Episode 8 features Purvy Patel, who originally started her career in the corporate world and moved to the charity sector, leveraging her transferable skills. She discusses the challenges of sector transitions, including budget constraints and the need for more creative communications.

Purvy tells us about working for Age UK and Age UK Hillingdon, Harrow and Brent, highlighting the differences in managing comms for a local charity versus a national one, including the need to balance the books, secure funding and tailor services to the local community.

Episode 7 of the Comms Collective features another international colleague, Mary Ann Llanza, with 30 years of experience. Mary Ann talks about the satisfaction of seeing direct community impact and how successful campaigns require authentic, community-led communication.

Mary Ann’s journey began as a writer and journalist, then led to impactful campaigns on violence against women and disaster risk reduction in disaster-prone countries, and now to a climate movement to protect our forests. She tells us how she has changed her leadership style to empower her team, learned to say no, and protected her team from non-critical pressure.

It was wonderful to chat with Mary Ann and hear about her calm approach to stressful situations.

Episode 6 of the Comms Collective Podcast delves into the humanitarian world with Ka Man Parkinson, Communications and Marketing Lead for the Humanitarian Leadership Academy, with host Vishnee Sauntoo.

Ka Man explains how she works hard to understand her audience, the humanitarian field teams who are time-poor, lack good Wi-Fi, and work in very stressful conditions. The HLA brings learning to the sector through their digital platform, Kaya.

Ka Man tells us about a brilliant piece of research she conducted on the use of AI and the report and lessons learned from it. She also manages a podcast, so she could definitely have some learnings I can use.

Episode 5 - Claire Quigley, Deputy CEO and Director of Communications and Fundraising, joins Vishnee for a conversation about charity growth, rebrands and how to manage a hybrid team.

Claire discusses the importance of progress over perfection and how developing relationships is crucial when working with external individuals, emphasising the value of tackling the harder tasks instead of the easier ones. And how to ensure her team has a good work-life balance.

Björn Ólafsson, Research-Writer working for many organisations, including the Better Food Foundation, joins Vishnee from Barcelona, Spain— so we are going international today!

Björn talks about his background in animal welfare and advocacy, why good communication needs strong research, and how strong research needs good communication to explain it. He tells us about the challenges of talking about sensitive topics like food and climate, and about his approach to reducing meat consumption.

Guy Abraham, Strategic Comms Lead for Haringey Council and Founder of BrandGuy consultancy, talks to Vishnee about how work in local government can lead to real impact on communities.

He shares his experience working on charity brands and why we should focus on the strengths of the team rather than their weaknesses.

Our host, Vishnee Sauntoo, sits down with Jenny Legg, Head of Comms of Scottish not-for-profit organisation Flexibility Works.

Jenny discusses what truly flexible working means, the limited part-time opportunities, especially at senior levels, and her journey from being a journalist to moving into comms. She provides insight into successful remote working and what it is like to drive change with limited resources.

In the first full episode of The Comms Collective Podcast, Vishnee Sauntoo sits down with Adeela Warley, CEO of CharityComms - a membership organisation for charity communications professionals.

Adeela discusses the future of communications and her role at CharityComms, as well as what leadership means to her. She talks about the evolution of leadership and the impact of AI on the sector.