“I Came in Like a Wrecking Ball”
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Teresa Valerio Parrot is the person higher ed presidents call first. Principal of TVP Communications, CASE Laureate, Crystal Apple winner, PR News industry innovator, and to the leaders she counsels, the "president whisperer" — the one who can get a guarded administrator to say the true thing out loud.
In this conversation, Teresa walks Mallory and Volt through what that discipline looks like when it holds and when it slips. The president who wanted to make a public statement about undocumented students, and how five private conversations protected those students better than a headline ever would. The call she got wrong: a team that swore no one had talked, a leak she didn't see coming, two weeks of her life spent putting the pieces back together, and the shadow plan she now builds every time in case the worst arrives early.
It's a conversation about putting the institution ahead of your own reflection in the glass, about honesty that arrives wrapped in optimism, and about a career built by getting out of her own way.
🔑 What You'll Take Away
The one question Teresa runs every hard decision through, and the moment a leader's answer tells you it's going sideways
Why "go bold" almost never means grab a megaphone
How to build the plan that assumes the leak, then execute like it won't happen
What sitting this close to presidents for 20+ years teaches you about the job nobody wants anymore
Why honesty needs a delivery system, and what a wrecking ball needs seated beside her
How to carry other people's weight across a whole career without letting it harden into your identity