Natalie Gillespie
Strategic Communications
LATEST PROJECTS
eNewsletters
@arconic, weekly eNewsletter
Alcoa Update, weekly eNewsletter
A quick read of the biggest news at Arconic, connecting employees to how they and their coworkers are building a better business. Focuses on strategic priorities, customer news, and the innovation that makes us Arconic.
How do we know we're hitting the right mark? By setting specific goals and measuring our progress toward them... and using that data to refine our strategy and approach. See a sample scorecard.
(Prior to the separation, published weekly Alcoa Update to connect the 60,000+ employees of Alcoa Inc. to company news.)
Arconic
Launch
Launching Arconic: a 128-year-old startup
Every great story has a strong beginning. We launched our company on November 1, 2016, with a focus on building excitement across 43,000 employees worldwide, equipping them to tell our story and create buzz... so we we all have a part in making the future take shape.
300+ celebrations at 168 sites at-a-glance:
43,000 launch boxes distributed (with in-language brochures and T-shirts); 50+ leaders on-site to spread our message; 1,200+ photos uploaded to our gallery and tens of thousands of likes; two rounds of fireworks; ~12,120 balloons; 224 community leaders; 3 mariachi bands... infinite Arconic pride and passion.
Launch Video -- LaunchGuide -- CEO Letter -- CEO Video -- Photo Gallery Sample --
Prepare for Liftoff: Mission Critical Communications for Separation
Separating into two companies requires thousands of changes -- to IT and HR systems, work processes and workspaces, signage and ID badges. How to cut through the clutter and make sure everyone knows what they need to when they need to? Customized messages in a graphic-intensive format organized around a rocket-launch theme, with Go Guides for key milestones; regular newsletters that summarize it all, a go-to portal site with all things in one spot, and a network of change agents ready to deliver the messages locally. We kept our finger on the pulse through monthly company-wide surveys, which indicated that the amount of information was "just
right" for 71% of employees, and relevance was always at 91 to 95%.
CEO Townhall -- Prepare for Liftoff Message -- GoGuide -- Be Informed, Briefly Newsletter -- Be Informed Portal
Prepare
for Liftoff
Leadership Conferences
Aligning Leadership and Celebrating Achievement
Each year, the three-day Alcoa Leadership Conference serves as the multi-day platform to celebrate achievement and align leaders to carry forward our strategy and messages through a mix of fun and dialogue, presentations and activity designed to inspire and educate. I lead the conference from goal-setting and agenda development to guiding implementation, including leading writing of our CEO keynote and a best practice sharing/awards ceremony for our most successful teams. Attendees have rated every conference under my responsibility above 4.5/5.0, with several exceeding 4.7/5.0.
Highlights of CEO Keynote -- Happy / Audience Participation -- "Think Louder, Act Faster" Theme through External Speaker
Introducing New CEO
Introducing New CEO
After the distraction of a proxy fight, Arconic was led by an interim CEO during a global search. We announced Chip Blankenship as our new CEO in October and he came onboard in January.
To help him prepare, I conducted focus groups and one-on-one conversations with key leaders and employees, using that information to design a communications strategy for the first 100 days. Chip's first day included emailing a letter and pre-recorded video message to all employees (translated into 11 languages) and a live town hall videocast globally from a manufacturing location. Video recordings (a summary and the full hour) were made available to those who could not watch live, as well as an "employees react" video. In Chip's first weeks, we showcased his visits to locations, created a landing page for all messages, and established a vehicle for him to send employees a weekly note.