don't don't be frightened. Don't perform, tell stories. And um you will innovate, you will inspire, you'll get that momentum, you'll have that, you know, think about the pendulum. If you think about that every day, you'll win. And um, if you like, read my book, a hundred ways in which you could tell stories that will differentiate.
SPEAKER_04:And where can we find that book?
SPEAKER_03:Amazon.
SPEAKER_04:By Lyle Sandler.
SPEAKER_03:By Lyle Sandler.
SPEAKER_04:Love it.
SPEAKER_03:And the next one, which is about rhythm.
SPEAKER_04:And Julie, we're gonna go to you again. We want to make sure we maintain the chivalry here.
SPEAKER_00:All good. Um, I'd say, you know, the words of wisdom I can provide is be authentic and be agile. There's many different ways that you can accomplish the same goal, and it takes a lot of testing and learning and successes and failures to find your path. So do something you love.
SPEAKER_02:And Joey Anello, I just have to say Capital Council really enjoys a new relationship with Idea Gen. We're 20 years into business, um, you know, helping clients sort of make their progress in D.C. And capital, like the Capital Building Council, like a legalcouncil.com, is where you find us. Uh, but we'll find us in DC downtown and on the hill.
SPEAKER_04:Power panel. Thank you so very much.
SPEAKER_02:George.