#WeLeadComms: Olivier Le Blanc

Washington-based communication leader Olivier Le Blanc is today’s #WeLeadComms honoree.

In his words:

“For over two decades, I’ve worked at the intersection of communications and external relations across the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Senegal, and the United States — spanning international development, humanitarian assistance, brand building, institutional communication, diplomacy, and labor relations in the North American context.

“Somewhere in that journey, a conviction took hold: communicators need a far more impactful voice in defining the identity of the organizations they serve. At its core, my work is about humanizing institutions so they can bridge the trust gap that too often separates them from the audiences and publics they’re meant to connect with.

“I didn’t start as a journalist. I started as a filmmaker and videographer, which morphed into photography, content creation, external relations, and strategic communications. Storytelling sits at the core of all of it. One of my ongoing missions is to explain, concretely, what storytelling actually is, how it works, why it matters, and what results we can realistically expect from it. I think of it as a pearl necklace: individual stories are the pearls, beautiful but scattered on their own. Narrative is the thread that strings them into something an audience can actually hold onto.

“2026, I founded Narrative Engineering Studio to help NGOs, humanitarian agencies, and public-sector organizations close that gap. The mission, however, is bigger than client work. I’m also building a community of practitioners around storytelling, organizational branding, and institutional storytelling, fields where the terminology gets thrown around constantly but is rarely applied with rigor. I want to bring practitioners together to share research, data, and findings — including those from cognitive psychology — so the craft can develop the systematic footing it deserves.

“What drives me right now is watching public trust in institutions erode as online media and AI reshapes how information spreads, and seeing how many organizations still struggle to tell their story or humanize their identity. I want to help fix that.

“Beyond strategy, I care just as much about execution: I’m a photographer and writer by trade, and I believe ultra-high-quality content production — photography, videography, graphic design — is too often treated as an afterthought rather than the central pillar of impactful communication. Championing world-class production in service of organizational storytelling is a big part of what I want to be known for.”

+++