Navigating the IC Path: How to Advance Your Communications Career
Access Executive Brief
About this Executive Brief
Communication isn’t just about conveying messages—it’s about building relationships, fostering understanding, and driving meaningful change.
Communications professionals play a pivotal role in shaping perceptions, driving engagement, and influencing outcomes. Whether you’re working in public relations, marketing, journalism, corporate communications, or any other related field, the principles of effective communication remain constant.
But taking that first step onto the career ladder and making the ascent relies on so many factors—attitude, opportunity, experience, education, and continuous professional development.
In the session How to Progress Your Communications Career from Poppulo’s 2024 Engage conference, Andrew Hubbard, Director of Internal Communications at Poppulo, Nicole Bearne, Founder of Comms Exchange & Former Head of IC at Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, and Paul Diggins, Head of Internal Communications at Santander, shared practical tips on how to progress your communications career.
The full session is available to watch on-demand here—or you can read this guide for the key takeaways. Keep reading to learn:
- How to start your communications career
- Skills for a successful comms career
- Lessons from experienced IC professionals
Related Content
The AI Toolkit for Internal Communications
Internal communication is under real pressure. IC teams are expected to support leaders, shape culture, and deliver relevant, personalized communication to an increasingly diverse audience—all while operating at greater speed and scale than ever before. AI arrives at the right moment. It doesn’t replace communicators; it elevates them. Applied well, AI sharpens the fundamentals of effective communication: diagnosing issues, shaping the narrative, guiding leaders, and delivering messages that connect people to purpose and progress. At its best, AI accelerates drafting, adapts content for different formats, improves accessibility, and surfaces insights about what’s landing. Without governance, though, it can create noise or risk. The opportunity for IC teams is to bring AI in thoughtfully, with governance and human judgment at the center. This guide shows how to do exactly that. Inside, you’ll find practical guidance on when to use AI, where humans remain essential, how to establish guardrails, how to prompt effectively, and how to scale AI responsibly across channels and teams.
The Poppulo Guide for IT & Security Buyers
Clear answers on security, data protection, integrations, deployment, AI governance, and enterprise scalability.
Campus Communication Reimagined: The Digital Signage Advantage
Over the past two decades, campus communication has shifted from posters and email blasts to a complex web of comms channels that are accessible to students, faculty, and visitors throughout their days. The modern university is both physical and digital, and the speed of communication must meet the needs of a digitally-native generation. In this environment, digital signage has moved from a nice-to-have to a strategic medium—visible, immediate, and flexible—one that connects a dispersed campus. This whitepaper explores how institutions are using digital signage to communicate smarter and faster, and how to build a program that is easy to operate, simple to scale, and resilient in the moments that matter most. Drawing on Poppulo’s expertise in digital signage for college campuses , we’ll share how leading universities are centralizing digital signage management, empowering multiple departments, and using data and design to make every message count. Keep reading to learn how top universities are leveraging digital signage to create more connected, informed, and vibrant campus communities, setting new standards for communication in higher education.