Connecting with Susanna Pollack

Susanna Pollack is a cross-sector leader known for advancing ambitious social impact goals through traditional and interactive media. Susanna is the President of Games for Change, a global nonprofit and community dedicated to using video games to tackle real-world challenges, from humanitarian conflicts to climate change and education. She has initiated dozens of world-class events, public arcades, design challenges, and youth programs in partnership with some of the world's most recognizable companies and institutions, and is leading an effort to deepen collaboration with the gaming industry around the UN's Global Goals. 

How have relationships influenced your professional development and leadership style? 

When I joined Games for Change 10 years ago, after more than a decade in television and children’s media, my first role was in partnerships and special projects. I didn’t know much about gaming, but I knew how to connect people and ideas. And as I’ve learned, that’s the first and most important step of creating an experience that will make an impact in some way. Games for Change’s mission is focused on cross-sector collaboration, bringing people together across gaming and tech, government, and the nonprofit sector, and building bridges between organizations with different goals and capabilities to drive real-world change. So leadership for me is really about creating space for dialogue, listening for common threads and being open to a lot of different approaches to impact. 

Do you have any tips for maintaining and building strong relationships?

I find myself lately looking to game designers, and the game design process, for inspiration. Designing a game is really a process of creating an experience, a world for people to be a part of. The process forces you to think with a lot of intention about the experience you’re creating for people you interact with, and the impact that every interaction has within the greater system. Building and maintaining strong relationships requires the same level of intention, empathy, systems thinking and problem-solving. But it helps just as much to think about building relationships from the perspective of the player, and try to show up in relationships with the same mindset of curiosity, persistence and playfulness with which you’d approach a game. 

How have you intentionally built inclusiveness into your circles?

Diversity, inclusion and belonging is critical to our work at Games for Change, in terms of the community we’re building, our programs for young people, the way we advocate for greater representation and inclusion in the gaming sector, and the creators and stories represented in the games and experiences that we uplift. Right now, as Games for Change expands our global chapters on every continent except Antarctica, we’re doing a lot of thinking about how to cultivate an inclusive global community that amplifies the authentic voices coming from our local community chapters and creates meaningful connections across cultures, sectors and generations. In my view, the key to building an inclusive community is recognizing the unique perspective that everyone brings to the table and prioritizing authentic co-creation and collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders—especially youth.

What community or communities are you proud to be a part of?

Of course, I’m incredibly proud to be a part of the Games for Change community—game developers, artists and technologists, educators and students, government and nonprofit leaders, healthcare professionals, academics and researchers, and many more. Over the last 20 years, we’ve learned that games have this universal power to bring people together, and we need that power to drive meaningful change.

Who’s a Connector that's made a difference in your life? 

When I was working on a TEDx program in NYC, one of our collaborators introduced me to Sunny Bates. I found her to be so inspiring — someone who is such a force, yet so warm and genuine. She framed her work as being a ‘connector,’ and it was a new concept for me at the time that connecting could be considered a skill set and a passion. I just took it for granted that it’s something that everyone did, but the realization that connecting is something special and intentional changed the way I think about my role as a leader. Sunny said something I will never forget: “The power of connections is that they often lead to opportunities you couldn’t have predicted.” What excites me is the magic that happens when you put two people together and a new idea or project is born. What an incredible honor to be a part of making that magic. It’s what I aspire to now.

It's an honor to feature inspiring change-makers across industries who share their stories and words of wisdom about how to build meaningful relationships. Catch up on #CONNECTED with our previous guests, including Baratunde Thurston, Prisca Bae, Jen Fisher 🦋, and more!

Susan McPherson is a serial connector, seasoned communicator and founder and CEO of McPherson Strategies, a communications consultancy focused on the intersection of brands and social impact. She is the author of The Lost Art of Connecting: The Gather, Ask, Do Method for Building Meaningful Relationships.

Follow Susan on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram and order her new book, The Lost Art of Connecting, also available on Kindle and Audiobook.