Leading a team that combines strategy with hands-on delivery.
I’m the founder of The Comms Guru, where I lead a core team of experienced internal communication specialists, supported by trusted independent experts.
We work a little differently from a traditional agency or consultancy. We’re practitioners who enjoy getting stuck into the work itself. That can mean developing an internal comms strategy one day, then working on an employee campaign, rebuilding a SharePoint intranet, improving channel governance or helping a team make better use of Microsoft 365 the next.
We don’t really separate strategy from delivery because the two need to work together. There’s little value in producing a great strategy if nobody knows how to turn it into something employees actually experience.
Our model also means we can bring in the right expertise for a particular project without building a huge agency team around it. Clients get experienced people doing the work rather than layers of account management.
IOIC membership gives me an important connection to the wider profession. It helps me see what other communicators are experiencing, challenge our own thinking and continue learning.
I’m also keen to contribute more. We’ve recently expanded The Comms Guru website with free templates, tools, resources and case studies, and I’d love to share more of that practical experience with the IOIC community.
Learning internal communication from the inside, starting with a bank intranet.
I didn’t study communications at university. In fact, I didn’t go to university at all. I started working at a young age and learned by being inside organisations and seeing first-hand how they worked.
I noticed quite early the impact communication could have when it wasn’t done well. You could see where people felt disconnected, didn’t understand what was happening or simply weren’t being included.
My route into internal comms really began while I was working for a large multinational bank. I was based in a location that was barely represented on the company intranet. From where we were sitting, you could look at it and almost feel as though our part of the organisation didn’t exist.
I became involved in changing that and started working more closely with the intranet. That gave me hands-on experience in intranet development, design and content, and I realised this was something I was genuinely passionate about.
From there I moved further into internal communications, eventually taking on roles including Communications Manager and Head of Communications, before going on to build The Comms Guru.
That route into the profession still shapes how I approach internal comms today. I tend to look at things from the employee’s perspective first. Can I find what I need? Does this make sense? Do I understand why something is happening? Do I feel included?
That’s what I still enjoy most. Good internal communication can make an organisation feel completely different for the people working in it.
IOIC membership connects me to the wider profession, and I want to give back.
One of the biggest benefits of IOIC membership is the connection it gives me to the wider internal communication profession.
Our work gives us an interesting view across many organisations, cultures and technologies, and we often see similar communication challenges appearing in completely different businesses.
IOIC gives me another perspective. It helps me understand what other practitioners are seeing, where the profession is heading and where new thinking is emerging.
I also think professional communities are particularly valuable in internal comms because there often isn’t one perfect answer. What works brilliantly in one organisation may not work somewhere else.
Increasingly, I’d like that relationship to work both ways. We’ve learned a huge amount through the projects our team has delivered and I’d like to share more of those practical lessons, tools and resources with other members.
I'm most proud of what we've built.
Rather than one individual project, I’m probably most proud of what we’ve built with The Comms Guru.
For more than a decade, we've developed a business that brings together experienced people from different parts of the communications world and builds the right team around what a client actually needs.
I’m particularly proud that we’ve retained a hands-on approach. We can be having strategic conversations with senior leaders and then be the same people getting into SharePoint, developing content, building campaigns, facilitating workshops or solving the practical problems that determine whether something actually works.
One area I particularly enjoy is digital internal communication. Organisations often already own powerful technology but aren’t getting enough value from it.
A new intranet or Microsoft 365 platform doesn’t solve a communication problem on its own. You still need to think about employees, content, governance, behaviours and the experience you’re trying to create.
My advice to someone just starting out in the internal communication profession.
Be curious and learn how organisations actually work.
Writing well is important, but internal communication is about much more than producing good copy.
Ask simple questions. Why are we communicating this? What problem are we trying to solve? What does somebody need to do differently? What do employees already think about it? And is communication actually the answer?
Don’t be afraid to challenge the request to “send something out”.
The more you understand about HR, operations, leadership, technology, change and data, the more useful you’ll become as a communicator.
I’d also encourage people entering the profession now to experiment. Internal comms is changing quickly, particularly with AI and digital workplace technology. AI can be incredibly useful for generating ideas, testing tone of voice, analysing information and speeding up repetitive work, but human judgement still matters enormously.
Tools change. Channels change. Technology changes.
Understanding people is still the job.
