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Yiuwin Tsang
Hello and welcome to the Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way of doing business. We believe beautiful businesses are led with purpose by people who care, guided by a clear strategy, and soulfully grown. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Beautiful Business Podcast. My name is Yiuwin Tsang, part of the Beautiful Business Team. And this week, I was joined by Helen Neal. Helen is the founder and CEO of HN Communications, an award winning sustainability communications agency. HN Communications has recently achieved B Corp certification and won best B2B agency at the UK Agency Awards. HNl Communications' core objective is to creatively address the world's urgent climate challenges by bringing together different perspectives for purposeful connections and conversations. Helen, can you give us some background to your experience working with larger organisations?
Helen Neal
Yeah, I mean, I, most of my career before I started working for myself, before I set up the business was working in large, global corporates. So I spent probably about five years working at Virgin Atlantic as their government relations manager and worked on all of their kind of policy and campaign aspects of the business, which inevitably bought in the areas around sustainability, as you would well imagine, even back in the year, sort of 2005 to 2010 time. And then I stuck with transport. But I moved to car manufacturing. And I went to work for Nissan. So I originally started working for Nissan in the UK. And then I spent some time in Paris and manage the European function. And latterly, in my career there at Nissan, before I left, I was responsible for their leadership and strategy communications for the business and working with the senior, the C suite and the chairman of the Ameo region in terms of their communications. But again, even with Nissan, you know, a big part of my role over that time was to introduce the electric vehicle into the UK and then laterally into Europe. And so again, I think, Evers happened, I don't know, in my career, I've always seemed to be sucked into some form of like sustainability or climate related issue with the work that I've been doing. So my background is in campaigns and policy and government relations bits actually not in direct kind of traditional communications. I've never worked in an agency and I genuinely believe, and it might be a controversial thing to say. But the fact that I haven't, I think is a huge benefit for us. Because we can just create our agency, how we feel is right rather than feel like we have to go through a certain mould. And so I spent a good sort of 1617 years within the corporate world overall. And I always loved it. I love big global organisations, I love the kind of, I guess, the big picture pneus of it all and what they're able to do, I certainly never had any desire to set up a business of my own. None whatsoever.
Yiuwin Tsang
So what made you do it, then six years ago, you set up HN Communications, you've now grown it to nine, what was the spark that kind of pulled you out? Because you're right there. I say, even in car manufacturing, it's a pretty glamorous kind of world out there.
Helen Neal
Great, bright lights. Yeah, it was great. Um, there were, you know, we were doing so much. And I think the whole kind of transition to electric vehicles has been super exciting. I'm so proud that I was part of it. But I think I got to the point where it was a couple of things. And I think they probably created a perfect storm. One was it became really difficult to rise up within the organisation to beyond a certain point, I think I was on a really great trajectory, I was really supported. And things were looking really great for me in terms of promotions, and all that kind of stuff. And then I had two children in quick succession. And I feel that that for whatever reason, had an impact on my career. From my perspective, it changed my outlook on things as well. And I wanted to be a different person. But I still wanted to be driven in my career. But I also wanted time to be with my kids. And I found that period really hard to reconcile at the time, I just couldn't seem to marry this drive and desire to drive my career forward, but also be a mum at the same time. And I'm sure this is something that a lot of moms and dads will recognise when you have kids. So that was the first part. And then I think the second part was, I'd been told about getting promotions and things like that for a while but it just never happened. And I remember having a phone call with this. I had a brilliant boss. He's very nice, saying you know, oh, you know, and I think next year you might get Get the promotion. But I think I'd heard this from three bosses over three years. And I thought, What am I doing? I just can't do this anymore. So I think I very kindly said, thank you very much. But I think it's time for me to leave. And I think sometimes it's no reflection on them. I had a great time working with them. But I think for me and that organisation, you know, I'd gone way past the point of actually, when I should have left, and it's hard for all of us, isn't it to know like, when is the right time to step off something and try something else. And to be quite honest with you, I left and I had no idea what I was going to do. And I, I just thought, I just need a break. I just need to sort my head out and work out where I go next. But it was certainly even at that point, it wasn't, Oh, I'm going to start a business. So I left. But fortunately, the business came back and said, Well, would you do some consulting for us? If you're leaving? Would you mind consulting? And I said, Okay, I didn't have a huge amount else to do. So I thought, well, at least, maybe this is a way that I can do stuff on my own terms and decide my own hours, and, and all of that kind of thing. And I started consulting. And I think very quickly within like the first six weeks, I remember I went to see a recruitment consultant. It was about a job. And then he said, well tell me what you're doing now. And my face lit up. I started talking about it. And he said, I'm gonna be honest with you why? Why are you looking for a job? You seem like you're really happy. And I think that was my lightbulb moment where I thought, Oh, God, yeah, this is actually what I love doing. I love that kind of consulting and being independent and being free. I think. So. From there, the business just started to grow and grow. ,
Yiuwin Tsang
Really, that's fabulous. And I think it's quite a well worn path as well, isn't it where you know, people kind of hit a point in their life when there's an inflection point when priorities shift and change. And you know, if the workplace can shift and change with the fabulous, if not, then you need to make a move really, don't you and it sounds like it's and
Helen Neal
I always say I say to my kids now who were like eight nine now, but I always say like you boys saved my career, you could save my career, because if it wasn't for them, I would definitely still be in a corporate organisation. I would you know, and don't get me wrong. I still love corporate organisations, I get them, I understand them. And I know the challenges that come with them. But I like working from the outside and helping. But by far, the fact that I have my kids, they 100 saved my career.
Yiuwin Tsang
I just want to take a quick minute to say thanks to our trusted partners Krystal Hosting. Krystal is a B Corp powered by 100% renewable energy, and has a goal of planting 1 billion trees by 2030. Krystal services are super fast and super reliable. And they're genuinely really nice people. We're super picky over who we work with as partners at Beautiful Business. And we're delighted to count Krystal as one of them. Back to the podcast....
Yiuwin Tsang
I just want to pick up so you just you mentioned that you have 16 years in the corporate space. So you should already be familiar with the corporate world how things move all the little nuances that come with organisations our size as well, the manoeuvring and everything else that kind of comes with you just don't get in a smaller business when you do but it's so much more obvious. Yeah, I'd be really interested to know loads of our listeners on beautiful business podcasts who would dream for clients like Nissan like Bosch like the Climate Group, some of the people that I understand you've worked with are still do work with big organisations. First of all, it can be quite intimidating if you haven't got the sort of background that you have. But when we first spoke up spoke a little bit about you find yourself being able to shift your mindset. When it comes to working with these larger organisations. Could you expand a little bit on what you mean, when you say shifting your mindset to work with corporations?
Helen Neal
I think when you work with big corporations, I think you have to realise that ultimately, they're often lots of small businesses made up of one big business, you know, and so the small businesses are the kind of departments and you'll often be working with one department rather than the overarching business. So that's a smaller team in itself. And then even within that you might even be within a team within a team. And so actually getting over this feeling of them being massive and new, being tiny is one thing, but I think you also need to see the fact that you're small is your superpower. That's your super strength. And you have all of the great attributes of being a small, agile, creative, forward thinking adaptable organisation that they would dream to have. And I think it's about being that for them and not trying to be like them, you are different and they're employing you because you are the difference that they need to help move forward. With that comes a need for you to also as a good agency working with a big corporate understand the challenges and the headaches and the frustrations and the complexity that goes on for them being in a big organisation. And that means when you create that piece of work that you're super proud of and your client loves it too, but actually it's now going to go through another 1015 processes of sign off. And that's right that's not frustrate. thing I realised that is frustrating. But that's right. It's a people organisation. And that's going to need to happen. So you need to bake that into your thinking and your approach to the work that you're doing from the get go. So I think it's about being really empathetic to your client, who is part of a big organisation, the challenges that they're gonna have way beyond what you might see as an agency, and be their partner. And I think a lot of our clients tell us, you know, we don't feel like you're a separate organisation, we feel like you're our team. So I think I would also say, for other agencies, you know, focus on becoming part of that little team or their enclave, their cheerleaders, their supporters, they're, you know, wherever you can see make their life easier and less stressful, do it, because it's all part of that added value that you want to give back to them and build that relationship, I think, yeah,
Yiuwin Tsang
100%, we did work with one of the big four accountancy firms. And it's so true, what you say they have their own frustrations, their own internal kind of processes that they have to follow. But again, it's an interesting line that you need to try because I totally follow what you're saying, you come in, you bring a fresh perspective on things, you're almost in terms of your thinking, you're less restricted with the boundaries that they have, and with the limitations that they have. But at the same time, as he said, You need to temper your work in such a way. So one example we use the wrong green for a circle on one of the things and it's one of those things that I think is perhaps an example of what you're saying, that was a lesson for us learn whenever we put one of these little green circles anyway, use the right, yeah, hex code, because somebody somewhere down the line will pick it up. And you know, it was so close, it was so close. But it was one of those things where, you know, if you understand your client, if you understand some of the rigour that they have to undergo with their process with that design, and or whatever it is a service that you're offering, then it comes back to empathy, doesn't it? Helen, as you say, understanding the world that they live in, and the ways that they have to work, yeah, bring your fresh kind of perspective to it.
Helen Neal
Definitely in there, like going back to that point about the branding is, that's why you have to think you're the creative brand agency that is bringing this fresh perspective, like you say, plus, you have to be the internal brand agency that is going to be rigorous and meticulous about all of the detail around what's been agreed as an organisation is a no go. And you need to bring both of those to the party and have both mindsets in order to deliver I think successfully.
Yiuwin Tsang
How do you set up the team? Operationally HN communications for working with larger organisations? How do you clarify the roles, responsibilities, or what's the structure there.
Helen Neal
So we have a structure which some listeners might be familiar with called like a pod structure. So we use a pod structure for our team. So we'll have one pod structure is our kind of account management of project management pod. So these will be the client facing individuals that will sort of interact, make sure that the projects are delivered on time, everything goes smoothly, but also might do some of the key deliverables on the day to day in terms of whether it's a project or whether it's a retain clients, we have another pod, which is our brand and production pod. So this will be doing all of the creative branding and artwork, plus the video production and the filming. And then we will have our events pod that do all of our external events, or if our clients want to put on sustainability focused events, we help them to do that. Or we'll just do standalone events separately. And then obviously, we've got kind of, I guess, the business development in our, you know, business pod, which I am part of along with our business development manager, and assistant, and that really focuses in on our own team. And that's where all the things like B Corp and culture and all of those good things come as well. So we have these separate pods. They all work across one another. So there's no there's no siloing like everyone works with everybody. But there's a very clear, everyone knows about their responsibilities and their roles. And of course, when you're nine people that's quite easy to do. You know, it's just when you get really, really big that becomes I guess more of a challenge,
Yiuwin Tsang
you find that I guess for different projects or for different clients, the teams for those projects for clients will be composed of different members from different pods. Yeah, so you have this almost like this overlapping of individuals within your team within separate pods, but still collaborating right across our business. It was deliberate more by design or by coincidence.
Helen Neal
That was definitely just by coincidence, because it just works. So I tell you how it is driven. In all honesty, we look at every client individually in terms of what their brief is, what their asks are, what their aspirations are. And then we will look at what skill sets we think are going to be best suited for that client. So it's never one team fits all. So every client is different, that aspirations and focus is different. And so we'll bring in the right people, for that team. And then that's kind of how it works. And that's how we've always done it and to this point, it's just worked very well. successfully. Also, as
Yiuwin Tsang
I say it means, especially when you've got a globally dispersed team as well, it means that you don't have a sum much of the danger of silos building within your organisation. Because there is this cross collaboration, you might be working with somebody in the Philippines on this particular client, then you might be working somebody in the Netherlands with that particular client. So I haven't come across the concept of pods, but the actual concept itself is familiar. And I think it's a good one, especially when you have your kind of size. Other question around working with NGOs, you mentioned earlier about your experience of working with and collaborating with NGOs, and it gives us a little bit more background there, that can be done. So
Helen Neal
we've worked with NGOs, probably for the past five years or so, pretty much since we've established and we've worked on a range of campaigns really. So we tend to work with NGOs, everything from the strategic development of a communication strategy for a particular campaign for an NGO, all the way through to its delivery. So we would look at, you know, we would create a lot of the creative material, the communications, we would look at things like, you know, the stakeholder engagement plan and engaging with those stakeholders as part of that piece of work on their behalf. I think one of the things why I would say those NGOs, like working with us is because we have this big corporate understanding and corporate network. And often those are the key kind of customers that these NGOs that we work with, are looking to engage with. So we get the corporate world which are NGOs, like, and our corporate world like us, because we get the NGO world and I think marrying up those two, we see some really great successes in terms of, you know, ongoing delivery, around sustainability, but also transparency around communication and authenticity. And I talked earlier about kind of sharing that vulnerability, to be honest, that I learned that from my time working with those NGOs, I saw how much they were always looking for kind of real world case studies of where stuff was working, or where it wasn't working and trying to explain the challenges, but also the successes at the same time. And I saw how well that works in terms of that real transparent, open, honest communication. And I think trying to embed some more of that into the corporate world is really important. And we also obviously, in the past kind of year and a half since COVID, finished, we've also done a lot more in the kind of event space for NGOs, as well, because we have a real high level of sustainability focus both in terms of how we deliver, but also in terms of the content and messaging and the kind of strategy that might go behind curating an event. We've done a lot more events in the sustainability space on sustainability done sustainably if you like. So that's why we've just recently worked on climate week in terms of the opening ceremony and the climate hub as well in terms of, you know, the event curation, but also the event management of that too, which is really great. Because it you know, again, it feeds us as a team in terms of our knowledge and the topics that get discussed and being part of that too. So it works really nicely. That's
Yiuwin Tsang
fabulous. It's such a wonderful project and claim to have on there that's beggar, I guess, when you're working with angels, we've got personally quite limited extremes. We work with one, but it is very, very interesting, the almost like the change in dynamic, the senior level that the board level, because we mentioned to think earlier around the different pressures that you know, corporate boards are under, be it from shareholders, investors and things like this. And it's a different set of pressures. I wouldn't say they don't have any pressure on them from an NGO perspective, there's a different set of pressures. And perhaps that's what allows or certainly makes it easier for this level of transparency in terms of how they operate. And it is really interesting as well, as you say that one of the big lessons that you take from working with NGOs is around that transparency around that ability. And I think linked into that is authenticity that the corporate world can benefit so much from
Helen Neal
Yeah, definitely. And I think that's why I'm so keen that corporates and NGOs work more and more together. And I really think as we talked at the very start and we about like changing culture, what future leadership is going to look like the growth of kind of sustainability. I think more and more as those things grow. And I believe they will, everything is telling us that it's growing, that need for the corporate world and the NGO world to come together and collaborate and work together is going to be more and more important. They're going to need each other more and more. And we're already starting to see that there is a lot of success and action and delivery that comes out of that collaboration. So we do some work with Climate Group and they run our 100 which is around renewable energy. It has hundreds of all of the big kind of global brands that you would recognise members of this organisation. They can come together, share their challenges, share the opportunities, but all through the guise of the NGO to kind of help them move forward. And a lot of these businesses have got commitments as part of being within our 100, to reach into hit, and they're working together to help one another move forward. And I think that's where this collaboration piece becomes so essential for where businesses heading over the course of the next, you know, 510 15 years as we get to 2050, that collaboration is going to be absolutely key, it sounds cheesy, maybe, but no single business can achieve sustainability and be sustainable on its own. The only way it's going to do that is through this greater collaboration than we've ever seen before. Again,
Yiuwin Tsang
it's really interesting, we spoke right up at the top about the changing attitudes come from consumers and from businesses and the choices that they make and how they've been influenced by, you know, sustainability people for Planet, all that was going through my mind, as you were speaking, there was around, you know, if we can get this common alignment between NGOs, and corporates, as you said, the collaboration and when they come together, amazing things will happen, progress will be made, and perhaps relating to the earlier point about, you know, the values and sustainability pushing higher and higher on the agenda and become much more of a focus point for corporate, maybe there is this convergence of purpose, convergence of values, which, as you say, We've got to take advantage of we've got to kind of work together both from an NGO perspective, from a corporate perspective in order to make the progress that we need. Yeah,
Helen Neal
I agree. And I think that there are plenty of businesses out there and NGOs that share those values that you've just described. I also think that there are some NGOs and there are some corporates that are not there yet. And there is space for criticism, there is space for push, and, you know, sharing the uncomfortable from the NGO space, there is a need for that. And I feel that that should continue to happen. But we must also offer the solutions. And we you know, I think it's really important to keep positive and believe that we can and that we will move forward. And that's only going to come in my opinion through big global business and government, you know, really, they are the ones that will drive the change for the rest of us. That doesn't mean to say that we shouldn't be doing our bit and of course, we should be. But really meaningful change comes from these big global corporations and governments and we need to get behind them and push and hold them to account but also help them get there positively as well.
Yiuwin Tsang
A big thank you to Helen Neal, the founder and CEO of HN Communications for joining us on this week's podcast. Thank you for joining us for this week's Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful business as a community for leaders who believe there's a better way to do business. Join us next time for more interesting discussion on how businesses can bring about change, helping communities, building a fairer society and safeguarding the planet. You can also join in the discussion at www.beautifulbusiness.uk