Engaging employees to navigate rapid change.
Developing a shared culture and vision as a fintech business grew to maturity.
I have designed and delivered communications strategies and plans for a range of clients, to take employees and other key stakeholders on the change journey.
I supported Pollinate, a fintech start up, 18 months of significant change; I developed core message and a framework of regular leadership communications, while using regular pulse surveys to track and improve their effectiveness.
Ove a period of 18 months the company successfully evolved from a project into an international business, retaining key people as it dis so, while key engagement factors such as goal awareness and recognition went from 'development area' to 'strength'.
“Mike's internal communications expertise helped us co-ordinate a team delivering a complex technology programme as well as building a new business from scratch: his effective communications approach helped the leadership keep a team with a broad range of skills effective and coherent”
Jonathan Hughes, digital leader and fintech entrepreneur
Cracking the conundrum of remote working
Keeping a workforce informed an engaged in the face of Covid
Covid tore up the rule-book, challenging organisations and individuals to change their way of working. As the nation worked from home, organisations had to find new ways of keeping people informed and engaged with the wider team.
At LifeArc I was responsible for keeping colleagues up to speed as they adjusted to remote working, and for supporting the gradual move to 'the new normal'.
This initially involved moving key events like town halls online; creating a one-stop guide for all things Covid- and remote working-related; and encouraging leaders and colleagues to share their experiences of working from home, to forge a sense of common challenge.
As the organisation moved to reopen its lab sites I wrote how-to guides and maintained an FAQ site. Later, as LifeArc developed its approach to hybrid working I created a video for working safely in head office and kept colleagues engaged with a series of online town halls.
Within three months of shut-down the organisation's labs were back up and running securely. By Spring 2022 all teams were adapting to hybrid working and 'the new normal'.
Comms coaching for under-pressure teams
Coaching key skills and developing the manager/team 'contract'
My approach to coaching is a blend of structure and flexibility, of asking the questions that need to be asked and helping the client to find answers to the root problem. I have coached teams in the UK and France to improve their communication skills by clarifying their core narrative, understanding and adapting their story to their audiences.
When setting out to upskill a sales team for a further education college in the North West, I quickly realised that the issue was not so much skills as belief in the goals the team had been set. Listening to their discussion it was clear there was no 'contract' around these goals.
I brought them together with their manager and vice principal to agree a set of goals they could all buy into. From here I helped them plan out a set of achievable actions to meet their goals. By the end of the process the team was ready to take ownership of its own performance.
“Mike is the consummate comms professional. He is a craftsman, producing communications of the highest quality, yet never losing sight of the fact that the media is a means to an end. He ensures that the key messages land and that the purpose of the campaign is always paramount. He has a great people focus and is always a joy to work with, with a sense of humour and warmth to match his professionalism"
Richard Lewis, change specialist
Shaping the corporate story for a biotech charity
Using the annual report to frame an emerging vision
Annual reports and accounts are a prime opportunity to present who you are, your vision and goals and how you are performing against them.
I have written, edited and produced annual reports for a UK bank, a major co-operative and most recently a medical research charity.
At LifeArc, a major financial windfall led to a re-evaluation of their role and contribution to life sciences. Within this context I wrote, edited and project-managed LifeArc's annual report between 2019 and 2022.
Building report content around a central storyline, I worked closely with experts across the organisation to bring out not just successes and key activities, but their impact on present and future patients, and on the science world itself. In addition I 'ghost-wrote' for the CEO and chair to articulate the organisation's exciting, emerging vision.
"Mike’s project management and communications skills were critical in bringing together a fast-moving narrative at a very exciting time for our organisation. Mike helped us to capture the essence of our changing organisation and to begin to describe our impact as well as making sure we were adhering to all the requirements and expectations associated with annual reports."
John Park, senior director (finance) at LifeArc
Bringing the outside in
Creating learning events for fintec professionals
The IT and transformation teams at Worldpay were tasked with an ambitious challenge - nothing less than re-platforming the company's entire IT support framework. As part of my remit I helped transformation leadership to develop a wider understanding amongst the team, of new technologies and approaches in the fintech space. I put together a framework of regular communications to keep our people informed and engaged, and set up a series of 'innovation sessions' to familiarise them with what was going on in the world outside.
“Mike is a strong comms manager who really gave impetus to our internal communications programme. I worked in particular with Mike in getting a really successful series of internal knowledge sharing and innovation events up and running - Mike managed the creation of an internal brand and messaging and all the logistics and feedback."
Nick Telford-Reed, award-winning technology and product innovator.