Smart in Public

In this episode of Smart in Public, the Katie's welcome Felicity Barber, the woman behind the speeches for leaders at Lloyd's of London, the Federal Reserve Banks of San Francisco and New York, and BlackRock. Today she runs Thoughtful Communications, where she writes speeches, coaches executives for the stage and trains corporate teams in public speaking.

As comms people, we can all appreciate how in those rooms one wrong word can move a market, so we asked her how speechwriting works behind the scenes. Most of her answer was about trust. A CEO won't believe the words on the page until they believe the person who wrote them. So Felicity gets in the car with them, gets on the plane, sits in on meetings and keeps showing up until the relationship is there.

Why this episode absolutely rips:

🎯 One sentence at the top of every draft. Before the speech starts, Felicity writes the key message: what should the audience think at the end that they didn't think at the beginning? 

🏦 Storytelling in finance. Felicity often starts a finance speech with emotion, which makes plenty of people in financial services squirm. Her audiences include retail investors and entrepreneurs just dipping a toe in, and they need to understand what big institutions are doing on their behalf.

🎤 The audience outside the room. The people who matter most may never sit in the audience. Felicity writes for university students while making sure regulators and financial journalists get the points they're looking for.

🤝 Speeches become the narrative. A good speech often becomes how the company talks about an issue for months afterward. That's why Felicity brings in internal comms, investor relations, and the press team early. 

🤖 AI and the speechwriter. When one of her CEOs went through a crisis this year, they called Felicity and a PR partner they trusted -- not ChatGPT. Sure, AI can build her a business spreadsheet, but in her perspective is that it also made the writing harder, because now writers scrub out AI-sounding phrases on top of corporate jargon.

🚶 What CEOs get wrong on stage. One is pacing in front of giant screens like it's a 2007 iPhone launch. Another is announcing great returns with a face like the dog just died.

🙅 Words to retire. "Excited." "Thrive." Let's face it, most people are just trying to get through the day. And then there's "we're all like a family," which tends to come up shortly before the layoffs.

💰 Money insight: Felicity wants speechwriters to talk openly about rates, especially women in the field, and to ask peers what they make, because pricing in this industry is hard to benchmark. Her red flags with a new client are haggling over every line item and a CEO who has already gone through five or six speechwriters. That second kind of client is how you end up at draft 57.

🔗 Find Felicity at thoughtfulcomms.com and subscribe to her newsletter for speechwriting and public speaking tips. Then follow Smart in Public wherever you listen and leave us a review. It helps more comms people find us.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction to Felicity Barber and her career journey
• 01:13 Felicity's transition from UK finance to US public sector
• 03:45 The importance of language in financial communication
• 05:33 How to craft speeches that connect with diverse audiences
• 08:26 Storytelling and emotional connection in finance speeches
• 10:43 Preparing executives for impactful delivery
• 12:24 Starting the speechwriting process with client goals
• 15:17 Capturing voice and tone in speechwriting
• 17:49 Balancing room audience vs. target audience
• 20:03 Partnering with communication teams and internal stakeholders
• 27:28 The role of AI in speechwriting and communication
• 30:33 Memorable speeches and their impact
• 36:27 Leadership, empathy, and strategic messaging
• 41:35 Building trust and relationships with principals
• 44:20 Overcoming challenges in speech and message delivery
• 47:41 Client selection and red flags in speechwriting engagements
• 49:05 Common mistakes CEOs make on stage
• 50:36 Words and phrases to avoid in speeches
• 51:09 Overused words in corporate speeches
• 52:10 The future of speechwriting and communication in a digital age

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The topics go wide this week on Smart in Public, spanning from experts in AI saying the race to superintelligence could kill all humans to Snoop Dogg's need for a professional ice cream taster. The Katies laugh through it all (mostly so we don't cry).

Things we argued over:

🤖 The AI race and who's responsible. Researchers are calling the push toward superintelligence a hubris gamble. The Katies get into how AI companies talk about risk when the stakes sound like science fiction, and how long "trust us" can hold up as a strategy.

📣 Transparency when your product comes with an extinction warning. How much should an AI company say out loud? Public figures and tech leaders are figuring out AI communication strategy in real time, and most of them are making it up as they go.

🍦 Snoop Dogg's ice cream job. A celebrity brand collaboration built to go viral. We break down why it spread and where viral marketing gets complicated for the brand holding the cone.

🕺 Raygun's Netflix reframe. Social media decided who she was within about 48 hours. A documentary is now telling a different version, which makes it a live case study in reputation repair through long-form storytelling.

💰 Money insight: Narrative is a business asset. The story people believe about your AI model or your Olympic routine decides how much room you get to operate.

Chapters

•  05:30 This week's news in AI and media
•  19:00 AI race and responsibility concerns from experts
•  39:04 Snoop Dogg's ice cream job and brand strategy
•  46:58 Storytelling and authenticity in an AI future

Subscribe to Smart in Public wherever you listen. Then send this one to the friend who still thinks comms means press releases.

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This week, the Katies get into why experienced comms pros get quietly sidelined right as they hit their peak, and what you can do about it whether you hire people or you're the one job hunting.

This one started with a LinkedIn post and a UK article that went viral. A deeply senior communications professional couldn't land a role and ended up on the benefit system. The feedback she kept hearing was that her skills didn't meet the need, which is a strange thing to tell someone with 25 years of experience. So we pulled the numbers, checked our own bias, and talked through what fixes this.

The stats:

• 78% of women in communications feel overlooked from age 40 onward
• 72% of women over 40 fear their age will block them from a new role
• 40% believe men never get sidelined for age. When men do feel it, it lands at 60+
• Reports of ageism rose from 41% in 2021 to 59% in 2025
• Only 11% of organizations have any age-related DE&I target

Chapters

• 0:00 - Does ageism exist in comms?
• 2:30 - The data
• 5:00 - Why 40 is the turning point
• 8:00 - The stats, read out
• 12:00 - Owning our own age bias
• 16:00 - When fresh ideas get equated with youth
• 20:00 - The business cost of losing experience
• 25:00 - What companies can do
• 29:00 - What you can do for your own career
• 34:00 - Community stories and resources

Resources mentioned

• Jo Carr, "PR's dirty little secret: ageism starts at 40," PRMoment: https://www.prmoment.com/opinion/prs-dirty-little-secret-ageism-starts-at-40
• Becky Snazell's original LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7490749519626887168/
• Mixing Board: our homies who sent in stories

People also asked:

Does ageism exist in PR and communications? Yes. In a study, 78% of women in comms said they feel overlooked from 40 onward, and reported experiences of ageism rose from 41% in 2021 to 59% in 2025.

At what age does ageism start in PR? Around 40 for women in communications. Men tend to feel it much later, past 60.

Why does ageism happen in comms? A lot of it comes from an unconscious bias that ties fresh ideas to youth, plus agency and startup cultures that skew young. Experience gets read as expensive or out of touch when it's often the thing a business needs most.

What can you do about ageism in your comms career? Reframe your CV around outcomes, build a personal brand, keep current on new tools, and consider consulting where deep experience is the selling point.

About Smart in Public

A podcast about business, careers, and life through the eyes of comms, PR, and marketing people. New episodes weekly with hosts Katie Boysen and Katie Dufficy. Got an ageism story or a guest idea? Drop it in the comments.

Subscribe for weekly episodes. Share this one with a comms friend!

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In the season 4 opener for Smart in Public, The Katies unpack a recent research study from Bink on organizational culture. They get into the say-do gap and why the space between what leaders say and what they actually do drives retention, engagement, and how people behave when nobody's watching.

Along the way they look at Atlassian's "no bullshit" policy, how social media reshaped the way executives get perceived, and what authentic leadership means when work is remote and hybrid and everyone can see everything.

If you own culture inside HR, comms, or the executive team, this one gives you a sharper way to spot where your words and your systems have drifted apart.

Chapters:

00:00  Introduction to the episode and hosts
01:10  Catch-up on recent travels and seasons
03:01  Canberra and American embassy experiences
08:58  The research study on organizational culture
10:54  Key findings: the say-do gap and its effects
12:03  How culture influences retention and behavior
12:50  Why structural systems beat messaging
19:05  The disconnect between leadership words and actions
21:00  Leadership modeling and communication strategies
24:01  The responsibility of HR and comms in culture
28:06  The impact of policies and structural systems
34:00  Case study: Atlassian and the "no bullshit" policy
38:00  The cost of inconsistent behavior and policies
41:07  Celebrity executives and social media influence
43:59  Managing open communication channels
50:12  Authentic leadership and structural alignment
55:01  Final thoughts and wrap-up

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In this episode of Smart in Public, we sit down with Jenny Bavinger, VP of Marketing Communications at Sapphire Ventures, to talk about founders, why PR is a service business that can't be easily productized, the signals that tell a company it's time to take communications seriously, and how VC communications can be more brand than buzz.

Jenny pulls back the curtain on what founders are really thinking about when it comes to communications, when companies finally clue in that PR is not optional, and why most agency searches go sideways. She gets honest about the parts of agency work that wore her out, what made Sapphire feel different, and how she's building a comms strategy that's more about reputation than press hits.

If you're a founder figuring out when to hire your first comms person, an agency lead wondering where the puck is heading, or a marketer who's tired of vanity coverage, this one's for you.

Chapters

• 00:00 — Introduction and guest introduction
• 01:01 — Jenny's background and transition to VC
• 02:23 — What are founders thinking about? The role of comms
• 04:38 — Jenny's career path and agency experience
• 07:24 — Why agency life didn't work out
• 10:09 — Building Sapphire Ventures' communications strategy
• 16:25 — Challenges and opportunities in VC communications
• 22:28 — Founders' perspectives on comms and brand building
• 27:37 — When do companies realize the importance of comms?
• 36:31 — The future of PR and AI in venture capital
• 47:19 — Jenny's experience at VC Comms Conference

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AI video is everywhere, and in this episode, The Katies welcome Joe Ciarallo, Head of US Communications at Synthesia, to pull back the curtain on what it takes to build a brand in one of the most scrutinized corners of enterprise AI. We get into the messy, useful stuff: how Synthesia is rethinking corporate training, why media training with AI avatars is quietly becoming a comms team's secret weapon, and how to cut through AI hype when your entire category is the hype.

Joe also shares hard-won lessons from Buddy Media's acquisition by Salesforce and the Salesforce IPO — and what those moments taught him about narrative-building for founders who don't fit a tidy mold. Plus: where AI security and governance fit into the trust equation, why judgment and taste are the skills that aren't going anywhere, and how comms teams can use AI to streamline the boring stuff without losing the human element.

If you work in communications, lead an AI startup, or are trying to figure out where AI adoption actually pays off in your business, this one's for you.

What we cover:

• Why trust and security sit at the center of AI video adoption
• Building a narrative for a unique founder (and a category that's still being defined)
• Practical AI use cases in corporate communication — from media training to keynote prep
• AI hype vs. reality: what's actually working in comms right now
• The future of content creation, and why the human element still matters

Chapters

• 02:33 Career Insights and Decision-Making in Comms
• 05:28 Understanding AI Video and Its Applications
• 08:39 Building a Narrative for a Unique Founder
• 11:44 Navigating Industry Commentary and Stakeholder Engagement
• 14:47 Trust and Ethics in AI Video Technology
• 17:36 The Evolution of Trust in Video Media
• 20:45 Innovative Approaches to Corporate Training
• 23:35 Media Training Use Case and Its Impact
• 24:11 Cutting Through the AI Hype
• 25:35 Media Training with AI Avatars
• 27:06 The Role of AI in Spokesperson Preparation
• 28:52 AI for One-Off Interviews and Keynote Practice
• 29:58 The Importance of Live Interaction in Training
• 32:34 AI Hype vs. Reality in Communications
• 34:35 AI's Role in Streamlining Communications Tasks
• 37:37 The Human Element in AI-Driven Communications
• 39:54 The Future of Content Creation with AI
• 43:33 Innovative Use Cases for AI in Communications

Resources mentioned:

• Synthesia — https://www.synthesia.io/
• Taylor Lorenz on AI and likeness — https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/taylor-lorenz-ai-likeness-privacy

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What happens when your company moves so fast that your communications strategy is already outdated by the time you ship it?

That's the reality at Lovable — the AI-native company that's making software creation accessible to anyone, anywhere. And their Head of Communications, Senka Hadzimuratovic, is living it in real time.

In this episode, Boysen sits down with Senka for an honest conversation about what it actually takes to do comms inside a company that's rewriting the rules for how everything we knew about business, technology, and the systems we use for them.

Some highlights from an episode that is one long highlight:

🤖 AI can honestly be so fun for comms. Senka breaks down how she's using AI for storytelling, measurement, and strategic messaging in ways most communications teams aren't even thinking about yet.

🏎️ Speed as a communications crisis. When your product ships faster than your narrative can keep up, what do you anchor to? Senka's answer might surprise you.

😶 Numb to the hype. Are people are tuning out AI announcements and how do we grab their attention if that's the case?

🎯 Core narratives are still a survival tool. In a fast-growth environment, the discipline to keep coming back to your foundational message is what separates strategic communicators from reactive ones.

💡 Authenticity isn't soft — it's structural. When you're building for a young workforce that has a finely tuned BS detector, how you say things matters as much as what you say.

Balancing innovation with strategic control isn't a compromise — it's the whole job now.

Chapters

• 01:49 - Senka's Career Journey in Communications
• 03:45 - Understanding Lovable and Its AI Capabilities
• 05:34 - Leveraging AI in Communications
• 09:10 - The Fast-Paced Environment of AI Companies
• 10:54 - Establishing Core Narratives in a Rapidly Changing Landscape
• 13:37 - Mindset Shifts in Communications with AI
• 16:45 - Navigating Skepticism and Backlash in AI Narratives
• 20:16 - The Role of Storytelling in AI Companies
• 24:08 - Emerging Trends in AI and Communications
• 28:18 - The Impact of Vibe Coding on Job Creation
• 30:05 - AI and the Future of Communication Roles
• 31:48 - Managing Innovation in a Young Workforce
• 34:07 - Balancing Control and Freedom in Communication
• 36:49 - The Importance of Strategy in a Changing Landscape
• 38:30 - Authenticity in AI Communication
• 40:04 - The Role of Relationships in Communications
• 45:01 - Embracing Change and the Future of Comms

🔗 Connect with Senka: linkedin.com/in/senka-hajimirovich 🔗 Check out Lovable: lovable.ai 🔗 Follow Katie: linkedin.com/in/katieboysen

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If you've been quietly doom-scrolling job boards and wondering if it's just you — it's not. The communications job market is genuinely hard right now, and nobody's being fully honest about why and what to do.

Daniel Méndez Aróstica built #CommsJobs because he lived it. After making the leap from Chile to the US, he found himself navigating an overwhelming system and decided to fix it for everyone else too. What started as a hashtag became one of the most useful communities for communicators in transition.

In this episode, Daniel gets real about what's actually happening in the market, why job descriptions are becoming increasingly disconnected from reality, and what the hidden job market actually means in 2026.

What we get into:

🌎 How Daniel built a global community of comms pros 20k+ strong

💼 The brutal truth about the current communications job market — and why the "it'll bounce back" crowd might be wrong

🤝 Why "network when you don't need anything" isn't just a platitude and what that actually looks like in practice

🤖 AI's real impact on hiring in communications (and how to use it before it uses you)

🎯 How to find the jobs that never get posted and why following real people beats job boards every time

The candidates landing roles right now aren't the most qualified — they're the most prepared. There's a difference, and Daniel explains exactly what it looks like.

Whether you're actively searching, quietly considering your options, or trying to future-proof your career, this one's worth your full attention.

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What does it actually take to build an AI product for an industry that's still figuring out what AI means for its future?

Michelle Masek and Nadia Jamshidi didn't wait around for someone else to answer that question. As co-founders of Honey Jar — an AI co-pilot built specifically for PR and communications — they're in the middle of one of the most interesting experiments in the industry right now: betting that the practitioners who feel most disrupted by AI are actually the ones who'll benefit most from it.

In this episode, the Katies get into the real story behind Honey Jar including the messy, honest account of what it's like to build a comms tool while navigating a VC landscape that doesn't always understand what communications professionals actually do all day.

We cover:
🍯 Why Honey Jar exists — and what early users are saying about it (including the feedback that stung)
🤖 The hallucination problem nobody wants to talk about — LLMs are impressive and unreliable in equal measure. Michelle and Nadia are refreshingly direct about what that means for PR practitioners trying to use AI tools responsibly.
📱 Who this is actually built for — solo PR pros and early-stage founders are the underserved sweet spot here, and the case they make is hard to argue with
💰 What it's like pitching a PR tool to VCs — spoiler: investors who've never had to write a press release at 11pm have some... interesting takes on the market opportunity
🔄 The evolving role of young professionals — how the next generation of comms practitioners is already reshaping what this work looks like

"The future is applied AI for every profession." Not AI as a replacement — AI as infrastructure. The comms professionals who figure out how to build on top of that infrastructure are the ones who'll matter in five years.

We're in a moment of rapid AI-driven change, and the tools are still catching up to the vision. Honey Jar is an early bet on where the industry is going — and this conversation is a useful window into both the opportunity and the very real challenges of getting there.

Whether you're a solo practitioner trying to compete with larger agencies, a founder who can't afford a full comms team yet, or a communications leader figuring out your AI strategy, this episode has something uncomfortable and useful for you.

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This week, the Katies sit down with Michael O’Brien, CEO of Highwire, and Cortney Stapleton, Chief Strategy & Business Officer at Highwire (and former CEO of The Bliss Group), to unpack what really happens when PR agencies merge.

We go behind the January acquisition of The Bliss Group by Highwire and explore:

• Why agency consolidation doesn’t mean the agency model is dying
• How they managed talent through the transition (and avoided the typical post-acquisition talent exodus)
• What clients cared about most during this kind of change
• How AI and technology are reshaping PR work, tech stacks, and junior roles
• What the agency of the future looks like — from mid-sized independents to global behemoths

If you’re an agency leader, an in-house comms pro, or a junior practitioner wondering what an acquisition means for your job (and your career), this conversation is a candid, practical look at the future of PR agencies.

Chapters

• 00:00 - Introduction to the Future of PR Agencies
• 01:19 - The Acquisition Journey: Insights from Highwire and Bliss Group
• 06:26 - Cultural Integration and Team Dynamics Post-Acquisition
• 08:42 - Managing Talent During Transitions: Transparency is Key
• 14:56 - Client Reactions and Expectations During Acquisitions
• 20:39 - The State of the Agency Model: Myths and Realities
• 23:44 - Navigating the Talent Market in a Changing Landscape
• 23:54 - Navigating Agency Consolidation and Talent Retention
• 27:55 - The Role of AI in Agency Innovation
• 34:10 - Future of Agency Landscape and Technology Integration
• 40:44 - Evolving Roles and Skills in the Agency World
• 43:40 - Challenges and Opportunities in the Age of AI

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