DENVER and CORK, Ireland, October 24, 2023

 – Inc. Business Media unveiled its second annual Power Partner Awards today. These awards are a tribute to B2B organizations worldwide with a demonstrated history of enabling and propelling the growth and success of companies. Among the recipients, Poppulo, a leading communications experience software company was recognized for its ability to deliver top-tier communications solutions to leadership teams at the enterprise level.


The list of awardees comprises 389 firms spanning various sectors including marketing and advertising, health and wellness, financial services, legal, logistics, productivity, and more.

“Trusted B2B partners provide guidance and expertise that founders rely on at various steps of their organization’s journey. Partners that possess a demonstrated ability to deliver quality support are at the core of entrepreneurship and help bring big ideas to life,” said Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief of Inc. Business Media.

Over the past year, Poppulo has experienced tremendous growth. The company has expanded its service offerings through enhanced AI capabilities, and has been named a leading employee communications software in the 2023 Employee Communications Software Buyer's Guide, a report published by SoftwareReviews, a division of IT research and consulting firm Info-Tech Research Group.


https://www.inc.com/power-partner-awards/2023

. The November 2023 Issue of Inc. magazine is available online now at 

 and will be on newsstands beginning October 31, 2023.

This award recognizes B2B partners that propel growth and success for the enterprise

Poppulo Recognized as a Power Partner by Inc. 

We are delighted to announce that Poppulo is now a member of the Colorado Neurodiversity Chamber of Commerce (CNDCC). Their mission is to provide strategies and opportunities to optimize business growth by building an authentically diverse and equality-based workplace, while helping to further opportunities for neurodivergent individuals to excel in the workforce, business, and leadership.

The CNDCC is the first and only Neurodiversity Chamber of Commerce. Member benefits include:

Connection to all Business Groups within the CNDCC network

Training for hiring and retention of neurodivergent employees

Joining the CNDCC helps to reinforce our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and to position Poppulo as a business that is committed to supporting our neurodiverse employee population. Our membership of the CNDCC also benefits our people, since all of our employees now have access to the educational events and resources provided by the Chamber.

While the CNDCC are Colorado-based, they welcome members globally and strive to ensure online events are accessible for members across timezones. 

If you would like to find out more, visit 

Introducing the Colorado Neurodiversity Chamber of Commerce 

DENVER and CORK, Ireland, Sept. 21, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Poppulo

 a leading communications experience software company, unveiled an expanded AI offering to provide intelligent assistance for communicators and content creators. Embedded into Poppulo's Harmony platform, Poppulo AI streamlines communication workflows, elevates audience engagement, and boosts productivity across all communications channels by harnessing intelligent insights and automation.

Poppulo AI sets a new standard for intelligent content creation, expert recommendations, and data-driven insights. By utilizing employee behavioral data, Poppulo AI enables communicators to identify content themes and gain insights into audience engagement. These insights improve content creation, creating an intelligent publishing engine that automates workflow elements and boosts productivity and engagement.

"We're excited to unveil our next-gen AI platform that continues to push the boundary in delivering highly impactful communications experiences," said David Levin, CEO, Poppulo. "Time and resource constraints are top challenges for communications and marketing teams, and we designed Poppulo AI to drive new levels of productivity with an enterprise-grade solution that harmonizes employee communications and customer experience without compromising creativity, design, and authenticity. And we're just getting started."

 harnesses generative AI for quick copy polishing and captivating headline generation. This feature fine-tunes content, aligns tone with brand guidelines, and automatically crafts engaging titles and mobile notifications, all backed by responsible AI principles and Microsoft Azure for enterprise-level security and privacy.

 streamlines content creation by recommending the best-performing template formats, autogenerating media assets, and dynamically optimizing and formatting text across communication channels.

 employs natural language processing (NLP) to identify messaging themes in internal communications, providing insights into widespread topics and variations in employee engagement by theme.

 easily enable employees to read communications in their language of choice for better understanding and impact while bringing time savings and productivity gains for communicators needing to reach audiences in multiple languages. without requiring organizations to spend time and money on manual translations.

Poppulo's approach to security and privacy provides a strategic advantage to its enterprise customer base who can now empower their employees to use AI in a fully governed context.

"One reason enterprise organizations choose to partner with Poppulo is our proven approach to delivering on their security and governance needs. We built Poppulo AI to deliver to the enterprise the most secure, responsible, and governance-backed AI technology to enhance overall communication," said Abhi Anantharaman, CTO, Poppulo.

To discover more about Poppulo's advancements in AI, please visit 

Poppulo is the leading communications and workplace experience software company. The Poppulo Harmony platform helps enterprise organizations achieve more by effortlessly connecting their employees, customers, and workplaces through omnichannel employee communications, digital signage, and workplace management. Poppulo's 4,500+ customer base is representative of the world's most successful companies, including 47 of the Fortune 100. For more information, visit 

Poppulo AI introduces a new era for resource-challenged communications teams with intelligence, automation, and fully governed generative AI capabilities designed to boost productivity and audience engagement.

Poppulo Introduces Poppulo AI, the Industry's Only Enterprise-Grade AI Suite to Transform Communications Experiences

Poppulo Harmony is the employee communications platform of choice for the world’s leading companies and has now been awarded Gold status by independent researchers. 

The Poppulo platform took the Gold Trophy award and was named No 1. in several key categories, including “Business Value Created,” in the 

SoftwareReviews 2023 market research report

As the report states: “The underlying purpose of software is to create value for employees, customers, partners, and ultimately shareholders. As a result, it is imperative that any software selection be aligned with the organization’s needs and deliver enough business value to justify the costs.”

The review feedback from users gave Poppulo a market-leading Business Value Created score of 89%.

The independent market research firm also rated Poppulo Harmony as the world’s leading employee communications software platform for:

Satisfaction that Cost is Fair Relative to Value

Poppulo was also rated #1 by users under the category “Plan to Renew,” with a faultless score of 100%.

These findings underscored Poppulo Harmony’s market-leading status, endorsed by our A-list roll call of global customers, including 47 of the Fortune 100—and 4 of the Fortune 100’s Top 10 companies.

The SoftwareReviews report is designed to help prospective employee comms software purchasers make better decisions by leveraging the experiences of real users. 

Get Your Copy of the Employee Communications Software Report From SoftwareReviews 

It states that “the data is collected from real end users, meticulously verified for veracity and exhaustively analyzed...each product is compared and contrasted with all other vendors in their category to create a holistic, unbiased view of the product landscape.”

Some of the user comments that underpinned the research results include:

"Poppulo is all about data-driven communication to ensure clarity with employees and to drive business forward."

“I like that the software is all about quality and accurate communication. It’s data-driven. Using it is easy. Communication is effective.”

“The great analytics provides great insights into what’s working from your communications.”

“The statistics derived from a campaign is important to understand the audience and your reach...not only that, I like how easy Poppulo is. Wonderful product.”

"For business employee communication, I highly recommend Poppulo. It’s effective and seamless to use.”

“I like how Poppulo allows us to track intranet, email, and video communication performance over time....it’s also useful for monitoring and improving the effectiveness of your messages with multi-channel analytics and AI-driven content insights.”

But, of course, as the report stresses, other significant issues come into play when a company is considering investing in employee comms software, specifically what it refers to as “Emotional Footprint.” 

As the authors of the report point out: “B2B purchasing decisions not only rely on data and facts, but also gut instinct and emotional inputs. A vendor’s Emotional Footprint can influence whether a client chooses to do business with the organization.”

Again, Poppulo emerged with a Net Emotional Footprint Customer Experience rating of +98. “The Net Emotional Footprint measures high-level user sentiment. It aggregates emotional response ratings across provocative questions, creating a powerful indicator of overall user feeling towards the vendor and product."

"While purchasing decisions shouldn’t be based on emotion, it’s valuable to know what kind of emotional response the vendor you’re considering elicits from their users,” the report states.

Commenting on the results, Poppulo CEO David Levin said: “We are committed to investing in and delivering the best employee communication software for the enterprise. Our technology is designed to help businesses connect people, systems, and ways of working to deepen relationships and move forward."

"We are proud to earn the top spot from SoftwareReviews, and we look forward to supporting the global enterprise with their communication needs," he said.

Interested in finding out more about how Poppulo can transform your employee communications and drive business value? 

Pure Gold: Top Ranking for Poppulo in Independent Research

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) didn’t just spark a global financial crisis; it was also a perfect example of how poor or downright bad communication can turn concern to chaos.

Now there’s some distance between SVP’s sudden demise last month, it’s useful to look at the lessons that can be learned to better prepare your 

Here’s what happened and the mistakes made:

On March 8, 2023, SVB issued a press release saying it intended to raise $500 million while unloading shares at a loss of $1.8billion. Crucially, the bank did not have a communication executive on its leadership team and bungled messaging to key stakeholders, including investors, customers, and employees, who were left with many concerns and few answers.

While the bank was privately insisting that there was nothing to worry about, the markets were spooked because of the lack of detail in the comms and the fact that another bank, Silvergate, had collapsed days earlier.

Compounding the matter, and adding to the nervous jitters, was that the messaging from SVP “everything’s fine, nothing to worry about” was uncannily like what Lehman Brothers said days before its collapse in 2008, triggering the biggest global financial crisis in modern times. This was still way too fresh in people’s memories when SVB issued their flawed press release on March 8.

As the CCO of gaming company Activision Blizzard, Lulu Meservey, said, “It’s tragic that Silicon Valley Bank could lose 80%+ of its value in a single day. But what’s crazy is that the financial collapse was largely driven by a communication collapse. Their storyline unraveled and their messaging went off the rails, in 4 big ways.”

“SVB made the responsible decision to strengthen its financial position with a cap raise. It made sense,” said Meservey. “Where things went terribly wrong was the communication, specifically:

“It had a lot of dense detail on the financial instruments and underwriters used. But it had a huge omission. It was all narrative, no numbers,” she said. While the release was tailored for the SEC, it missed critical audiences due to lack of detail and narrative: customers and VC investors, spooking both cohorts.

The communications disaster poured oil on a raging bonfire of rumor and online speculation, leading to its inevitable collapse.

SVB’s communication failure serves as a reminder of the importance of effective crisis communication. 

Companies must be proactive, transparent, and timely in their communication efforts to minimize the impact of a crisis. 

Failure to do so can lead to significant reputation damage and loss of trust among stakeholders.

It Might be a Cliché, But Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail

A key lesson for SVB’s communication failure is the importance of preparation. Companies must have well-constructed and thoroughly considered crisis communication plans that are constantly updated for when a crisis might happen.

The ideal crisis communication plan has a clear chain of command, roles, responsibilities, and a list of potential scenarios and responses.

There’s no room for assumptions when mitigating a crisis. Your response should paint a clear picture and tell the whole story. Don’t leave any room for rumors and speculation or the void will be filled like wildfire on social media.

Crisis Management: 3 Key Lessons for Internal Communication and HR Leaders

Simply put, SVB lacked anything like a robust crisis mitigation plan. While the bank had a chance to tell the whole story, it did the opposite. It released a cryptic press release that was all numbers and targeted underwriters, not key influencers such as customers and investors. More significantly, it lacked a plausible story and explanation, undermining credibility.

The unstated but unmissable key takeaway from the press release was that SVB was in trouble. Hot on the heels of the Silvergate Bank collapse, the timing couldn’t have been any worse. People naturally linked the SVB disclosure to Silvergate, assumed the worst, and panicked.

If SVB had a proper crisis communication plan, its team would have had a better chance of controlling the narrative. It would have crafted communication to reassure all stakeholders, customers, shareholders, investors, employees—and avoided the bank run.

Make Sure Key Audiences Are Told What They Will Want to Know

SVB’s press release failed to tell a credible story, and as a result cranked up the rumor mill. It didn’t mention why they needed to raise money or provide further context to help people understand what was happening. Worse, the bank failed to reassure its otherwise savvy and edgy clientele about its financial position and strength.

Alongside the release, SVB filed a form thorough 8-K with the SEC, accounting for the bank’s liquidity strategy and fundraising rationale and explaining its strong financial position. This information would have been highly valuable to SVB’s customers, but the bank didn’t make any effort to communicate it to its customer base. Instead, SVB’s customers were left to gather information from the digital watercoolers, with disastrous consequences.

SVB could have prevented the crisis by demystifying its current position and explaining the circumstances surrounding any difficulties it was having—it was poor communications that led its core customers to conclude that the bank was in trouble.

While a shares price drop can hurt a bank, it’s nothing compared to losing customer confidence. SVB’s crisis response failed to address its stakeholders, and the bank paid the ultimate price.

By overlooking the need to reassure its customers, it was counting on its stellar 4-decade old history to curry favor with depositors. Unfortunately, that approach doesn’t work in a panic situation. SVB should have crafted a dedicated, jargon-free message for its customers, with a clear narrative explaining the situation.

A robust crisis communications plan would have meant SVP would have worked with key influencers and industry reporters to give the bank’s backstory a framework, it could have reassured its customer base and quelled the rising fears.

Any crisis communications plan falls into three distinct phases that are interlinked to work together as one:

: A crisis plan outlines your company’s strategy that is ready to kick in in the event of an internal crisis or an unexpected external crisis that will impact your organization. It covers everything from team members to press release formats, internal alert mechanisms, legal counsel, and everything in between. As the SVB example highlighted so well, the narrative is everything. SVB communicated but had no narrative—and so lost not only the plot but the entire bank.

: A carefully designed and well-rehearsed crisis response plan allows you and your team to remain calm and act with deliberateness when responding to a crisis. It allows you to simplify and prioritize your communications and response which gives you a better chance of keeping ahead as events evolve.

: The last phase of dealing with a crisis entails coming to terms with what happened, learning lessons from what happened, picking up the pieces, and moving on. Lessons learned should further refine your response strategy going forward.

SVB used poorly crafted messages to drop big news likely to cause fear and panic among its customers and investors. Its letters to consumers and investors left them with more questions than answers. They failed to explain the root cause of the bank’s current predicament and reassure customers that all was well.

The use of complex language didn’t help matters. It encouraged people to form ill-informed opinions about the bank’s financial status. People latched on to the unclear messaging, started decoding what the company supposedly meant, and shared their opinions online. They latched onto the key takeaway that the bank was in trouble and their money wasn’t safe there. Coming in the wake of the collapse of Silvergate, it didn’t take much for the fear to spiral, leading to a bank run.

The former CEO may have reacted to such ill-formed opinions when asking customers to calm down. The CEO came from a position of knowledge—he was fully aware of the bank’s financial position. He knew the bank was financially stable but didn’t share this information.

The poor choice of words and messaging only served as fodder for online chatter. People misconstrued that to mean the company had lost control, and it triggered people to withdraw their deposits.

If SVB had an effective crisis response plan, the bank would have delivered 

, openly explaining the situation to relevant stakeholders, and guiding the bank on what to say to investors and customers.

Careful messaging targeting the right audience would have reassured its customer base. It would have informed them that everything was under control and that the bank wasn’t at risk of bankruptcy or collapse.

SVB’s presser was released late Wednesday, only hours after Silvergate, the largest crypto bank, announced its liquidation. The bank couldn’t have picked a worse time—the entire financial was on edge, and the bank dropped a cryptic message that screamed to the world, "we’re in trouble."

Announcing such a hefty loss without proper context and explanation allowed the world to speculate. The poor timing and lack of explanation shook the confidence of Silicon Valley influencer Peter Theil. He advised the portfolio companies under his Founders Fund to withdraw funds from SVB. The advisory reached other venture capitalists, and the bank run spiraled out of control.

While the SVB collapse may have been inevitable from the offset, it’s clear that poor communications sealed the deal. With a more informed communications plan and the right preparations in place, it’s possible that they could have avoided the collapse. And that requires a communications platform that allows you to respond instantly on all necessary channels and measure the reach of your comms.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Poppulo can help your organization with its crisis comms planning, 

Crisis Communications: What We Can Learn from the SVB Collapse

Eoin Byrne, Strengthen Operational Evolution, Support Company Growth, and Drive Culture at Poppulo

DENVER and CORK, Ireland, Jan. 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading communications and workplace experience software company 

 has bolstered its executive team with the hire of Samantha Bufton as President and Chief Operating Officer and Eoin Byrne as Chief People Officer. This announcement comes on the heels of Poppulo's recent unveiling of the Poppulo Harmony platform, which combines the best technology from Poppulo's recently merged companies into a comprehensive communication and workplace experience solution.

As Poppulo's new President and COO, Samantha will develop and lead the company's operational leadership team. This team will drive transformational growth across multiple key business functions, including marketing, sales, customer success, professional services, product, and technology, further streamlining the company's ability to deliver value for its customers as well as the market.

We're thrilled to have Samantha and Eoin at the helm of our new Poppulo team." — David Levin, CEO of Poppulo

Samantha comes to Poppulo with more than 20 years' experience helping to grow large and small businesses alike. She previously held the role of EVP/General Manager at Momentive.ai—the maker of SurveyMonkey and GetFeedback—which she joined in 2013 to architect its Enterprise offering. Previous to Momentive.ai, Samantha spent 15 years in product management roles at Facebook, Intuit, FanSnap, and Yahoo!, where she built and led teams that created innovative consumer and enterprise products. She holds an MBA from the University of Oxford and a BSc Computer Science from the University of Hertfordshire in the UK.

As CPO, Eoin Byrne will lead Poppulo's Global HR and People Function. Eoin brings a wealth of experience to this role in the design and implementation of strategic HR and people engagement initiatives. Eoin understands the role employee experience can play in driving transformation within an organization and Poppulo's investment in hiring Eoin as CPO reflects its commitment to leading the way in employee engagement. As a part of Eoin's role, he will also lead and expand a world-class internal communications team.

Prior to joining Poppulo, Eoin was US Chief HR Officer at the international retail chain Lidl, where he worked for over 15 years. Eoin holds a diploma in Employment Law from Technological University Dublin and a BA in Communication and Media Studies from Dublin City University.

"We're thrilled to have Samantha and Eoin at the helm of our new Poppulo team," said David Levin, CEO of Poppulo. "We're more excited than ever about what lies ahead for Poppulo, given the deep well of leadership experience that Samantha and Eoin bring to our team that will help propel us forward."

Digital signage market leader Four Winds Interactive (FWI), workplace management innovator SmartSpace, and employee communications leader Poppulo combined under the Poppulo name last month, now supported by a unified brand, vision, and product suite. Poppulo's Harmony platform enables powerful employee communications, customer communications, and workplace experiences designed to help organizations engage key employee and customer audiences more effectively.

Poppulo is the leading communications and workplace experience software company. The Poppulo Harmony platform helps enterprise organizations achieve more by effortlessly connecting their employees, customers, and workplaces through omnichannel employee communications, digital signage, and workplace management. Poppulo's 6,000+ customer base is representative of the world's most successful companies, including 47 of the Fortune 100. For more information, visit 

 New President and COO, Samantha Bufton, and new CPO, Eoin Byrne, Strengthen Operational Evolution, Support Company Growth, and Drive Culture at Poppulo

Poppulo Expands Executive Team with New President and Chief People Officer Appointments

DENVER and CORK, Ireland and LUTON, England , Nov. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the 2021 merger of the digital signage market leader Four Winds Interactive (FWI), the workplace management innovator SmartSpace, and the employee communications leader Poppulo, the three companies have combined under the Poppulo name, supported by a unified brand, vision, and product suite.

"Connecting people is at the heart of everything we do as an organization," said David Levin, CEO of the new Poppulo.

 organization will offer its customers a platform called 

, which combines the best of FWI, SmartSpace, and Poppulo technology into a comprehensive communication and workplace experience solution. Poppulo Harmony enables powerful employee communications, customer communications, and workplace experiences, designed to help organizations more effectively engage key employee and customer audiences.

In a recent Poppulo survey of American and European C-suite and senior executives in enterprises with over 5,000 employees, executives recognized the connection between employee experience and customer experience as a majority (58%) agree that providing excellent employee experience translates to employees providing customers with an excellent experience. In addition to our omnichannel employee communications capability, Poppulo Harmony also enables targeted customer communications experiences.

"The name Poppulo comes from the Latin word for people—'populus,'" said David Levin, CEO of the new Poppulo. "Connecting people is at the heart of everything we do as an organization. Today, we introduced customers to the Poppulo Harmony platform, which combines the greatest strengths of the products that made them communication leaders in their own spaces. Successful companies know the extent to which employee experience defines the customer experience and the financial bottom line—and that communication is key to both."

As a result of hybrid work, employees require an increased flow of information, with greater specificity to their role and location than ever before. Poppulo's survey found that 67% of executives believe that poor internal communication has affected the success of company initiatives, with 81% of those executives estimating that it costs their business between $5M to $50M annually. The Poppulo Harmony platform addresses organizations' need to build stronger connections with employee and customer audiences through engaging communications and optimized spaces.

One of the platform's early adopters, Jared Curtis, Director of Communications at 

, emphasizes, "With widely dispersed employees working remotely, onsite, and hybrid, we consulted with Poppulo to solve for these impacts and deliver communications experiences at scale. Their omnichannel approach has supported the evolution of how we communicate, engage, and connect with all employees across work environments and geographies. This technology has strengthened our communications and helped create stronger alignment between the business and our people."

Research based on survey findings from the United States and Europe. On behalf of Poppulo, Censuswide surveyed 500 enterprise executives across a range of industries with 5,000 or more employees in September of this year.

Media Contact:
Saran Gopalakrishnan 
saran.gopalakrishnan@poppulo.com


Four Winds Interactive, Poppulo, and SmartSpace combine under the Poppulo brand to deliver an all-embracing communications solution for today's radically changed workplace

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