A passionate communicator, with a mission for bringing purpose, products and possibilities to life, Jo grew up in PR, specialising now in employee comms, engagement, and inclusion. With 22+ years of consumer brand and corporate communications experience across a wide range of sectors in both agency side and in-house, Jo has a proven track record in supporting leaders to bring their people with them through times of change and transformation.

Kirsty has 15 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.

Former official videographer to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Richard holds senior communications positions within the private and third sectors and has aided the online promotion of global brands in academia, art, and politics for over 18 years.

Currently Director of Internal Communications at Elsevier, a medical data and analytics publisher, Richard also holds trustee positions at Hackney Empire and SarcoidosisUK. Richard, a personal branding consultant, teaches Guardian Masterclass series Self-promotion for introverts and How to succeed as an introvert professional and is also the founder of Black Introvert Week UK.  Follow Richard’s brand awareness blog, where you can download free eBooks on introversion empowerment.

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.

Shalini is an accomplished internal communications professional with over 15 years of international experience and an understanding of working cross-culturally within large organisations in the Finance, Insurance, Telecoms and Professional Services industry. She has experience across a wide spectrum of internal communications, ranging from shaping and delivering both employee and C-suite leadership communication strategies.

In her current role, Shalini works closely with Arup’s C-suite, leadership and key project teams to advise, influence and provide strategic direction and execution for comms initiatives across UK, India, Middle East and Africa region (UKIMEA).

She is passionate about driving the Internal Communications profession forward and nurturing upcoming talent and is a proud IOIC #IChooseIC ambassador. In her spare time, she enjoys sharing her experience and knowledge with her industry peers and can be found speaking at industry panels, podcasts or sometimes even writing blogs.

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 has worked in communications for more than 25 years, including senior roles at Siemens, Vodafone, Coca-Cola, and BT.
Today, Neil is Director of Enterprise Communications at Iron Mountain, a global information management company that employs 25,000 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.

As VP Internal Communications for Travelport, Anne leads employee comms across the travel technology company’s global footprint. She joined Travelport from British Airways where she’d made the jump from media relations to colleague communications, and prior to that worked for Centrica and France Telecom. She’s a proud Scot, speaks fluent French and Spanish, and holds a Guinness World Record for disco dancing. In the 2022 ICE Awards, Travelport won the Grand Prix for their innovative, and highly creative, “Brand the World” campaign.

Caroline is the Head of internal communications at Lloyds Banking Group. The Group has c.65,000 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. Caroline and her team develop and deliver strategic pan-Group and pan-Divisional content.

Caroline has been with Lloyds Banking Group for 9 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 at Friends Life (now part of Aviva), where she completed her post graduate diploma in internal communications.

Jeremy has over 20 years’ experience building marketing and communication capability with leading brands. He is currently the director of marketing and communications at LendInvest, a leading London based Fintech. He is a certified net promoter specialist, Marketing Society member, graduate of Mark Ritson’s mini marketing MBA, founding member of MarketingKind, charity trustee and personal mentor. In 2021 his team picked up the Grand Prix at the Internal Communications and Engagement Awards, as well as those for ‘Best use of data’ and ‘Best evaluation process.

Nicola Lally, 2021 Internal communicator of the year, is a partner at accountancy 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 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.

Cathrin Lemoine leads internal communications globally for Dr. Martens, the iconic shoewear brand that has been empowering rebellious self-expression for the past six decades. With 12+ years of experience developing global communications functions at media, professional services, and technology companies, Cathrin found her passion and purpose in enriching employees’ experience of their life at work through strategic communications that put people at the heart.

Cathrin believes in the power of communications to grow and sustain healthy, productive, and thriving organisational cultures that attract and engage top talent. Cathrin is a mother of two, Noah and Olivia, and a member of the simply advisory board.

A multi-award-winning internal communicator with 17 years’ experience leading employee engagement in large complex private and public sector organisations. His creative and inclusive approach, and strong commercial understanding, have helped to transform internal comms and employee advocacy in organisations including Currys, BBC, Travis Perkins and Associated British Foods. Instinctively curious, David has a proven track record in executive level communications and coaching senior leaders through business transformation, and in leading ESG engagement and event management.

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 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. 

Claire has over fifteen years of experience in the corporate realm having worked across the FMCG, Retail and Finance industries. A marketer turned communicator, she is passionate about people and her curiosity of culture has brought her from France to Singapore and from Vietnam to the UK, making her a global mind with a multi-market experience. 

As the head of Internal Communications at IKEA UK and Ireland, she ensures that their 12,000 employees across their 22 stores, five distribution centres, three contact centres as well as smaller test formats stay informed and engaged, through a multichannel communication approach.

Claire is also a generous and caring leader, with a deep interest in competence development, gender equality and having a positive impact on society. During her free time, she has supported causes such as homelessness (UK), underprivileged children (Vietnam) and female empowerment.

Áine Murphy is an Internal Communications leader with more than a decade of experience in the charity and public sector. She currently heads up the Internal Engagement function at the Care Quality Commission, leading Internal Engagement through an organisational transformation programme. Previously she worked at the disability equality charity Scope, and Macmillan Cancer Support, where among other things she led on change communications, a rebrand, an office move and an award-winning intranet redesign project. She’s passionate about employee engagement, creating internal brand ambassadors, and shaping and developing organisational culture. Outside of work, she loves to be outdoors whatever the weather. You can find her running, cycling, or maybe even open water swimming.

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.

Dale has been in the comms industry for over 40 years. He is CEO of drpg which is recognised as one of the leading integrated, full service creative communication groups, with a team of over 420 across the globe. Dale works with major brands in the development of communication strategies and multi-channel comms solutions. He is past chair of EVCOM. In 2015 he was presented with the industry personality of the year and in 2016 honoured with a fellowship award for services to Communication. In 2022 Dale was also awarded CIPR Leader of the Year.

James Powell is Head of Group Communications at Irwin Mitchell, and has held a variety of senior communications roles at national and international organisations and across industries. James is hugely passionate about recognising and rewarding excellence in communications and is committed to highlighting the positive impact communications teams and individuals can have on their colleagues, clients/ customers and communities.

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.

Having worked in communications for 20+ years, Paul has helped a range of organisations 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. Currently part of the Executive Communications team at Deloitte, Paul works with the firm's senior leadership to inform, engage and inspire circa 22,000 people across the UK. Paul likes to run long (foolish) distances, with the longest to date a 100-mile continuous trail race along the Thames from London to Oxford.

Claire Widd is Head of EMEA Internal Communications at Rackspace Technology, and she has over a decade of experience in global marketing and communications. Claire is also a Regional Lead for the Institute of Internal Communications. Before joining Rackspace Technology, Claire worked in both the utilities and professional services sectors and has a proven track record in leading and managing complex change and engagement programmes.

Claire is passionate about employee voice and creating meaningful connections between employees and leaders and in 2021, Claire and the Rackspace Technology team picked up the Gold Award for Best in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Sector at the Internal Communications and Engagement Awards for their engagement transformation success across EMEA.