Deanna Troust

Founder, 3 Stories Communications

@DeeLT and LinkedIn

Deanna is an expert in developing strategic approaches for building more inclusive cultures in workplaces and communities. She is founder of 3 Stories Communications and a nonprofit dedicated to mobilizing people, communities and businesses to help tackle the mis/disinformation epidemic called Truth in Common.

Deanna began her career in social change communications after growing up in western New York and attending Cornell University. She spent 17 years, including a decade in leadership, at Vanguard Communications, where she learned cultural humility on the ground – through working with Native leaders, youth of color, LGBTQ advocates, individuals with behavioral health challenges and more. She also spent 5 years in multicultural corporate marketing and advertising for MCI and US Airways.

Deanna stepped into the diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) space in 2017, when she joined the strategy and assessment team at Cook Ross and served clients such as Carnegie Hall, Mars Inc., American Electric Power and Rise Against Hunger. She develops research-based DEI strategies and corresponding communications approaches, coaches and leads workshops.

Her experiences supporting researchers at NYU’s Cybersecurity for Democracy, who study misinformation and were famously deplatformed by Facebook, led her to develop the Truth in Common workshop series, newsletter and digital community in 2022. The program reveals how falsehoods fuel social division, threaten democracy and promote social injustice and equips learners to take a stand for the truth through respectful discourse.

Deanna lives with her husband and two bicultural teen daughters in Washington, DC’s eclectic Adams Morgan neighborhood. In her spare time, she leads the Inclusion & Racial Justice Committee at her church, serves on the board of DC International School and is learning the ropes as owner of an adorable rescue dog, Sweet Pea.