1. i s s u e f o c u s
72 c o m m u n i c a t i o n d i r e c t o r 2 / 2 0 1 5
i s s u e f o c u s
For the communications profession
to remain sustainable, leaders
and other senior figures need to
inspire the next generation of
communicators. Isn’t it time you
lent a helping hand?
B y M i a N o r c a r o
Sharing the
excitement

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i s s u e f o c u s
erhaps when you started working in com-
munications, you had a degree in com-
munications or media and journalism
in your pocket, and your first job was
for a company with offices where every
employee had a laptop and screen, your
email address was already set up before
you got your entry badge, and you had to
sign a personal social media use policy.
Soon after you received your first pro-
motion, you joined a professional associa-
tion, were assigned a mentor from within
the communications team, or invited to
support high-profile projects, and gained
valuable experience and skills through
these opportunities.
But perhaps that wasn’t your expe-
rience? Perhaps your experience was
similar to mine? In that case, maybe
you approached public relations and the
growing discipline of corporate commu-
nications by learning whenever you could
– you were eager to hear from others with
far more experience in the field about
strategy and tactics.
Inspirational
role models
When I started working in public
relations 20 years ago, my weapons were
a simple computer, a black and white
printer, a list of key media contacts with
their phone and fax numbers gleaned
from my predecessor’s records, and a
degree that was mostly irrelevant to my
job. Admittedly we connected to the in-
ternet shortly after, but the majority of
our business was conducted in person,
often over lunch, by phone, by fax or
by post – in that order. I had only three
cess in the way they are today, working to
understand diverse needs and how these
could be aligned to the company’s needs.
And she showed me that a woman could
be an entrepreneur, lead a company and
still find time to share knowledge and
advice with others.
Markus Semer, deputy chief exec-
utive officer of my current employer,
Switzerland-based Kempinski Hotels,
(Europe’s oldest luxury hotel manage-
ment group), has shown me that inspir-
ing your team with a clear vision and
strategy on which all business decisions
are based, and giving employees latitude
in precisely how these are achieved, is far
more effective than if all actions are dic-
tated. His questions, challenges, insights
and comments, which can be very critical
indeed, ensure that I continue to learn
and work hard to deliver.
Thanks to a Kempinski Hotels pro-
gramme for culture management, which
we began in 2008 and worked on the re-
search, design and implementation with
St Gallen University’s Institute for Me-
dia and Communications Management,
I met Professor Dr Miriam Meckel and
Professor Dr Christian Fieseler. Profes-
sor Dr Meckel is now also editor in chief
of Wirtschaftswoche, Germany’s largest
weekly business magazine, while Profes-
sor Dr Fieseler is now also an associate
professor at the Norwegian Business
School’s department of communication
and culture. Both inspired me to reflect
more and think beyond the specifics of
the programme, about wider issues in
communications, trends and technology,
and what might be ahead.
Encouraging a new
generation
Communications today is profession-
alised, certified and increasingly broad
yet also specialised, requiring communi-
cators to understand a range of external
and internal stakeholders, disciplines
and methods. All of this while acting with
professional integrity according to a code
stakeholders to communicate with (the
media, clients and staff) as the others
(government, the industry, suppliers)
were handled as individual relation-
ships rather than as a group, using com-
mon-sense plus an analytical approach
gained from university, learned on the
job. I learned any way I could, from my
boss, from professionals in the industry
who shared their advice over after-work
drinks, from any books I could find on
public relations practice and directly
from journalists.
I received so many excellent words
of advice and encouragement, as well as
practical help with contacts or feedback
on projects, from leaders and from com-
munications professionals along the way;
I cannot overstate their impact. Through-
out my career, I have been guided and in-
spired by several leaders who are each, in
their own way, a visionary leader whose
intellect I admire.
My first boss, Debbie Moore OBE,
founder of the British dance wear and
fashion firm Pineapple Dance Studios,
was the first woman to take a company
public on the London Stock Exchange
in 1982. She inspired me with how well
she took care of her staff as well as of her
suppliers, often travelling to tour the pro-
duction facilities unannounced, at a time
when these activities and relationships
were not seen as crucial to business suc-
P

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of conduct – in a landscape which is con-
stantly changing under the influence of
new technologies and globalisation. The
professionalisation of communications
has been made possible thanks to the
hard work of countless national and in-
ternational corporate communications,
business communications and public
relations associations, which have not
only sought recognition but also acted as
advocates for the profession.
For these efforts to be sustainable, we
each have a role to play in ensuring the
next generation is interested in studying
the communications field, whether it is a
wide-ranging or a specialised qualifica-
tion, and then actually entering the work-
place for a career in communications. To
do this, we need to present communica-
tions as an excellent career choice, in a
way that appeals to them.
Meaningful
mentorships
According to Mind the Gaps, the 2015
Deloitte millennial survey which ques-
tioned 7,800 of tomorrow’s leaders from
29 countries, millennials value an organ-
isation’s impact on society, financial per-
formance, record for creating innovative
products or services, and whether it has a
well-defined and meaningful purpose to
whichitistrue.YetaccordingtoanOxford
Economics survey sponsored by SAP on
Workforce 2020, of 2,700 executives in 27
countriesinthesecondquarterof2014,the
distinction between millennials and non-
millenials is not so clear; millenials care
more about compensation (68 per cent
versus 64 per cent of nonmillenials) than
work-lifebalance(29percentversus31per
cent of nonmillenials) – and they care as
much as nonmillenials (20 per cent) about
making a positive difference in the world.
For our profession to continue to at-
tract the next generation of communica-
tors, whether millenials or nonmillenials,
organisations need to inspire future em-
ployees by having a vision which they can
identify with, by contributing to society
in some way, by offering attractive com-
pensations and the possibility to find per-
sonal meaning in their professional lives.
As communication leaders, we need
not only to inspire others but to play an
active role in recruiting new commu-
nicators. Mentoring can be personally
rewarding as well as ensuring the con-
tinuity of our profession. And while it
doesn’t have to be time-consuming, it is
an investment in and commitment to an
individual and requires follow up.
Mentoring can be understood as shar-
ing professional knowledge and advice
with a less experienced or younger com-
municator, encouraging their efforts and
learning, acting as a catalyst for change
and growth, or simply helping them to
understandwhatanewexperiencemeans.
Informal mentoring by leaders can
happen organically according to natu-
ral affinity in an organisation where the
culture is one of sharing and where time
spent on cultivating professional relation-
ships within the company is seen as hav-
ing value. A formal and explicit value can
be given to mentoring within an organisa-
tion,withaprogrammeoradescriptionof
the mentoring relationship to help define
expectations of the mentor and the men-
tee. Mentees might be new-hires or high
potential employees, with mentors select-
ed according to the needs of the mentee,
and not necessarily from their functional
department or indeed business unit.
I was lucky to be mentored quite in-
formally by some inspirational leaders,
and as a result, I value informal mentor-
ing as one way of igniting excitement for
communications in the next generation.
So when I have the opportunity to ad-
dress soon-to-be graduates from a range
of disciplines, or speak with specialised
master’s in communications graduate stu-
dents, I might spend a moment on the
theory but more on discussing what work-
ing in communications actually means for
them. What might your working day be
like? What kinds of issues might you face
in my or another industry? What kinds of
jobsexistincommunications?Inwhichor-
ganisations, public or private sector? What
Executive Summary
• For communication lead-
ers, mentoring other, more
junior-level professionals
is a must.
• Mentoring programmes
can exist in large organ-
isations and are also
offered by universities: as
of April 2014, around 50
MBA programmes across
Europe offer specialisa-
tions in communication
and public relations.
• Find out whether local
universities that offer
postgraduate communi-
cation courses need senior
professionals to visit, offer
career advice as part of
their careers week, or even
lead a case-study training
seminar in a specific
discipline such as crisis or
digital communication.
• Informal opportunities are
also abundant: why not
reach out to a younger
communication profes-
sional inside or outside
your organisation, and
offer to take time out to
speak with them about
your experiences, answer-
ing their questions about
career development?

4. c o m m u n i c a t i o n d i r e c t o r 2 / 2 0 1 5 75
i s s u e f o c u s
opportunities exist or can they create to
gainexperienceincommunications?What
kinds of questions should they be asking
in an interview? Have they thought about
what matters to them in an employer?
And then I encourage them to contact me
once they’ve had the opportunity to con-
sider whether communications could be a
career choice for them, so we can continue
the discussion. In the days and weeks after
a presentation about communications, I
spend time answering participants’ ques-
tions by email and will often meet them
in person to discuss communications as a
career choice in greater detail, to give ad-
viceoncareerentrypointsandhowtostart
building a professional network, or even to
simply review a CV. I feel greatly rewarded
when months or sometimes even years
later I’m contacted again and asked for
further advice – for the next step in their
career in communications.
For informal mentoring to be success-
ful, I believe there needs to be an ini-
tial chemistry on both sides. There are
two other young women I am pleased
to be mentoring informally, whom I met
through work; in each case, we had a pos-
itive professional contact initially and
each contacted me afterwards to ask for
advice on their next career steps. This has
resulted in conversations, meetings and
emails over the course of several years,
and discussions that go beyond just their
careers and our profession, resulting in
conversations about balancing work and
family life as well.
A helping
hand
Formal mentoring is also extremely
valuable, and organisations which take
care to consider the respective profiles
and match mentor with mentee can be
rewarded when these relationships work
well and add value to the organisation.
Indicators that a men-
toring programme is
working can include
engagement, diversity
and increased man-
agerial competency
across the organi-
sation, satisfaction
among participants,
or promotion rates.
Recently, Quadri-
ga University of Ap-
plied Sciences in Ber-
lin invited me to par-
ticipate in their official
international mentoring programme as
part of their MBA in Communication
and Leadership, alongside communica-
tors representing a range of industries,
from banking to manufacturing.
As my first experience in formal men-
toring, it has been extremely positive. The
university’s study advisor contacted me
with the CV of a graduate student for
whom they thought I could be a good fit,
and I agreed entirely; I thought I could
also learn a lot from my mentee! I started
mentoring Ekaterina (Kate) Arkhipova
in March 2014. We had an initial phone
conversation and it was clear in the first
minute that we would get along extreme-
ly well. Since then we’ve spoken and
emailed regularly to discuss her studies
and most recently her thesis in prepara-
tion for her graduation this July.
As head of communications for a res-
taurant group which operates Coffeema-
nia throughout Russia, Kate is already
a senior in her profession so I’ve really
enjoyed discussing theory versus prac-
tice in Russia versus other international
markets. Our exchanges have taught me a
lot about how business is done in Russia
and how communications is practiced,
which is valuable to my professional un-
derstanding and my current role. So this
formal mentoring experience is beneficial
for both of us, and has resulted in a real
sharing of knowledge.
To me, that’s what is most important
to remember: mentoring is about sharing.
Sharing excitement about communica-
tions as a career choice, sharing knowl-
edge about the profession, sharing a men-
tee’s setbacks and successes, supporting
their understanding of their experience,
and encouragement. Whether you choose
to mentor one or two people or more,
informally or formally, I hope you will
take the time to share your passion for
communications and inspire the next
generation of communicators! •
Photo Private
Mia Norcaro
Director,Corporate
Communications,
Kempinski Hotels
Mia Norcaro has over 15 years’
experience in public relations,
marketing and communica-
tions in industries as diverse as
fashion, telecommunications,
consulting and investment
management. Mia joined Kem-
pinski Hotels in 2003, where
she is currently director of
corporate communications.
“As communication
leaders, we need not only to
inspire others but to play
an active role in recruiting
new communicators.”