The Internal Comms Podcast

The Internal Comms Podcast has gone truly global with our latest episode featuring three speakers from three countries. In episode 31 Katie tables a roundtable discussion with Jennifer Wah, Brad Whitworth and Neil Griffiths, who are all fellows of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). A fellowship is the highest honour the IABC can bestow on its members. Jennifer – based...

Chief Executive of the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), Adriènne Kelbie has an exceptional understanding of the true power of communication and engagement. The first woman to take up the lead role at the ONR, Adriènne describes herself as an outlier, markedly different from other chief executives. Winner of the Northern Power Women’s 2019 Transformational Leader Award, Adriènne is a passionate...

Katie’s guest this week is someone who is no stranger to crisis communication. Amanda Coleman was the Director of Corporate Communication at Greater Manchester Police when, on Monday 22 May 2017, a suicide bomber detonated a homemade bomb inside Manchester Arena. Twenty-three people died and 139 were wounded, more than half of them children. This was just one of the many tragic incidents Amanda ha...

Katie’s guest this week is one of the world’s leading authorities on internal comms and the management of change: Bill Quirke. As managing director of IC consultancy Synopsis, Bill has helped many global and blue-chip organisations align their leaders, engage their people, and turn strategy into action. He is also the author of two seminal books ­– Communicating Corporate Change, and Making the Co...

This week Katie speaks to renowned communicator Shel Holtz. As listeners continue to grapple with keeping workforces informed, galvanised and feeling connected during the corona crisis, Shel shares his guidance, advice and good humour to help us all through this difficult time. Shel’s career began in communications in 1977, more than a decade before the invention of the World Wide Web. In 1994, he...

This episode is recorded as the majority of the UK is in lockdown while the country attempts to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic. Katie Macaulay’s guest, Rachel Miller, is a prolific blogger, educator and keynote speaker. One of the most respected voices in the internal communications industry, Rachel is a fellow of the Institute of Internal Communication and the Chartered Institute of P...

Katie Macaulay recorded this special episode on Friday 20 March 2020 in response to the rapidly developing situation surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic. Her guests to talk all things crisis comms are Sarah Pinch and Tamara Littleton. Social media pioneer Tamara founded The Social Element in 2002, way before the explosion of social media. Today she leads a global team of more than 300, working with...

In this episode of The Internal Comms Podcast, Katie puts her first CEO in the hotseat: Marc Barone. Marc is chief executive for continental Europe at AECOM. This Fortune 500 company is one of the world’s largest professional engineering design firms, employing 57,000 people in more than 120 countries. Its projects are impressive and diverse: the world’s longest cable stayed bridge, disaster recov...

In this episode of The Internal Comms Podcast Katie talks to one of world’s most qualified communicators, Priya Bates, from Canada. Priya has an Accredited Business Communicator (ABC) and was one of the first Certified Strategic Communication Management Professionals (SCMP). She received a Master Communicator (MC) from the Canadian chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators...

State of the Sector is the longest-established and most in-depth survey of the internal communication profession, based on responses from more than 1,000 professionals around the world. Over the past decade, this annual survey has become a go-to source of information for IC practitioners, helping them see what’s going on across the industry, benchmark their own IC function against competitors and...

During Seasons One and Two we covered a lot of ground in IC and beyond. As we begin Season Three, brace yourself for more fascinating insights as we delve into the very heart of communications. This episode sees Katie chat with the voice of IC himself, Chuck Gose. Chuck is the founder of ICology, the ground-breaking podcast that, since 2015, has given IC pros a global platform to share experiences...

Since the launch of The Internal Comms Podcast, host Katie Macaulay has interviewed more than 20 fascinating guests from the world of IC and beyond. Now, as we gear up for Season 3, she takes a look back at the first two seasons. With so many diverse and entertaining guests, choosing highlights was no easy task. The breadth of topics and issues have provided some real insights into how we can impr...

Katie’s guest this week is Keith Lewis, UK Social Media and Social Business Manager for Zurich Insurance – one of the world’s largest insurance groups with 55,000 employees in more than 170 countries – who is well placed to talk about employee advocacy and empowering people to tell their own stories. Earlier this year, the Edelman Trust Barometer asked 33,000 people around the word how credible th...

Katie Macaulay’s guest this week is a neuroscientist with extensive experience in the field of organisational change. Hilary Scarlett began studying the brain in 2009 after reading an inspiring article about how this relatively new discipline can be used to help organisations better understand and guide their people through change. She went on to write a book – Neuroscience for Organizational Chan...

In this episode we get up close and personal with someone who helps improve the way we communicate at work. Mike Klein worked as a political consultant in the US, but for the past two decades has devoted his time – and his thinking – to internal communications. A global IC advocate, strategist and public speaker, Mike is based in the Netherlands, where he runs his communications firm Changing the...

As individuals, this week’s guests have impressive CVs. Sue Dewhurst is an experienced internal communicator who, for many years, has been training and coaching thousands of leaders and professional communicators. Her models and frameworks are used by organisations worldwide. Liam FitzPatrick has spent three decades working in communications, both in-house and for major consultancies. He also lect...

With this podcast now reaching listeners in 50 countries worldwide, host Katie Macaulay has chosen to go international for this episode. Her guest is creative services entrepreneur, author and occasional Bollywood actor Mark Hannant. Originally a business journalist, Mark rose up the ranks at corporate publishers Trident Communications before becoming a founding partner of stakeholder communicatio...

This week, Katie meets Claire Hyde and Louise Wadman, joint heads of IC at KPMG UK. Possibly the most senior IC job share in the country, Claire and Louise have more than 45 years of communication experience between them. These role models and champions of job sharing have worked in the financial services, technology, motor and fashion industries, with responsibilities for internal and external co...

Katie’s guest this episode is Nita Clarke – whose services to employee engagement have earned her an OBE from the Queen. Nita has a long and fascinating career. She co-authored the report: Engaging for Success, which became the seminal study into employee engagement and sparked an entire movement – Engage for Success. A leading figure in the UK’s trade union movement for many years, she talks to K...

The Internal Comms Podcast is back with a new series of fortnightly conversations with leading lights from the world of internal communications, engagement and leadership. AB Managing Director Katie Macaulay kicks off season two with a chat with the ‘Doctor of IC’, Kevin Ruck. The co-founder of the PR Academy, which delivers the CIPR internal communication diploma, Kevin is the man who literally w...

Season two of The Internal Comms Podcast is almost here!

In this extra special bonus episode of The Internal Comms Podcast, the tables are turned on Katie as she takes the spotlight as an interviewee. Posing the searching questions is Jason Etter, Director of Marketing at New York-based employee app company Staffbase. As host of his own online show The Communications Academy Podcast, Jason wanted Katie to share some of the knowledge acquired during her...

For this special bonus episode of The IC Podcast, Katie interviewed Paolo Peretti, Managing Retail Director of Patisserie Valerie, in front of a live audience at AB Thinks Live, our biannual internal comms event. In a wide-ranging conversation, Paolo discussed his regime of daily blogging, the ins-and-outs of cake display competitions and, of course, the topic on everyone’s minds: the crisis at th...

For the final episode of season one, Katie Macaulay travels to Bath for IoIC Live and interviews two of the conference’s speakers, Martin Fitzpatrick and Matt Batten. Both Martin and Matt are in-house practitioners working at the sharp end of IC. Martin is internal communications and engagement business partner at B&Q, and, at the time of recording, Matt was about to leave his position at the Roya...

Social influencer marketing is a new and rapidly growing means of getting your message out to your audience. It’s changed the face of advertising and has everyone from up-to-the-minute ad agencies to age-old regulatory bodies desperately trying to catch up. So, what is it exactly? What’s its significance on the media landscape? And what can internal comms learn from it? In episode nine, Katie meet...