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Always think about thinking ©
In this episode of The Piar Podcast, host Tan Sukhera sits down with Jon Amar—strategic communications consultant, former startup founder, and celebrated for his no-nonsense industry hot takes—to explore what separates vendors from indispensable partners: the ability to think like an owner. Jon brings hard-won perspective from taking a startup from zero to acquisition and leading communications across 20+ industries, and he's direct about what's broken: big agencies chasing quarterly profits, the bait-and-switch where senior people close deals then disappear, and a 7:1 ratio of PR professionals to journalists that's made earned media harder than ever. The conversation unpacks why SEO experts entering earned media are confusing clients into thinking PR is link building when it's actually trust building, why 2026 will force traditional PR and SEO to unify, and why companies investing in corporate newsrooms and brand journalism—hiring journalists at $200,000-$400,000 salaries—will own the AI-driven information landscape. Jon's core message: stop being a line item in a marketing budget, start understanding how clients make money and where they need to show up to close deals, and become so indispensable that you're basically the head communicator the organization can't live without.
Jon Amar is a strategic communications and public relations expert with experience across government, PR agencies, VC backed startups and entrepreneurship. He's led public relations and communications initiatives in more than 20 industries, including AI, blockchain, climate tech, finance, food and agriculture, healthcare, nonprofit, real estate and venture capital. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Axios, Bloomberg, CNBC, Fortune, the Washington Post and many others. Jon's also the founder of Vetted. a PR technology platform acquired in 2022 and previously led communications teams award-winning agencies supporting public and private companies nationwide.
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Tan Sukhera is a strategic thinking partner, a super connector of people & ideas, and perpetual student of the communications craft. A Canadian with a Marketing Communications background and former TV news anchor, Tan held roles at leading multinational media monitoring organizations before founding Piar. That work revealed something important: measurement was largely solved, but the cognitive blind spots where CCOs unknowingly leave gaps in their armor remained unaddressed. Over two and a half years, Tan invested six figures unlearning why his assumptions about the industry were wrong, drawing on behavioral science, decision theory, mathematics, and AI-assisted human-in-the-loop approaches to build systems, lenses, and frameworks that sharpen strategic judgment. As CEO & Co-Founder of Piar and lead workshop facilitator, he works with business leaders around the world on high-stakes decisions.
