Advita Patel: 'Internal comms can transform company culture'
The CIPR’s 2025 president on the ever-evolving role of internal comms, how AI is our ally and being a “geriatric millennial”.
Advita Patel FCIPR entered internal comms by accident after graduating with an IT degree during the early-2000s’ dotcom crash. Initially working for Manchester Metropolitan University, she then worked in senior internal comms roles at the NHS, the Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust, Manchester Airports Group and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
Today Patel runs two organisations: CommsRebel (the comms consultancy she founded in 2020) and A Leader Like Me (a global comms and inclusion consultancy which she co-founded). Patel is also a certified confidence and leadership coach.
In 2023 Patel co-authored the best-selling book Building a Culture of Inclusivity, while a year later she launched Asian Comms Network to support Asian professionals in PRs, comms, marketing and journalism. She’s currently writing her second book, Decoding Confidence, which will be published in spring 2026.
Having previously served as CIPR board member and chaired the CIPR’s Inside group, this year she became the first person of colour to take on the role of CIPR president.
Storytelling and reading was my escape growing up. My family moved to a difficult, racist part of Manchester when I was 10. From the day we moved in – when a woman told me to “F*** off home, you dirty P***” – I was told every day that I was different. There were just three Asian students in my school, so I kept my head down. Storytelling became my escapism: my sister and I built a mini-library at home, where we read every book we could.
This exclusion made me reject my Indian heritage. I grew up desperately wanting to belong to a community where I wasn’t included. So, I adjusted my personality to fit in. I rejected my language and refused to engage in anything to do with my culture.
I was one of just two women among 74 men on my IT degree. But I learned how to code, write website HTML and build computers from scratch. But then I graduated into the dotcom crash of the early-2000s and businesses definitely weren’t hiring women. I ended up at a data inputting job with a toxic boss instead.
Nobody talked about workplace wellbeing and mental health 25 years ago. Having a bully for a boss made me withdrawn and depressed. My dad encouraged me to quit. I drafted my resignation letter (using Ask Jeeves!) and submitted it that Monday. It was my first lesson that no job is worth sacrificing your mental health and happiness for.
As a geriatric millennial, I admire gen Z. They’re unafraid of speaking openly about injustices in the workplace. We just carried on with a stiff upper lip. Emotions weren’t allowed.
My internal comms career started in a very squiggly fashion. I’d landed a temporary admission admin job at Manchester Metropolitan University and soon realised the academics and office staff never talked to each other. So, I started an in-house magazine called the Toasty Times, to bridge the gap. I had no idea at the time that this was internal comms. It led to my first comms role at the university.
Internal comms is about helping people. If you’ve grown up being told you’re different or if your first workplace experience is with a toxic boss, you have an inner desire to want to help others not feel excluded or disengaged with their work. Internal comms helps foster conversations and collaboration which can transform company culture.
Internal comms storytelling is changing. Employees are now creating their own stories, making content which people want to hear. Their colleagues don’t want polished corporate news anymore: they want gritty stuff that pulls on heartstrings. Today, there are many great internal social feeds which internal comms can use: Viva Engage, Slack, even WhatsApp and bespoke apps.
The profession of internal comms hasn’t progressed as much as it should. Today, internal comms can still get bogged down writing emails, drafting blogs for our leaders and chats about video/photography. It’s not part of our role – just something we inherited because nobody else has the budget for it!
AI can help ease this cognitive load. We spend a lot of time in internal comms messing around with grammar checks and repurposing content – AI can do all this for us. As such, our roles will become more advisory. This is why PR is good for business: we’ll be giving leaders advice on reputation/crisis management, or ensuring colleagues are empowered and engaged.
However I fear AI is making us lose the art of interrogation. When AI gives you an answer straight away, many people don’t understand the due diligence needed to work out whether this answer is right or wrong.
I’m excited about being CIPR president. I see the role as being more ambassadorial and visionary: listening to members and rallying the volunteer group. I need to be listening to members and feeding back into the CIPR, making adjustments if needed so members get the best experience possible for their investment.
The distinction between internal and external comms is blurring. Ten years ago, what happened within a company stayed there. Now, an internal screenshot or email could end up on the front page of a newspaper. There’ll be no more external or internal comms anymore: eventually we’ll all just be seen as communications professionals.
Becoming a chartered PR is such a smart move. Today, anybody anywhere can become a public relations professional and set up their own limited company and call themselves a ‘PR’ without any experience. It’s even more dangerous with AI, which can be used to craft a new personality or take on others’ work as your own… Being chartered will allow you to be seen as credible experts in a world where there’s no accountability.
Being a CIPR member boosts career confidence. I became a member of the CIPR at a time when I was feeling isolated and disconnected from communications. After signing up, I was soon meeting comms professionals from different disciplines: people who worked in crisis comms, reputational specialists, behavioural scientists. I would jump on the 4am train from Manchester to London every month – just to participate in CIPR volunteering, meet my peers and learn more.
My advice to younger PRs? Be curious. Never fear to put yourself out there and ask questions. Never lose your sense of ‘self’ (I wish I’d spent more time in my 20s getting to know myself a little better). And keep up with your professional development! The pace of change is incredible today; something new is happening every day. Nobody can afford to be complacent!
My greatest achievement? Forget co-writing a best-selling book: it’s graduating from Couch to 5k. I’m proud of that!
Set an alert to join Advita for her next CIPR President Live session at 1pm on Monday 28 April on YouTube.
Lysanne Currie is the editor of Influence. She previously edited Director magazine for the Institute of Directors and Sky magazine for British Sky Broadcasting. Lysanne is the founder and CEO of content agency Meet the Leader.