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In 2007, I founded my first company — and my first fights were about laws, not slides. Grupa SAPR was a social-impact PR agency specializing in advocacy and lobbying campaigns for public health. Influence, for me, was never a soft skill: it was the core, tangible effect — the difference between a policy passing or dying.
About
Magda Petryniak
Strategic Communication & Influence Advisor. For 20+ years — 15 of them inside international organizations — I've been helping leaders and experts turn what they know into real influence.
What drives me
What drives me in life is impact. Everything I do revolves around influence — whether it's changing legislation, creating social campaigns, opening an audience to possibilities they couldn't see before, or helping one person make the leap that changes their life.
The scale varies. The essence doesn't: real influence moves something in the world that would not have moved on its own.
My Story
What brought me here
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In 2010, it passed. Poland amended its tobacco control law — a change our organization and the coalition we built helped bring about, working alongside Bloomberg Philanthropies and the European Smokefree Partnership. Those were my first global strategic projects, and they taught me the lesson I've carried ever since: when communication is strategic, intentional, and human, it doesn't just win applause. It changes what's legal, what's funded, and what's possible. Communication must follow strategy.
Then came my executive education — by joining Harvard Business Review Poland. From 2011 to 2014, as Conference Director, I created 30+ events with the world's leading experts, including the Elite Sales and Elite Leadership academies. Earlier still, I had co-created the International MBA Congress at the Krakow School of Business, from its very first edition in 2005. For a decade, my job was to stand next to the best minds in business — and turn their knowledge into rooms full of engaged people.
In 2014, one of those minds invited me in. I joined the global partner team of Mike Bosworth — creator of Solution Selling — delivering programs in the USA, Singapore, and the UK. A year later I brought the method home, founding Story Seekers Poland to help sales organizations build trust-based, advisory selling.
Since 2020, I've been building what all those roads were leading to: a practice devoted to influence itself — advisory programs for leaders and experts, and since 2024, the Communication Masterclass platform. Along the way I became what I am today: a three-time entrepreneur, a social-sector campaigner, a strategic communication advisor, and an educator at Executive MBA programs in Kraków and Lisbon. Four roles, one through-line — helping people turn what they know into influence that moves the world around them.
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I see more in people than they see in themselves.
That's not a slogan — it's the most consistent thing my clients say about me. The expert convinced her work “isn't spectacular enough” who now runs a pillar of a global CISO structure. The leaders who discovered their value was never the problem — only the way it was communicated. My work starts where self-doubt meets real potential: I help people see what I see, and then build the influence to match it.
And I hold myself to the same standard I teach: I show on myself what I ask of others.
Even my talent DNA agrees. In the CliftonStrengths assessment, my two defining themes are Maximizer — turning something strong into something superb — and Individualization: seeing what makes each person unique. And my leading domain is Influencing. In other words: I teach what I'm made of.
I connect worlds that don't usually talk to each other.
Three kinds of contexts, one practice:
Organizational
— 100+ companies across four worlds that rarely meet: business, NGOs, academia, and the public sector.
Cultural
— Projects across the USA, Asia-Pacific, Scandinavia, the Iberian Peninsula, DACH and EMEA — I know how the same message lands differently in each.
Geopolitical
— From moderating at Davos to running conferences with government ministers: I understand how public influence actually works.
The Four Pillars of Influence.
Not a set of techniques — a system I bring to every engagement: four areas of work that together turn expertise into influence. And they are a map, not a script: there is no fixed sequence — we move between the pillars as your moment and your goals require.
#01 Strategy Where do I need influence — and what should it win me?
Influence that is deliberate, not accidental: mapped to your goals, your stakeholders, and the arenas where decisions about you are made.
Where do I need influence — and what should it win me?
Influence that is deliberate, not accidental: mapped to your goals, your stakeholders, and the arenas where decisions about you are made.
We start with a map, not a message. Where do you need influence — with the board, with investors, with headquarters, in your industry? And what should it win you: a budget, a mandate, a position, a change? We chart your goals, your stakeholders, and the arenas where decisions about you are made — so every act of communication serves a defined objective. Influence by design begins here: with strategy, before a single word is written.
#02 Identity Do I believe my own message?
Clarity about who you are as a leader — outside and inside. This is where we work on beliefs, confidence, and the inner voice that says your work “isn't spectacular enough.”
Do I believe my own message?
Clarity about who you are as a leader — outside and inside. This is where we work on beliefs, confidence, and the inner voice that says your work “isn't spectacular enough.”
Influence built on a borrowed persona collapses under pressure. So we work on the real foundation: who you are as a leader — outside and inside. The outside layer is positioning: how you want to be seen, for what, and by whom. The inside layer is where the deepest work happens: your beliefs about yourself, the impostor syndrome, the inner voice that says your work “isn't spectacular enough,” the blockers that keep you quiet in rooms where you should speak. This psychological layer is what most communication programs skip — and it is exactly where lasting change begins. You cannot consistently project what you don't believe.
#03 Persuasion How do I make people understand, feel — and act?
Turning intention into impact: one clear idea, narrative and story, structure that moves decision-makers instead of informing them.
How do I make people understand, feel — and act?
Turning intention into impact: one clear idea, narrative and story, structure that moves decision-makers instead of informing them.
This is the craft layer: turning intention into impact. We build every message around one question — what should your audience remember, feel, and do? Then we give it the machinery: one clear idea, sharp argumentation, structure that guides instead of overwhelms, and storytelling that makes it stay. The result is communication that moves decision-makers — instead of merely informing them.
#04 Visibility Do the right people see, recognize, and remember me?
Building presence in the arenas that matter — so your influence doesn't end when the meeting does.
Do the right people see, recognize, and remember me?
Building presence in the arenas that matter — so your influence doesn't end when the meeting does.
Influence that ends when the meeting ends is influence wasted. Visibility is the deliberate building of presence in the arenas that matter for your goals: inside your organization, in your industry, on stages and in media — in the rooms where your name comes up when you're not there. We choose those arenas consciously, build your presence in them, and make sure the right people see, recognize, and remember you — for the right things.
Where I show up
Teaching
— Own courses at Executive MBA (Cracow School of Business) and post-MBA (AESE Lisbon); guest lectures at Kozminski University, SGH, and HULT.
Communities
— Expert for Women in Technology Poland (“Be Visible in IT”), Cyber Women Community (five years of preparing Rising Star finalists), women's leadership conferences.
Causes
— This work is personal: co-founder of the TELL A STORY campaign bringing storytelling into schools; supporter of a family children's home (“Dom Superbohaterów”); pro bono work from Tech to the Rescue to Głos Seniora.
My podcasts
— Impact Leaders (Poland Weekly), Hero Stories, Women Who Influence Tell Powerful Stories, Humans of the World.
The toolbox
The toolbox — I never stop upgrading the craft. Certified: Story Seekers® (Mike Bosworth's method) · DISC Extended · Prosci® Change Management. Working with: Erin Meyer's Culture Map. CliftonStrengths-assessed (Gallup) — leading domain: Influencing.
- 20+ years in strategic communication
- 15 years inside international organizations
- 12+ markets
- 5000+ leaders and experts trained
- Founder, Story Seekers Poland
- Partner, Story Seekers®
- Executive MBA instructor
- 20 years of NGO activism