Catherine Folan Email & Phone Number

London, England, United Kingdom

The EBRD is a multilateral developmental investment bank, which uses investment as a tool to build market economies. The bank has 54 offices in 34 countries of operation.I am currently the Communications partner and advisor for the Bank’s Chief Transformation Officer, responsible for the corporate Transformation narrative. I own and deliver a ‘messaging master plan’ of all significant investment transformation projects across the Bank. My remit is wide, and just a few significant programmes include:✔️The roll-out of Microsoft 365 tools across our 3,500-strong employee base. Over 18 months I worked alongside a change manager to form an intranet site, staff case studies, training materials and FAQs, avoiding disruption and leading to a smooth migration from old ways of working. ✔️The formation of a new internal operations Sustainability drive. Leading the People strategy, I formed an employee carbon footprint survey to enable baseline benchmark data and led several awareness campaigns including a supplier sustainability showcase, featuring 12 ethical and green retailers, who sold their items to employees at HQ. ✔️The communications management of a three-year new Enterprise Resource Platform (ERP), which will upgrade the corporate SAP system and all Finance and HR systems and processes. I devised the programme name and brand – Compass – as well as forming a change and communications forum, its ways of working and its communication plan. This required branding and design skill, stakeholder engagement and influence, and sign-off at Executive Board level.

Broadgate, London

A member of the Bank’s IT Leadership Team, I was responsible for all employee communication and engagement within the IT department as well as sharing relevant IT news to the wider Bank. Achievements included:✔️Partnering the MD, IT, to form the Tech2020 and Tech2025 Vision and Narrative. This laid out the IT strategy and the Narrative was the reference document for all technology messaging. This resulted in a clear internal brand and consistency of voice across all collateral.✔️I owned all IT colleague engagement activities including ‘Lunch & Learn’ sessions, Town Hall events and President floor walks. This resulted in the department consistently being in the top five most engaged teams, Bank-wide.

Lime Street

Willis Towers Watson is a is a global company that offers a range of professional consulting and support services related to insurance, pensions, and retirement planning.✔️Here I worked alongside an Accenture programme team to support the transition of processes to Mumbai, ensuring GB employees understood what role changes meant to them. I also developed HR and redundancy messages for a restructure of the Claims area resulting in all impacted staff being aware and informed throughout the consultation process, which minimised friction and upset during a sensitive time.

Paddington Hq, 1 Sheldon Square

Visa Europe (now Visa Inc) facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, most commonly through Visa-branded credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards.✔️As HR communications lead, I partnered the HR management team, Legal and Employee Relations on a restructure programme. This included creating a new employee representative body, to support collective consultation. This honed my understanding of people change management and associated legal requirements.Soon after joining, the company announced a major organisation change and I both created and delivered the change communication strategy. This involved working closely with HR, Legal and ER colleagues and involved leadership messages, introducing new channels and the co-creation of an employee representative body for collective consultation.With the organisational change completing in June 2014, I was asked to continue supporting VE's HR division and managed all people-related communication across the organisation, including communication strategy and delivery for the Talent, Culture, Reward & Performance and Learning & Development functions.

London, United Kingdom

Aviva plc offers life and savings plans, pension plans, long-term health and accident insurance, and annuity plans.✔️I created the communication strategy for very fast-paced restructure programme, creating briefing call scripts and materials for HR to use with impacted staff. All consultation closed efficiently within the six-month deadline.

London, United Kingdom

Communications Manager, Commercial Directorate, December 2011 – February 2013 Transition Communications Manager, March 2011 – December 2011Head of Communications, Information Management (IT), September 2008 – March 2011TfL implements the mayor's transport strategy and manages transport services across the capital.✔️At TfL I held many roles all with an organisational transformation theme and I managed all classic communications tools and channels. On the most significant programme, I was a member of a close-knit board of 13, leading communication on a headcount reduction programme to 5,000 employees.• Managing a network of local comms managers and HR, I created standard templates, milestone maps and governance structure. This included Q&A process, with 6,000 staff questions, answered within a five-day SLA.

Programme Project Manager (Central Services) March 2008 – September 2008Employee Communication Manager (Corporate) June 2006 – July 2007 – then maternityEmployee Communication Manager (Sub Surface Lines), July 2005 – June 2006London Underground is the capital’s tube network system, with 11 lines serving 272 stations.✔️I was Editor of the employee magazine ‘On the Move’, leading an external writing agency and internal reporters. When surveyed, staff told us it was their favourite communications channel, as it invoked pride when sharing their stories with their families.✔️In advance of the London Olympics, I also managed the behavioural change programme Time for Action instilling TfL’s values, behaviours and skills in over 400 managers through a six-month long series of modules and workshops.

Produced all classic employee channels including magazines, video, events, poster campaigns and intranet sites. Specifically responsible for messages relating to HR, Finance and Technology.

Managed the full range of internal Comms channels, developed the UK corporate brochure and led the formal launch event of the new Marketing office.

2:1 Ba Hons, Public Relations Degree

Included a placement year at Marks and Spencer, in the Internal Communication department, plus multiple placements at top-ten public.

Bachelor Of Arts (Ba), A Level:English Literature; History; French, B; B; C

Gcse, 5; English Language, English Literature, History, Drama, French