Sara is the Director of Member Engagement at the Consortium for Service Innovation, a nonprofit think tank dedicated to improving customer engagement. She frequently explores Cross-Functional Customer Experience through her conference presentations and LinkedIn newsletter.

With a deep curiosity about all things content, Sara has built her career around effective communication—spanning technical writing, knowledge management, customer success enablement, and product management liaison roles. She has collaborated with nearly every type of team in SaaS environments, always seeking ways to bridge gaps and enhance customer experience. When not thinking about content strategy, Sara is attempting to improve her success rate with keeping houseplants alive while working from home in Las Vegas.

Impact Map: Getting Stakeholder Buy-In for Content & AI Initiatives

It’s an exciting time to be a content leader, whether you have direct authority or not! Dependency on trusted, reliable knowledge to fuel AI solutions has become widely recognized, but the rush to implement new tools is creating misaligned expectations across teams. Stakeholder buy-in is increasingly critical for adoption, ROI, and better customer experiences.

This session introduces a practical approach to securing buy-in for cross-functional initiatives using an Impact Map. This simple framework connects content to what stakeholders care about, helping you communicate value, align expectations, and create a shared understanding of why the work matters.

Beyond launching new initiatives, Impact Maps help teams maintain clarity during organizational shifts such as mergers, leadership changes, or restructuring. The result is a resource that strengthens communication, builds confidence, and connects your program to measurable outcomes for the business, employees, and customers.

In this session, attendees will learn how to:

• Identify common pitfalls of operating without clear stakeholder buy-in
  
• Translate content and AI efforts into business value
  
• Build buy-in and momentum with or without formal authority
  
• Navigate resistance, fear, and competing priorities during change
  
• Sustain momentum and communicate progress throughout long initiatives