What drives you?
People have always been my biggest driver. Internal communication is all about people and how through great communication you can make someone feel informed, connected, and purposeful, and overall make working lives better and help organisations succeed. Also in my role at the IoIC when you support people in their career ambitions and enable them to feel proud and accomplished. If I can have an impact on a person to make their working lives better then that is what gets me up in the morning.
Your proudest moment?
There has never been one big moment but a collection of moments which I am most proud of, particularly those when a person has said they feel they have more confidence or through great communication, you helped them feel supported to improve in their job as an internal communicator. A culmination of these moments where you see the trickle effect of your work by helping and supporting people through great content, activities, and conversations always creates a great sense of pride.
What would you tell your 21 year old self?
It’s ok to make mistakes and perfection is a myth.
Your first role?
Publishing Executive.
Your favourite place to escape?
Sunshine and sand when travel is allowed but in the UK. I love the Highlands the space and landscapes are breath-taking.
If you hadn’t gone into comms what would you have done instead?
In another life, I would have loved to have been a Detective!
Why join Women in PR?
As the Chief Executive of the IoIC, the professional membership body for internal communicators, we have a role to create a profession that is diverse and inclusive. We need to create environments where everyone feels welcome but also that they belong with a wealth of career opportunities, Women in PR helps support women by empowering and enabling them to succeed as an integral part of our professional community. By joining Women in PR I hope we can do more to support women in joining and leading in the internal communication profession.
What is your biggest failure?
It’s always not thinking about your audience. I once worked on a campaign to support the pro-bono work for the charities sector and the cause was right but in developing our communications we didn’t consider those that were already doing great work and that left a bad taste for some. What we were trying to achieve was great but we caused offence. The lesson learned is never making assumptions about your audience and ensure your communication speaks to everyone.
What’s the future for internal comms?
I can only speak for the internal communication profession. For internal communicators, I have always believed our future is extremely bright, as the future of work transforms communication is pivotal and as people change the way they absorb and interact with content and connect with each other and build trusted relationships, we have a big and vital role to play. We need to facilitate conversation, create a sense of community, support and coach senior leaders, advocate for a communication ethos that is more human-centered built on emotion and inclusive communication and we must work to support our organisations to embed great communication into their cultural fabric.
