Who Gets a Seat at the Table? Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks on Media and Power

Who Gets a Seat at the Table? Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks on Media and Power

September 7, 2026 · 36 min · Episode 79

About this episode

Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks discusses media representation and power dynamics, sharing insights from her career and new book.

Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks has built her career around a question: who gets heard — and who gets a seat at the table? After working inside Parliament House, she founded Missing Perspectives to give young women a bigger voice in media. What started as a Squarespace blog has grown into a global media platform, backed by major brands and amplified by the likes of Reese Witherspoon.   Now, her new book The Right Hand takes her inside another world of influence: the chiefs of staff behind some of the world’s most powerful leaders. In this episode, Phoebe talks about: Why working in Canberra changed the way she thought about power and representation How a cold LinkedIn message helped launch Missing Perspectives Why she turned down early investment — and later quit her job to go all-in What traditional media gets wrong about reaching younger audiences What the people closest to Tony Blair, Jacinda Ardern and Justin Trudeau revealed about leadership behind closed doors The surprising role empathy, trust and difficult conversations play at the highest levels of power Why sometimes the hardest part of building something is simply getting started See…

People in this episode

Host: Sylvia Jeffreys

Guest: Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Missing Perspectives

Books & works: The Right Hand

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