Meet the Judges

Adam Driver

Authentic Comms

A trained journalist, Adam has worked in the technology, construction, hospitality and FMCG sectors in-house and agency-side, across PR, marketing, SEO and internal comms in London and Australia, followed by five years at a B2B content marketing agency in Cambridge, working as Account Director with international corporate and membership clients.

Launching his own consultancy Authentic Comms in 2020, Adam's areas include content marketing strategy, SEO, LinkedIn, digital marketing and strategic communications, and he has recently worked with clients across not-for-profit, professional services, manufacturing, recruitment and engineering.

Alli Cary

Head of Internal Communications, Voyage Care

Alli Cary is Head of Internal Communications at Voyage Care, a leading adult social care provider. Alli has over 15 years’ communications experience in health and social care, specialising in Internal Communications for the past 9 years.

In her current role at Voyage Care, Alli has established a multi-award winning team who thrive on connecting people to the organisation’s purpose, bringing the stories of colleagues and the vulnerable people they support to life.

She is an IOIC Fellow and holds a BA Hons in Visual Communication, along with a Masters in Internal Communications Management.

Alli lives and works in the Midlands and spends her free time playing netball, baking and enjoying the company of friends and family.

Ann Hood

Ann has over 30 years’ experience in employee communications and PR. She has extensive experience of working with leadership teams during times of major organisational change, restructuring and crisis. Advising and delivering external and employee communications that clearly shares the business strategy and vision. Coached top teams and key leaders within the businesses in how best to deliver understandable and engaging communications.

Ann has worked with and lead both international and national based internal communication teams to deliver engaging employee communications as well as measuring employee's opinions, attitudes and understanding of the business goals, globally and locally.

She has been a member of the IoIC Scotland committee for over 18 years and is currently the network lead for Scotland. Ann has presented at and hosted a variety of communication conferences and with her various teams has won a number of IoIC Awards. Including a bumper year in 2023, winning five awards with her Scottish Water team.

Denise Bird-Newell FCIPD, MCMI, CIOIC

Director of People, Culture & Facilities, Clarins (UK) Ltd

Denise started her career in Human Resources over 20 years ago and given the inextricable link with employee engagement, has had internal communications within her remit during much of this time.

Denise has led some large-scale global communications projects where she has created the communication, change and training strategy.  This has included technology projects that have allowed her to travel extensively and experience first-hand the difference internal communications can make to the success of a project.

Ensuring front-line employees are connected and information flows smoothly both ways, in her opinion is at the heart of business success.  Denise is the chair of the global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion forum for Clarins, with over 24 local networks and 150 members globally.

Denise is extremely passionate about internal communication and employee engagement and the difference it can make to the overall performance and success of an organisation.

Kirsty Bowen FIIC

Head of Colleague Experience, Coventry Building Society

Kirsty has almost 25 years’ experience in communications roles, and has built up and led the Colleague Experience function at Coventry Building Society since 2013.

Working for a mutual organisation – owned by its members – brings some great challenges, not least being creative on a modest budget. But she wouldn’t swap working for such a purpose-led organisation for the world. With her role focusing on colleague comms, engagement, wellbeing and voice, colleague experience is a top priority across the organisation.

Kirsty is an IoIC Fellow, an #IChoseIC Ambassador and regularly supports the judging of IoIC’s Awards. She also co-chairs a Financial Services Internal Comms Forum.

Melanie Hinds

Global Head of Internal Communications and Employee Engagement, Amnesty International

Melanie is the Global Head of Internal Communications and Employee Engagement at Amnesty International, having held previous roles in other third sector organisations and large corporate companies. Melanie has around 25 years’ experience of professional communications management and leadership, having started her career in public relations before moving into internal communications around 14 years ago.

Nicole Bearne

Founder, The Comms Exchange

Over a career spanning 25 years in the highly competitive world of Formula One motor racing, Nicole Bearne helped her team win nine World Championships. From 2014 - 2023 she headed up the Internal Communications function at the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team.  In 2023 Nicole founded The Comms Exchange, an internal communication and employee experience consultancy which employs a blend of robust academic theory and real-world business experience to help clients build happy, high-performing, people-centric organisations. Nicole is also an Associate Director with the award-winning Fresh Communication agency.

Nicole holds a Master’s degree in Organisational Behaviour and a CIPR Diploma in Internal Communication. She is a member of the Institute of Internal Communication, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (MCIPR) and an Accredited PR Practitioner. She is frequently invited to speak at Internal Communications and Employee Experience conferences in the UK, USA and Europe.

Sally Otter

Global Internal Communications Lead, Bibby Financial Services

Sally has worked in communications for more than 25 years. She trained as a journalist at Sheffield University and then worked in print, television and script-writing before joining the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, where she was Head of Communications with responsibility for PR, publications and digital.

Sally moved to Oxfam in 2010 and took on the role of Head of Internal Communications before joining the National Trust as its Head of Internal Communications where her team won ‘Internal Communications Team of the Year. She moved to BFS in August 2022 to set the internal communications strategy for the global business. This is the sixth year Sally has supported the IoIC Awards.

Tracy Keates

Commercial and Strategy Director , Limehouse Films

Tracy is a proud Fellow of the IoIC with over 20 years internal communication experience both in house at HBOS and Lloyds Banking Group and more recently as the Commercial and Strategy Director at Limehouse Films.

Known as a trusted, creative, and experienced professional with a proven track record of delivering award winning communications, campaigns and channels that deliver value across different organisations and sectors.

Tracy is delighted to be a judge again this year.