A year in Digital at BT Group

A year ago today, with a positive Covid test (and therefore from home), I was preparing to start my “new” role in Digital at BT Group Group.

It’s been a whirlwind, exactly the sort of environment in which I thrive, and every day is bringing new challenges and excitement. Crucially, I’m surrounded by brilliant people doing spectacular work, in both driving the Group’s digital transformation and shaping its reputation, in the market, and with our colleagues as we build the culture and community we need to deliver.

I’m particularly grateful to my team, who have been both counsel to me and the delivery arms of all we’ve done. They have made the last year enjoyable and meaningful as we work to accelerate BT Group and help the company with its core purpose, to connect for good. So thanks hugely, first and foremost, Victoria Crouch , Giles Barron , Catrina Adams , Stephen Donaldson , Leanne Tsang , Ally Illsley & Joe Whittle , for the learning, and the lols; you're all legends, and I hope you're having as much fun as I am! And special thanks to Lisa Coppuck , who has made sure I know which way is up and helped me to learn and navigate a new organisation.

Some brief(ish) highlights from the last twelve months, wearing both my “Digital” Leadership hat and my “Corporate Affairs” one.

In the market, we have:

• Hosted our first investor briefing as a new unit, shaping our strategy and narrative for the market
• Announced partnerships with Google, Servicenow, Dynatrace, AWS, TCS, Ab Initio & more incoming...
• Announced investments in Distributed, Altitude Angel with our Etc unit, the latter piece being one of those stories that you're like, just, wow, when it lands literally everywhere
• Announced our ‘insourcing’ strategy and momentum in that vein as we become a more digital, product-first organisation with our Research Labs opening & design hiring momentum story
• Launched AI Accelerator, an internal product focussed at shifting up the pace with which new AI models can be responsibly deployed within the Group
• Developed and shared our AI Skills research with the market, and hosting ‘AI Ready Nation’ events with policymakers, students and stakeholders in London and Bristol, supported by CogX – all props Garance Hadjidj Daniel Wilson
• As well as my own arrival, and Tom Guy ’s (hey Tom!)
• We’ve also sponsored CogX , and 383 | B Corp? 's Canvas, hosting community events in partnership with our HR teams as we build our network and expand our internal capacity for digital product, engineering, AI, design, architecture and more – as well as hosting our own community event in Bangalore

Within the unit, from an internal communications perspective, we have been involved with / led on / orchestrated

• Monthly ‘Big Digital Meet-Ups’ – our all hands meetings with our 4,500 colleagues in the UK and India
• A spectacular ‘Digital Live’, multi-site broadcast event to kick off our strategy and celebrate colleagues internally (still feel a bit emosh when I rewatch the brilliant videos my team produced)
• Floor walks and Leadership Lunches in London, Birmingham & Bangalore (plus an immense all-hands with 700+ colleagues squeezing into a hall at the latter)
• Strategy campaign launches, our culture roll-out, and more
• Quarterly Digital senior management team meetings with 130+ colleagues
• Strategy development and iteration
• Significant change programmes and their implications
• Endless workplace videos and posts
• Supporting our Quarterly Business Reviews & COO team with reporting & strategy

And in Corporate Affairs, a few things have been particularly brilliant

• Inter-team collaboration across the capabilities in Group Corporate Affairs – with production, with policy, with IC & External Comms across our customer facing units, with Digital Impact & Sustainability, with Human Rights & Responsible Tech – just so many great moments and such fantastic support from the wider team
• Building culture and community plans, and helping shape opportunities for the team to engage with our corporate affairs leadership in all sorts of different ways (facilitated by terrible puns), from our Ed-levenses coffee meet-ups with Ed Petter , to our Last Wedn-us-days socials, to our Inclusion focussed Open Conversations. Full of gratitude to the many partners in community here, but especially Richard Marsh , Helen Willetts and Louise Fallows
• On a small scale, tag-teaming on earnings – with IR and Group External comms – to shape the stories that our leadership communicate into the market and to colleagues with the right inputs from Digital. Thanks Ahmed Ammori , Richard Farnsworth , Ian Arnot FCIPR Chart.PR & of course Digital's own Dave Young.
• Practicing my “mediocre Graham Norton” TV presenter vibe, hosting the digital broadcast for our Leadership Live event last Summer for the group's top 800 or so leaders
• Hearing from some brilliant speakers - thanks in particular to Geoff White for telling us about the LAZARUS HEIST and the world of cyber investigations, to Richard Allan for talking to us about the world at the intersection of technology and politics
• Starting to play a wider role in the comms industry, including being selected by PRovoke Media (thanks Maja Pawinska Sims and team!) as one of their EMEA Innovator 25. I'm also now stepping up as a judge for the PR Week 30 under 30 (thx John Harrington and team), I spoke with Victoria Crouch at the PRWeek Strategic Internal Communications conference, and joining Ben Smith on the judging panel for the PRmoment awards too. We loved hosting Tallula Harris in our team as a Taylor Bennett Foundation intern, and am delighted to be a mentor in their latest scheme - thanks Gabrielle Thuesday Melissa Lawrence , much

And so much more. It’s been a packed year and the people that told me “in-house life is slow”, well, I suspect that rather depends on the house. It’s been 1,000 miles an hour here and pretty much the way I like it.

One of the foremost bits of advice I was given when I joined was – ?pace yourself, if you take on too much,?too early, you’ll never get a chance to find a footing on your own terms. That’s been true to an extent, but I’m also finding – I cannot restrict myself to "communications" alone. As Mike Bracken et al say in their book Digital Transformation at Scale: Why the Strategy is Delivery – communications is a key part of delivering the transformation and needs to be baked into the strategy from the outset. ?After all, strategies that are too complex or arcane to be communicated, cannot be delivered.

So here’s to the next year of transformation, of change, of comms, of delivery, and my ongoing thanks to Ed Petter and Harmeen Mehta for bringing me on board for the ride.?And my thanks again to all the people in the Corporate Affairs and Digital communities - in the respective leadership teams and beyond - who have made this such a professionally joyful year for me.

So much for Blue Monday. I'm excited about what comes next. Are you?