The “is” I decided to add

Careers rarely follow a blueprint. Mine was no exception. 

I didn’t consciously choose strategy. I didn’t even choose the industry. I enrolled in  Communications at university because I was curious about how ideas travel between people,  across cultures, and through time. What followed wasn’t so much a career plan as it was an  unfolding. 

When I entered the industry and was placed in strategy, it felt less like a deliberate choice and  more like stepping into a current. But currents, I would learn, can carry you somewhere  meaningful, if you pay attention. 

Meaning, narrative, and dialogue… then perspective.  

My early years became an unexpected masterclass in the dimensions of communication. 

I began in strategy, decoding meaning and understanding why ideas resonate. From there, I  moved into PR, where I learned that credibility is fragile and a well-told story can do what facts  alone rarely achieve. Later came social media and digital, where communication transformed  entirely. These platforms don’t reward broadcasting. They reward listening, participation, and the  willingness to engage in conversations you don’t fully control. 

When I returned to strategy, I arrived with something I hadn’t possessed the first time:  perspective. And it is not a lens we look through. It is the reality we live in. And the more angles  you have inhabited, the richer that reality becomes. 

The “is” I decided to add. 

This year, IWD chose three words as its global theme: Give to Gain. The moment I read them,  something stayed with me. Not because I disagreed, but because I felt they were one word away  from ‘complete’. Somewhere between reading the theme and living it, I decided to make a small  addition. 

Give, is to Gain. Giving and gaining are not two separate events connected by cause and effect.  They are the same act, experienced from different angles. 

I have lived this throughout my career, often without naming it. The half-formed idea shared in a  room that grew into something far better than I could have shaped alone. The time invested in a  colleague’s thinking that ended up reshaping my own. The moments spent helping someone find  their voice, only to find a clearer version of mine in the process. 

Leading teams at every stage of their careers, drawn from different departments and  backgrounds, and brought together under the umbrella of strategy toward a single shared goal,  has only deepened this. When you create the conditions for people to think freely and contribute without hierarchy getting in the way, what comes back is something no individual could generate  alone. The giving is the gaining. Not before it. Not because of it. It simply is. 

Careers as relationships. 

Another framework that has helped me is simple: treat your career the way you treat your most  important relationships. 

Meaningful friendships are built on listening, honesty, trust, and mutual growth. The same is true  professionally. Careers evolve through conversation, collaboration, and shared understanding.  Progress comes less often from aggressive upward climbing and more often from building  environments where ideas are free to grow. Communication is the common thread in both. 

On women, leadership, and a different kind of voice. 

There is a long-standing stereotype that women talk too much. But I think we are asking the  wrong question entirely. 

Communication is not the volume of words spoken. It is the ability to listen with intention,  interpret nuance, hold emotional complexity, and connect perspectives that might otherwise  never meet. In a world defined by rapid change and constant collaboration, these are among the  most strategically valuable capabilities a leader can possess. 

One “small” advice. 

Those who know me will tell you I have a habit of opening with “I have a small question.” They  usually smile when I say it. Because by now, they know: there is no such thing as a small  question. There never was. The small ones are almost always the ones that require the longest  answers, the deepest conversations, and the most honest thinking. 

So don’t stop asking. Ask people. Ask AI. Ask the room. Ask yourself. Just keep asking your  million “small questions” because curiosity, more than any strategy or framework, is what keeps  communication – and us – alive.