Shawnee Delaney

Alternate title: What Recruiting Spies Taught Me About Human Behavior and Trust

Before someone will betray their country, they must trust you completely.

Shawnee Delaney spent nearly a decade as a clandestine case officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency recruiting and running spies in denied areas, hostile environments, and combat zones. Her job wasn't just gathering intelligence. It was engineering trust under the most adversarial conditions imaginable, with people who had every reason not to trust anyone.

What she learned is that trust isn't a feeling. It's a system. And the same psychological principles that drive an asset to hand over classified information shape every high-stakes relationship in business - with your team, your clients, your board, and your adversaries.

In this session, Shawnee decodes the operational science behind human connection: how intelligence professionals identify what drives a person, establish influence without manipulation, and build relationships that hold under pressure. You'll walk away understanding how trust is actually constructed, where it breaks down, and what it costs you when it does.

This isn't soft skills. This is tradecraft.