In this powerful talk, Meg Whitty shares lessons from childhood campaign trails in rural Iowa that shaped her career building coalitions for sustainable aviation fuel. Drawing from experience across agriculture, energy, and aviation sectors, she reveals how authentic trust unlocks solutions to seemingly impossible challenges. Whitty demonstrates how the same communities devastated by hospital closures and economic decline can lead the clean energy transition, creating jobs while solving aviation's 3% contribution to global emissions. The presentation examines specific techniques for bringing together competing interests around shared goals, challenging false choices between economy and environment. Her message resonates particularly with leaders seeking to bridge political and geographic divides. Meg Whitty serves as Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Marketing at LanzaJet, Inc., a global leader in sustainable fuels technology and the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel. She leads the company’s global marketing, brand, and community engagement strategies, advancing their mission to accelerate the clean energy transition in aviation and beyond.Meg is a proven strategist, team-builder and communicator with 17+ years of experience spanning the corporate, tech start-up and government sectors. Her work has supported rural communities investing in renewable energy through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, advanced SAF adoption at a major U.S. airline, and helped industrial businesses reimagine operations through artificial intelligence and machine learning. Today, she is at the forefront of decarbonizing the aviation sector with cutting-edge fuel technologies. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx