The Internal Comms Podcast

In this episode of The Internal Comms Podcast, host Katie Macaulay welcomes Matt Tidwell to the hot seat. Matt is a consultant, communicator and educator, and has led comms agencies, built brands, advised CEOs and nurtured the next comms greats at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. As you can imagine, he has a wealth of fantastic life experience to share.

We begin this episode by unpacking the influence Matt’s mother had on his route into comms. Matt shares the importance of empathy, curiosity and strategic thinking in internal comms and insight into the gaps in modern communicators’ skillsets. He also makes a strong case for upskilling in areas you might not expect. All this, and much, much more.

As always, share your thoughts on this or any other episode of The Internal Comms Podcast using the hashtag #TheICPodcast. And thanks for listening.

We’re back for Season 12 of The Internal Comms Podcast, and in this first episode, host Katie Macaulay is joined by Senior Director of Corporate Communication at Iron Mountain, Neil Jenkins. Neil has led internal comms at British Telecom, Coca Cola, Vodafone and Siemens, and has more than a few tales to tell when it comes to engaging that hard-to-reach, disparate audience.

This episode goes ‘under the Mountain’ to discover how Neil engages 26,000 colleagues – or ‘Mountaineers’, as they are called – across 60 countries. Katie and Neil discuss the challenges of building an internal comms function from the ground up, dealing with restructuring and setting guardrails when resources are limited, how to galvanise leaders behind your cause and much, much more.

As always, share your thoughts on this or any other episode of The Internal Comms Podcast using the hashtag #TheICPodcast. And thanks for listening.

McKinsey & Company is one of the world’s most renowned strategic management consultancies. With a mission of striving for “change that changes everything”, its global team of change and strategy consultants has delivered some of the most complex and challenging change programmes in the world. Join Katie Macaulay as she goes under the hood and find out what makes IC tick at McKinsey.

This episode’s guests – Andi Almond, Eric Sherman and David Honigmann – are part of the firm’s dedicated communications practice. The trio have cross-generational knowledge and experience, each bringing their unique yet complimentary approaches to the many challenges facing today’s organisations.

Tune in for a look behind the scenes at how McKinsey’s communications experts approach IC challenges, how to empower leaders to become true strategic transformation partners, why 70% of transformation projects still fail and how to make sure your project lands in the successful 30%. All this, and so much more.

As always, share your thoughts on this or any other episode of The Internal Comms Podcast using the hashtag #TheICPodcast. And thanks for listening.

On a platform where the candid and the curious are king, how do you make sure what’s inside reflects what’s on the outside? Meet Sean Langston, Jr., Head of Internal Communication at Reddit, to find out.

Sean turned to internal communication following a formative experience at college, in which he realised that there was real value in helping organisations become “mess-proof” from the inside. As he explains in this episode of The Internal Comms Podcast, it’s his ethos of radical transparency, and a ‘say the thing now’ attitude, which has helped Reddit stand the test of time as the communities’ community – inside and out.

Sean is a staunch advocate for the empowerment of people leaders. You'll hear his strategy for equipping them for success first-hand. Also in this episode, he offers a fascinating perspective on the future of internal communication, lets us in on the secrets of guiding Reddit through its IPO, and maintains that as an internal communicator, if you’re moving slow, you’re too late. It’s thought-provoking and inspiring in equal measure.

As always, share your thoughts on this or any other episode of The Internal Comms Podcast using the hashtag #TheICPodcast. And thanks for listening.

Ever been curious about how some of the biggest brands in the world tackle their internal communication challenges? Well look (or listen) no further. Kerri Warner, this week’s guest on The Internal Comms Podcast, held the reins at both Spotify and MasterCard.

Kerri has a huge range of IC experience spanning the consulting, agency and corporate world. Starting out in social science and psychology, she offers a unique view on how building trust and connection are really the building blocks of any change programme, and offers some really insightful advice on applying her principles in your work.

Listen out for Kerri’s ‘Five S’ strategy for internal comms that carried Spotify through a vast transformation, plus how to embed that all-important employee advocacy programme that will help drive your culture forward.

As always, share your thoughts on this or any other episode of The Internal Comms Podcast using the hashtag #TheICPodcast. And thanks for listening.

As internal communicators, empowering leaders to clearly communicate business strategy, important updates and company values is a valued skill. How can we inspire colleagues and leaders alike to make the complex simple?

This week’s guest and founder of Present Your Science, Melissa Marshall, has built a career educating scientists, engineers and technical professionals about how to present their insight. “The work matters,” she says, but as is discussed in the episode, so often we hear people say they’re simply no good at public speaking.

Melissa says that there’s a toolbox that will help even the most anxious public speaker improve their presentation skills. And she has walked the talk – her own TED Talk, Talk Nerdy To Me, has been watched nearly three million times.

So, if you’ve ever felt the trepidation of an upcoming talk, or struggled with distilling the complex into the clear, this is a conversation for you.

As always, share your thoughts on this or any other episode of The Internal Comms Podcast using the hashtag #TheICPodcast. And thanks for listening.

After years running an internal communications team, Daniel Mendez emigrated from Chile to the U.S., where he faced a host of barriers to success. A language barrier. A small or non-existent professional community. The difficulty in proving himself. And yet, he emerged as a hugely successful communicator and connector.

Daniel is the brains behind the #CommsJobs hashtag, one of the most impactful job search functions in the communications profession.

So how did he get here? Where did the idea for #CommsJobs come from? And just how important are human connections when securing your next role?

This episode of The Internal Comms Podcast is raw and human. It gets to the crux of what it means to fight for yourself and to build connections that will drive you forward on your journey. Daniel and Katie touch on ‘suitcase words’, why it’s so important to pay it forward in your network, what resilience really means and why communicators should consider the flipside of AI panic.

As always, share your thoughts on this or any other episode of The Internal Comms Podcast using the hashtag #TheICPodcast. And thanks for listening.

In this episode of The Internal Comms Podcast, host Katie Macaulay is joined by Linda Zebian. The very first Director of Communications at PR management platform Muck Rack, Linda spent a decade in various comms roles at The New York Times during its transformation from print ad-supported newspaper to the most successful digital subscription business in the world.

Linda has put her unique experience of communicating with journalists into action at Muck Rack, a remote working company with colleagues across the world. As you’ll hear, there are plenty of lessons from the newsroom that help inform her approach to communicating with her new audience.

This episode goes behind the scenes to explore the challenges and opportunities of communicating to a workforce of journalists and there’s a candid conversation on the role a free press can play in modern society.

Linda and Katie discuss internal communication’s role in leadership development and how important it is to unlock the confidence of leaders as communicators. Linda also provides some invaluable top tips for internal comms professionals to do their best work – a fascinating listen.

As always, share your thoughts on this or any other episode of The Internal Comms Podcast using the hashtag #TheICPodcast. And thanks for listening.

Join us for a special episode of The Internal Comms Podcast as host Katie Macaulay announces the imminent launch of her unique on-demand masterclass.

With more than three decades at the forefront of internal comms, including leading the world’s first internal comms agency, AB, Katie has developed a masterclass programme that promises to elevate the capabilities and boost the impact of in-house internal comms professionals.

Katie explains how she dedicated a year to designing a self-paced learning journey for internal comms folk seeking to accelerate their career growth.

She gives an overview of the programme, diving into each of the eight workstreams. These cover the history of internal communication, the unique characteristics of the internal audience, research and measurement, channels and content, internal comms strategy, and what it takes to build a successful, fulfilling career in the field.

Visit icmasterclass.com to sign up for updates on the launch and receive exclusive early bird offers.

This week on The Internal Comms Podcast, host Katie Macaulay is joined by serial entrepreneur, author, keynote speaker and business mentor Chris Ducker. Chris is a renowned expert in building powerful personal brands – taking solo entrepreneurs and leaders to new levels of success and transforming them into the go-to leaders in their respective industries.

Chris and Katie cover a lot of ground in this conversation. Chris has a fascinating take into the importance of what people say when you’re not in the room, and how you can use your own USP to become a successful ‘you-preneur’. As someone who has walked the talk when it comes to personal branding, his advice is worth its weight in gold.

But this is not just a podcast for wannabe entrepreneurs or high-ranking leaders. Anyone wanting to carry weight in their role should be considering the impact of reputation – talent will take you far, but the way people feel about you will drive you that little bit further.

Discover how Chris went from burnout to building big, successful brands, and how you can do the same.

As always, share your thoughts on this or any other episode of The Internal Comms Podcast using the hashtag #TheICPodcast. And thanks for listening.