Communicator, editor, writer.
I’ve worn many hats over the years, working in many countries – and two things I have learned in that time is that internal communications are both vitally important to, and neglected by most companies, especially at the Group level.
Since coming to Switzerland in 2012, I’ve been working in internal communications in all its aspects – intranets, publishing, social collaboration, and community building. From that foundation, I have specialized further into internal communications network development and governance, becoming a dedicated business partner with IT to build effective internal communications networks, and working as a consultant for management on how to grow a culture of communication within the company.
I chose to follow this path following my experiences on the Holcim-Lafarge merger (2014-2016). As the leader of the intranet development project for communications, I designed, built, and grew the internal communications community across the 80 countries of the new group, and worked with the technical team from IT to ensure a successful deployment of the largest Google Sites-based intranet. We went live on Day 1 to all 50,000 accessible colleagues, which grew to 80,000 by Day 100.
My experiences on that project, especially the insight I gained from personal discussions with colleagues from all regions, functions and business units, made me realize how important it was to consciously design and manage internal communications. Internal communications cannot become a formality, with obsolete methods being applied to new media. A newsletter is obsolete and ineffective, regardless of how it is sent.
From that moment, I became an evangelist for restructuring and rebuilding internal communications networks into a tool designed to holistically serve the business and its improve performance, not just report on it.
To learn more about the benefits of improving internal communications, see Services.
For more details about me, visit my LinkedIn page.