JUDGES

The Internal Communications and Engagement Awards judging panel is made up of in-house professionals and supporters of the awards.

Winners of the 'Internal communications team of the year', 'Internal communicator of the year' 'Business leader of the year' and the 'Grand prix' will be invited to join the panel.

Judges from agencies/consultancies will be invited if they have won the Grand prix from the previous year.

If you would like to judge the 2024 awards, or are interested in being involved in our live content across 2024, please send a short bio over to sophia.richards@communicatemagazine.co.uk for consideration.

Meet our fantastic 2024 judging panel below:

Kirsty Bowen
Head of colleague experience
Coventry Building Society

Kirsty has 16 years’ experience leading internal communications functions and teams and has been at Coventry Building Society since 2013. Working for a purpose-led organisation with high employee engagement may suggest there’s not much to do from a colleague experience perspective, but this isn’t true. Continuing to improve, add strategic value and develop with a small budget and within a regulated financial services environment presents interesting challenges!

Kirsty is a Fellow and Board Director of the Institute of Internal Communication. In addition, she regularly supports the judging of IoIC’s National Awards and is an #IChoseIC Ambassador.

 

Steve Fairman
Global head of internal communications
Save the Children International

Bio to follow.

Lyndsay Gray
Senior internal communications manager
Santander UK

Lyndsay is an Internal Communications professional with over 20-year experience. She has worked in Internal Communications roles across a variety of sectors including in Barclays, T-Mobile, EE, Direct Line Group, EasyJet and Bupa. Lyndsay is currently Senior Internal Communications Manager at Santander UK leading a team supporting corporate and leadership communications across the business. She works closely with the People team on employee engagement and bringing to life the Employee Value Proposition across a variety of work setting includes offices based people, branches and call centres.

Lyndsay is also undertaking the IoIC MA in Internal Communications Management this year.



Steve Hayes
Director of corporate affairs and communications
Green Square Accord

Steve is Director of Corporate Affairs and Communications at GreenSquareAccord, and was part of our excellent 2022 judging panel. He has a decade of experience leading communications for not-for-profit organisations. In his previous role at Citizen, Steve led an award-winning transformation of the communications function, the organisations rebrand from WM Housing and its establishment as a trusted voice in the sector. Steve previously led communications at the housing sector's professional body, the Chartered Institute of Housing, where he served as the organisation’s chief speechwriter and devised and launched the award-winning Make a Stand campaign - a pledge to support people affected by domestic abuse which has since been signed by 400 housing associations across the UK. Steve is a former news editor and worked on newspapers across the West Midlands and Warwickshire for four years before moving into communications and PR. In his spare time Steve enjoys sport, theatre and is a semi-professional voice artist.

Neil Jenkins
Senior director, corporate communications
Iron Mountain

Neil has worked in communications for more than 25 years, including senior roles at Siemens, Vodafone, Coca-Cola, and BT.

Today, Neil is Senior Director, Corporate Communications at Iron Mountain, a global information management company that employs 26,000 people worldwide. He is a passionate believer that an organisation’s best advocates are its people, and about using the power of communication to bring out their best, connect them to their organisation’s purpose, and build reputation and trust from the inside out.

Caroline Lagden
Head of internal communications
Lloyds Banking Group

Caroline is the Head of Internal Communications at Lloyds Banking Group. The Group has c.60,000 colleagues and serves more than 30 million customers across the UK and includes famous brands like Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Lloyds Bank and Scottish Widows. In her current role Caroline leads a team who bring to life the organisation’s purpose by creating connections though a range of storytelling techniques, across a breadth of channels, including events.

Caroline has been with Lloyds Banking Group for 11 years, during which time she has led the Group’s Internal Communications content team, as well as several senior business partnering roles, covering a variety of business areas. Prior to joining Lloyds Banking Group, Caroline held a number of internal communication roles. Caroline holds a Masters in Internal Communication Management.

Peter Lyons
Senior internal communications manager
British Airways

Peter has worked in internal communications, marketing and PR for over 14 years for a range of well-known brands in the UK and Australia. Peter is an experienced strategic and trusted c-suite advisor providing counsel across a diverse range of portfolios and has extensive experience across change and leadership communications, creative campaigns, and event management.

With a track record of being both a nominee and winner for various campaigns over the years, Peter is looking forward to joining the judging panel to recognise the brilliant work internal communication teams are delivering across the world.

Nicola Lally
Director of communications
BDO LLP

Nicola Lally, 2021 Internal communicator of the year, is a partner at accountancy and business advisory firm, BDO. As Communications and Corporate Affairs Partner, she oversees the firm’s internal and external communications programme. She is lead Comms adviser to the firm’s Board, sits on BDO’s Culture Board and Crisis Committee, and is co-chair of the Sustainability and ESG Board. This senior access means she is no longer simply telling the stories but influencing the actions behind them too. Before being an in-house adviser, she trained at a leading corporate comms agency working on behaviour change campaigns, corporate comms and crisis management for major UK and global brands.

Eduvie Martin
Group internal communications manager
British American Tobacco

Eduvie has 15 years international experience in internal communications across multiple sectors. She started her comms career in banking, leading a team of comms consultants, launching an internal news channel, creating a brand champion network, hosting a magazine show, launching intranets, and onboarding multiple tools for measuring and disseminating comms. She is passionate about measurement of comms and is a constant advocate for the measurement of outcomes of comms initiatives. She is the Group Internal Comms Manager at BAT, serves as a board member with the International Association of Business Communicators UK and Ireland and volunteers her time on the board of the comic book start-up: Comic Republic, leading the marketing and comms efforts which has led to media visibility for the start-up known for its authentic universe of African superheroes.

Dev Mistry
Internal communications manager - global
DICE

Dev Mistry is a communications professional with 10 years experience gained across technology, automotive and entertainment sectors. Based in London, Dev currently works for DICE, leading on global internal communications and engagement. 

Dev’s experience ranges across internal comms, external comms and digital, specialising in stakeholder relations, embedding purpose and engagement. During his time at Virgin Media O2, Dev worked on award winning campaigns on purpose led communications, as well as leading on company wide broadcast communications to 18,000 people. 

Outside of work, Dev is an advocate for LGBTQ+ organisations and projects, as well as supporting #bmeprpros through various projects and mentoring schemes. 

Zofia Skrakowski
Employee communications lead, EMEA
Adobe

Bio to follow.

Nafisa Nathani
Internal communications manager
Network Rail

Nafisa has a variety of experience in the railway and across the communications industry. As a trained journalist, she is adept at building and crafting communications strategies, having worked both in-house and on the agency side. Nafisa is a passionate advocate for racial parity within the rail sector and has given talks and written articles on this very issue. She is currently part of the leadership team of Cultural Fusion, employee network for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic employees within Network Rail.

Rhianne Sarna
Head of internal communications
Colt

An award winning communicator with over 20 years’ experience, Rhianne started out in PR and marketing, but quickly found her passion for internal communications.

Rhianne believes any successful organisation needs to be built from the inside out and enjoys connecting employees to their company’s purpose and vision.

With a wealth of experience in the tech and telco industries, Rhianne is a dab hand at breaking down knotty topics into compelling communications strategies, helping employees understand the mission, why it matters, how they’ll get there and the role they play in it. 

Rhianne lives in Eastbourne and loves nothing more than a run over the South Downs and has competed in a number of off road challenges.

 

Paul Summerhill
Executive communications manager
Deloitte

Having worked in communications for 20+ years, Paul has supported a range of organisations to develop their internal communications and employee engagement at a local, national, and global level. Helping others to communicate and engage so that we can all achieve more is what inspires Paul as a communications professional. Part of the Executive Communications team at Deloitte, Paul works with the firm's senior leadership to inform, engage and inspire people across the UK. Outside of work, Paul likes to run long distance ultra races.

SPONSORS

Align your brand with this annual celebration for the internal communications community.

We have a number of sponsorship options available to you. Call us to find out more. 

 

Andrew Thomas

Publisher of Communicate magazine and founder of the Internal Communications and Engagement Awards

email: andrew.thomas@communicatemagazine.co.uk

call: +44 (0)20 3950 5356

SUPPORTERS

If you are interested in being a supporting partner of the Internal Communications & Engagement Awards please email michelle.manton@communicatemagazine.co.uk