Home / Ed Wallace & Chris Malone

Greetings ladies and gentlemen (the term is to be loosely applied),

Welcome to those new to Serendipity. As always, the premises of this newsletter can be found in the provenance email.

Thank you for all the notes of concern, pep talks, and hopeful fables regarding global events. It illuminated how many wise and expansive thinkers are on this list.

I recently made the 5,000+ mile journey to return to my home village, Knowle, for the first time in 21 years. Being a Brummy isn’t always high on my disclosure priorities but the trip gave my family and me the most joyful experience of connection we didn't even know we were missing. It enabled me to reconnect with people I had built relationships with through my formative years but had lost contact with. Seeing them again reminded me that there is more to life than work.

However, the exorbitant cost of international travel quickly balanced my newfound joy with the realism that happiness does actually cost money which is why I was overworked in the first place. As a result, work-life balance has been once again demoted to a 2026 stretch goal.

Despite the AI conversation reaching categorically obnoxious levels, I spend a lot of time thinking about how marketing can initiate, enhance, or reignite the human connection; so this month, I am introducing you to two luminaries in this space who have influenced me.

Please meet Philadelphia’s finest, Ed Wallace and Chris Malone.

(Pictured above - Ed Wallace and Chris Malone)

Ed Wallace and Chris Malone

Ed has been coaching and consulting sales teams for a few decades (I don’t intend to age him). He learned long ago that the highest-performing sales teams had extraordinary relational capital with their customers in common. His latest Amazon best-selling book, The Relationship Engine, will help anyone with revenue responsibilities in your company. He is a fantastic keynote speaker who will connect and corral your people to build better relationships.

If you fancy a chat, feel free to connect with him here; if you want a great read over the holidays check out his book, The Relationship Engine, here.

Chris Malone is both a scholar and operative. His book, The Human Brand, has taken him worldwide, delivering keynotes, and inspiring thousands of people to understand the benefits of the human connection when experiencing brands. In addition to his writings, he is also the founder of Fidelum Partners, which applies human behavior research, insights, and analytics to generate lasting customer loyalty.

To speak with Chris, you can reach him here. To read his best-selling book, The Human Brand, you can go here.