Narrative Attack Influence Ops Playbook: What Comms, Public & Government Affairs Leaders Must Know

Perception has become an active attack surface. Threat actors and nation-states are engineering harmful narratives using AI, deepfakes, coordinated amplification and agentic bot networks to shape interpretation, erode trust and drive behavior at scale across citizens, corporations, financial markets and governments. The reactive playbook is no longer sufficient. Executives and organizations are targeted as instruments of geopolitical strategy, threatening democratic processes, economic stability, national security and the institutional credibility communications and public affairs professionals are charged with protecting. Getting ahead requires integrating social listening with narrative intelligence: the former surfaces signals, while the latter reveals the structure, intent and trajectory behind influence operations before most teams see them coming. In this session, Blackbird.AI's director of national security, Larysa Lacko, who spent eight years at NATO HQ leading the Information Environment Assessment team and advising senior leadership on countering disinformation, joins Franky Saegerman, former head of digital insights & social media at NATO with 30 years of service, and Eileen Sheil, assistant vice provost of communications and public affairs at Weill Cornell Medicine, to examine how narrative intelligence and social listening combine to create a modern cognitive defense capability. They will cover how narrative attacks manifest, the risks leaders must communicate internally and/or externally and what it takes to build a resilient cross-sector defense strategy. What You Will Learn: • Learn how threat actors and nation states construct, seed, and amplify harmful narratives across digital ecosystems, and what makes modern influence operations fundamentally different from traditional misinformation • The difference between social listening and narrative intelligence, and why organizations need both to detect narrative threats and counter them before they cause measurable reputational or operational harm • How to detect, map, and disrupt coordinated narrative attack campaigns before they scale, including frameworks for monitoring and measuring narrative risk in real time • How to align communications, public affairs, and security functions around shared threat signals so your organization responds as one • Real-world use cases from government, enterprise, and civil society drawn from decades of operational experience countering state-sponsored influence operations Speakers: • Franky Saegerman, Retired NATO - Head of Digital Insights & Head Social Media Franky Saegerman is a known speaker in the cybersecurity world and has presented at a large number of global events over the last years, more recently at Black Hat Las Vegas, Black Hat Asia and Sector 2025 in Toronto. During his 30 years of service at NATO as Head of Digital Insights, he has presented to a broad range of audiences, from Ambassadors to Students, from Academics to Military Audiences, from Subject Matter Experts to Newbies. Franky gave several guest lectures at TCU (Texas Christian University), UTA (University of Texas in Arlington) , NATO Strategic Centre of Excellence Riga , NATO School Oberammergau • Larysa Lacko, Director of National Security, Blackbird.AI Larysa Lacko is Director of National Security at Blackbird.AI. She brings over a decade of experience across multilateral and national government settings, including NATO HQ and the Canadian government, operating at the intersection of strategic communications, data-driven insights, and public policy. As Head of Information Environment Assessment at NATO HQ, she led the production of assessments informing senior decision-making and defense policy planning, was instrumental in building consensus around NATO's strategic approach to countering state-sponsored influence operations, and spearheaded the Alliance's engagement in multilateral counter-disinformation efforts with the European Union and the G7. She also served as a regular lecturer at the NATO School in Oberammergau, training Alliance practitioners across civilian and military contexts. • Eileen Sheil, Assistant Vice Provost, Communications and Public Affairs, Weill Cornell Medicine A leader in global corporate communications, Sheil has broad experience in health care public relations, crisis management and digital communications. She received a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University and a Master's Degree in Public Administration from the Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. Currently, Sheil is the Assistant Vice Provost of Communications, Marketing and Public Affairs at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City and responsible for protecting and enhancing the reputation of Cornell University’s medical school. Learn more: https://blackbird.ai