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 improve the way we communicate at work. In this special compilation, Katie pulls together her favourite ...
Jan 29, 2020•58 min
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 they would view information from a series of different people when forming an opinion of a company. Th...
Dec 18, 2019•1 hr 3 min
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 Change – in which she explains what happens inside our brains when change is announced, and the change p...
Dec 04, 2019•1 hr 12 min
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 Terms. It’s an apt name given his own bold vision for what internal communications can achieve. ‘We ...
Nov 20, 2019•1 hr 18 min
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 lectures on developing teams, research and planning, and serves as an external examiner for UK universit...
Nov 06, 2019•1 hr 12 min
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 communications consultancy the Engage Group. Ten years ago, he left the UK for India, accompanied by his wife an...
Oct 23, 2019•55 min
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 communication and public affairs. As a successful, long-term partnership, they manage teams, advise se...
Oct 08, 2019•38 min
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 Katie about championing employee voice, working with Number 10 and singing with David Bowie.
Sep 24, 2019•48 min
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 wrote the textbook. In a thorough and detailed examination of our subject, Katie and Kevin dig into e...
Sep 11, 2019•1 hr 3 min
Season two of The Internal Comms Podcast is almost here!
Sep 06, 2019•3 min
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 30 years in the industry with his listeners. In particular, he wanted to know what IC practitioners ...
Jul 24, 2019•59 min
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 the heart of Patisserie Valerie’s finances. In October 2018, it was reported that Patisserie Valerie h...
Jun 25, 2019•27 min
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 Royal College of Nursing to become director of communications and engagement at the Church in Wales....
May 21, 2019•1 hr 15 min
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 meets Harry Hugo, co-founder of social influencer marketing agency The Goat Agency, to find out. In just...
May 07, 2019•58 min
Katie’s guest this week is an extremely versatile communicator. In his day job as European Vice President of Twitter, Bruce Daisley has overseen the development of one of the world’s most popular social media platforms across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. His extensive career also includes spells at Google, YouTube and Comic Relief. However, since 2017 Bruce has revealed skills far beyond those normally found in the office or boardroom as the creator and host of the hit podcast, Eat Sleep ...
Apr 23, 2019•1 hr 6 min
Running the UK’s largest retail and financial services network with more branches than all of the UK’s banks and building societies put together, the Post Office is at the heart of many communities. Above all, it’s a commercial business with a social purpose. In episode seven, Katie speaks to Mark Davies, who heads up communications for this 370-year-old institution. With a background in local newspaper journalism, Mark became a special adviser in government before joining the Post Office seven ...
Apr 09, 2019•59 min
In episode six, Katie travels beyond the boundaries of internal comms to find out how to write more engagingly, tell better stories and use humour to deliver your message. And who better to advise her on this than the hugely successful poet, comedian, writer and producer Henry Normal. Henry co-founded production company Baby Cow with comedian and actor Steve Coogan in 1999, going on to create more than 400 television programmes and 20 films. The company is responsible for some of the most memora...
Mar 27, 2019•58 min
In episode five, Katie aims to find out what internal communications can learn from external communications. So she sits down with ‘mister public relations’, Stephen Waddington. UK managing director of the digital marketing agency Metia, ‘@wadds’ is a hugely prominent voice in the comms world. A former president of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations with 22k followers on Twitter, he writes an award-winning blog and has written eight books on marketing and PR. Katie and Stephen discuss o...
Mar 13, 2019•54 min
The Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC) is the voice of the IC profession – dedicated to strengthening confidence, credibility and community. And on 12 March, the IoIC celebrates its 70th year. In episode four, Katie speaks with the person leading the IoIC today – chief executive, Jennifer Sproul. Jennifer first joined the IoIC in 2015 as Head of Commercial and became CEO a year later. New to the world of IC, she’d spent her career until that point in market research. But during her short...
Feb 27, 2019•39 min
Episode three lands as Gatehouse’s latest State of the Sector report is published. Katie invites Jenni Field, a tireless, high-profile personality of the IC landscape, to discuss its findings and the recently released – Edelman Trust Barometer, which found people put more trust in ‘my employer’ than NGOs, business, or the media. Jenni is president-elect of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, the cofounder of the IC Crowd and runs a consultancy – Redefining Communications. She’s worked i...
Feb 13, 2019•53 min
Even if you’re only vaguely familiar with internal communications, Katie’s guest in episode two will no doubt be a name you recognise. In a career spanning 30 years, Russell Grossman has worked as head of internal communications at the BBC, director of communications at Royal Mail and is currently director for communications at the Office of Rail and Road and head of profession for internal communications practice right across UK Government. Katie and Russell met in early December and discussed ...
Jan 30, 2019•33 min
In the first episode of The Internal Comms Podcast, Katie meets Rachel Miller – a prolific blogger, educator, keynote speaker and one of the most respected voices in internal communications. Rachel has contributed to a shelf’s worth of best-selling books, runs bespoke – and hugely popular – masterclasses and is a fellow of both the Institute of Internal Communication and Chartered Institute of Public Relations. Katie and Rachel discuss the importance of authenticity in IC, taking a ‘rounded appr...
Jan 16, 2019•53 min
An introduction to the new Internal Comms Podcast.
Jan 11, 2019•4 min
