Kathryn Kneller Email & Phone Number

London, England, Gb

I've worked as an interim comms lead and consultant since 2012 through my own company. I'm always open to discussing new contracts as well as fractional and consultancy engagements.

Paris, Ile-De-France, Fr

I take on regular ghostwriting and content creation projects for Paris' top English-language communications agency.

Paris, Fr

I teach two courses at France's top communications college. The first is 'Trends & Society in the 20th Century'. We cover how brand communications - particularly advertising - has evolved since 1945 in response to political, social and cultural events and trends from the A-bomb to Mark Zuckerberg.The second is 'Monitoring Political, Social and Cultural Trends' and introduces students to the fundamentals of business Intelligence, trend monitoring and stakeholder management.

London, England, Gb

Each year, Shell employees and contractors around the world drive almost 1 billion km in more than 70 countries – a distance equivalent to 70 times around the world every day. Shell's High-Risk Transport team is charged with the responsibility of making sure they do this as safely as possible. I led communications, change and engagement for HRT's deployment of Active Fatigue & Distraction Detection devices in Shell's tankers and staff transport fleet. These AI sensors can detect when a driver is tired or distracted, automatically setting off an in-vehicle alert, flagging it to the driver's journey supervisor and uploading a few seconds of relevant video footage to a secure server. This was a complex change programme across multiple countries and business units, which meant not only working across multiple markets, time zones, languages, and legal frameworks, but also with multiple technology and haulage vendors. This was also a very high-profile programme, with the CEO himself championing the technology. A case study about the project featured in the company-wide Safety Day communications campaign.Alongside the AFDD change programme, I ran trainings for the HRT Team on how to communicate more effectively and get better buy-in from stakeholders by telling better stories and delivering more effective presentations. I also created a training portal for colleagues filled with resources like books, articles, podcasts and videos on how to develop their non-technical skills, like communications, leadership, self-management and cognitive abilities.

Blackfriars, London, Gb

Unilever Operations (UniOps) runs all Unilever's technology and business services. A newly-formed organisation when I joined, I helped the Chief Enterprise Technology Officer and his LT communicate their business change agenda at the same time as their Covid-19 response. My job was to engage our own employees, influence senior stakeholders, foster stronger partnerships with suppliers and manage external media coverage. I also oversaw change communications activities for multiple simultaneous tech transformation programmes to make Unilever's systems faster and more resilient; streamlining processes to to free up resources and supercharging the company's data and analytics capabilities.

Seoul, Seoul, Kr

Don Lee & Company is one of Korea's leading English-language teaching organisations. I coached Korean executives from companies including Astra Zeneca and Google 1:1 via Zoom to improve their English language skills and progress in their careers.

Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Gb

When I joined the Leadership Team of the newly-created Science IT group as interim Communications Director I had two clear objectives. First, to deliver a Communications strategy that would engage our own people (~900 employees in six global hubs), drive awareness of our contribution to the wider business, and establish credibility with senior stakeholders. Second, to develop an EVP for our team which would attract top tech talent to fill the vacancies in our new organisation, in alignment with AZ's overall Employer Brand strategy. My initial contract was repeatedly renewed as my role expanded and over the next 18 months I also took on responsibility for communicating: 💥 The team's mission, vision, and strategy 💥 Major senior leadership changes 💥 AZ's digital transformation 💥 The Cambridge team's relocation to a new office I was also in charge of: 💥 Training and coaching teams on how to communicate more effectively💥 External personal brand management for the VP. This included coaching him on his social media presence and preparing him to deliver the keynote speech at Women of Silicon Roundabout 2018, Europe's largest conference for women in tech. This all took place within the comms framework of AZ's award-winning strategy development campaign, AZ2025, and the company-wide rollout of Workplace by Facebook. I absolutely loved working at AZ and am extremely proud of what we achieved during my time there.

London, London, Gb

I led employee communications at Paysafe for ten months, a momentous period for the company during which it recorded several major milestones. These included: 💥 Paysafe's delisting from the London Stock Exchange and $3bn acquisition by private equity giants Blackstone and CVC Partners 💥 The $470m acquisition of Texas-based Merchants Choice Payment Solutions (MCPS) 💥 "Plug into Paysafe", a comprehensive corporate rebrand 💥The launch of partnerships with Help for Heroes, the Barbarians Rugby Football Club, and racing driver Zachary Claman deMelo in the 2018 Verizon IndyCar series. I led employee communications for all these projects in addition to the ongoing delivery of BAU activity. Paysafe set a high value on employee engagement, so running regular Town Hall meetings, manager briefings, employee recognition programmes, and communicating learning & development strategy programmes also formed an important part of my role. By any measure, the results were exceptional. Paysafe boasted consistently high (>80%) employee engagement ratings in Pulse surveys, matched by industry-low employee turnover rates and outstanding productivity and profitability metrics. In 2017, while I was leading internal communications, they ranked #2 in Canada's Best Places to Work listings, and CEO Joel Leonoff won Glassdoor's Employee's Choice Top CEO award in Canada, with a 98% approval rating. Unlike other pay-to-play engagement award programmes, both these awards are based on verified employee ratings - so I'm especially proud of them.

Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, Gb

Whilst establishing the employee communications function, and leading the editorial process for Zest, Britvic's employee magazine, I planned and delivered all employee communications activities for major business initiatives including:💥 Sponsorship of Wimbledon, the Rugby Football Union and the UEFA Champions League 💥 Commercial launches for new products including Fruit Shoot Hydro and Robinson's Refresh'd💥 The acquisition and integration of ebba, Britvic's Brazilian subsidiary 💥 The introduction of the SDIL (Soft Drinks Industry Levy) in the UK in 2018 💥 Annual and Half Year Results - content creation and logistics for Town Halls (both live and online)💥 New sustainability initiatives, moving to more sustainable packaging in our supply chain I handed over this role in Spring 2017, taking a short break to travel before moving on to take on my next role at Paysafe.

Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, Gb

I joined Britvic on a short-term assignment to lead employee communications for the "One Britvic" business transformation programme. All Britivic's corporate functions like HR, Finance, and IT - which had previously operated independently within the remit of country-level Business Units - were combined into centralised global teams. This meant an extensive people change which needed to be communicated, working closely with business leaders, HR and the change programme team, under highly confidential conditions. As part of this programme, Corporate Communications was restructured and for the first time, Global Head of Employee Communications role was created. I accepted the invitation to take on this position on an interim basis while Britvic recruited the right permanent candidate for the role, overseeing the delivery of business-critical employee comms campaigns, and beginning the work of setting up the Internal Communications function.

London, United Kingdom, Gb

This was my first opportunity to take full responsibility for the employee communications for an entire organisation. I planned and delivered all employee communications for a global organisation of ~4000 people, operating in 90 countries and speaking 40 different languages. Working closely with the CEO and her Senior Leadership Team, I led all activities for: 💥 Developing the global internal communications strategy💥 Producing all senior leadership communications, including monthly video briefings by the CEO💥 IC lead for the design and implementation of the new intranet 💥 I launched digital solutions Yammer and Poppulo to replace the printed employee magazine💥 Measuring employee engagement by designing the annual survey and analysing the results💥 Consulting with teams across the business to improve their employee engagement levels. CEO Rosaleen Blair also topped the Glassdoor Employees Choice CEO ratings in 2016 with a 96% approval rating while I was in charge of AMS's employee communications.

London, Gb

I was IC Business Partner to the Consumer Business' Leadership Team, charged with driving employee engagement with our commercial performance, strategy and values. My BAU responsibilities in this role included running quarterly All Hands events, organising informal monthly Leadership Breakfasts and writing regular Director briefings.Over and above that, my proudest (and most challenging) moments were: 💥Working closely with the Brand and Marketing teams to design and deliver the internal communications for high-profile brand and product launches including the rollout of the 4G network, brand partnerships with SkyTV and Spotify, and the Red+ / Power to the Family campaign. These internal comms activated across all channels including print, digital, live events, and award-winning experiential on-site installations.💥Leading all employee communications about the £100m investment programme to double the size of our retail store portfolio. 💥Leading the employee communications for Prime Minister David Cameron's visit to Vodafone's Newbury HQ in April 2014. 💥Leading content development for the Consumer component of the 2014 Sales Conference, a two-day event for 800 senior managers at the Birmingham NEC.

London, Gb

This was my first assignment as an independent interim communications manager. I worked on employee communications for HSBC's Global Change Delivery function (~2300 employees worldwide) for a strategy and culture transformation programme.

Espoo, Southern Finland, Fi

I led internal communications and employee engagement across the global Real Estate & Facilities team, and then later the CFO's office (~4000 employees worldwide from Finance, Sourcing and Facilities teams). My role involved all aspects of communications strategy, including planning, delivery and measurement. Some of my biggest projects included: 1) Change CommunicationsI led internal communications activities for numerous diverse and high-profile change programmes, including:💥 Relocating the UK HQ from Farnborough to Paddington (June 2012) 💥 Redundancy announcements following the partnership agreement with Microsoft (February 2011)💥 Organisational restructures following the appointment of new CEO Stephen Elop (Sept. 2010)💥 Functional leadership (Senior VP-level) changes in November 2009 and March 2011💥 Outsourcing facilities management teams in EMEA and APAC (March 2009) 2) Campaign CommunicationsI led global employee communications on several high-impact internal campaigns including:💥'Spendlogic' - reducing operational spend across Nokia by £40m within 3 months 💥 'GoodFood', 'Let's Talk Rubbish' and 'We've Got the Power' - driving sustainability in the workplace 💥 'The Workplace of Choice' - reducing office size and environmental impact, and improving productivity, by introducing flexible working places, technology innovation, and new working practices. 3) Leadership developmentI worked closely with senior executives to equip them to communicate and lead more effectively. I commissioned bespoke media and presentation training programmes, co-created compelling written and face-to-face content, and coached them individually. I also established and led a virtual global network of communications and change management champions, and mentored junior staff keen to develop into more senior roles, or taking on communications responsibilities for the first time.

Ba, English Literature & History

Post-Graduate Diploma, Japanese Language & Culture