The role of the communications leader has shifted significantly. Senior practitioners are no longer just managing press coverage or tracking media metrics; they are increasingly expected to act as core commercial advisers to the CEO and the board.
But how do you move your function from a traditional support system to a genuine strategic driver?
In the latest episode of Strategy, Story & Stakeholders, Max Forsyth sits down with Sophie Timms, Corporate Affairs Director at Kier Group. Sophie draws on 25 years of experience across financial services and infrastructure to share how she built her own commercial acumen, managed recent high-profile leadership transitions, and why comms teams need to stop talking about "inputs" and start focusing on "outcomes".
You can catch the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. The key practical takeaways for senior leaders from the discussion are detailed below.
1. Earning a Seat at the Top Table
Sophie is vocal about the communications profession earning its place at the executive committee level. However, getting there is only the first step:
"There’s being invited to the party and then there’s being invited to dance. That’s what I think is the critical element of corporate affairs sitting at the table."
To actually influence at the Exco level, a corporate affairs leader needs deep commerciality. Sophie admits that early in her executive career, she had to learn this through a process of "test and learn". If you pitch an idea purely as a communications campaign without grounding it in commercial reality, you will quickly be sent back to do your homework.
The key is framing your strategy around bottom-line protection and top-line growth. When you start speaking that language, the rest of the table — from the CFO to the Chief Operating Officer — takes notice.
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2. Outcome-Led Infrastructure: Shifting the Narrative
In a sector like construction, public perception frequently gets stuck on mud, cranes, and holes in the road. Under Sophie’s leadership, Kier Group recently won Best Investor Communication at the PLC Awards by shifting their entire storytelling approach.
Instead of repeating the old industry habit of talking about inputs—such as the number of bricks used or man-hours clocked—they focused heavily on "outcomes-led infrastructure".
Take their work on Days High School in the Northwest. Rather than highlighting the build metrics, the team worked with the head teacher to look at the tangible community benefit. Because the building was designed specifically to maximise learning productivity, it saved seven minutes per pupil, per lesson. When you add that up over a school year, it becomes a powerful, quantifiable metric that resonates with both communities and investors.
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3. Leading Through Board-Level Transitions
A true test of any corporate affairs function is how it handles major organisational change. Over the past 12 months, Kier successfully navigated a CEO transition—with Stuart Togwell succeeding Andrew Davis—followed closely by a change of CFO.
Sophie stresses that even with an internal candidate like Stuart, which offers natural continuity, people are instinctively unsettled by change. Managing it successfully requires thorough end-to-end planning and a consistent operational drumbeat. By using a structured three-month handover period to get the new leadership out listening to teams, the transition remained seamless and market trust was preserved.
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4. Engaging a Dispersed, Five-Generation Workforce
Internal communication gets complicated when your workforce spans five generations and is split between head office desks and active construction sites.
When Sophie joined Kier in 2020, the team initially introduced a mobile app to reach people, but realised they had started with the office-based teams rather than the operational frontline. If she had her time again, she notes she would start with the site-based staff and work backwards.
Frontline teams do not have time to read long pages of text; they want quick, mobile-enabled video and audio that directly impacts their day. To drive their "Naturally Digital" upskilling programme, Kier bypassed the traditional approach of having the IT Director explain the rollout. Instead, they launched the "Be More John" campaign, using John—an authentic, on-site colleague—to tell the story through video shorts.
This holistic approach to culture extends to supporting employees through complex life stages. Kier's ‘Milestones that Matter’ programme provides targeted signposting for colleagues handling challenging personal situations. As Sophie notes, many senior professionals find themselves in the "sandwich generation":
"At the moment, I’m sandwiched between someone doing A-levels and elderly parent care, and a big job. So I’m probably straddling a few milestones, but that’s important. I’m not the only one going through that."
Demonstrating authentic corporate support during these pressure points is what ultimately drives long-term retention.
5. Delivering Authentic Social Value
For Kier, a government strategic supplier, social mobility and corporate social responsibility cannot just be a box-ticking exercise. It is built directly into their commercial reality, as social value routinely accounts for 10% of government procurement bid scores.
Last year, Kier delivered £583 million in added social value, largely by channelling spend through local small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) and community networks across their 400 active UK projects. Through her seat on the Employer Advisory Group for the Social Mobility Commission, Sophie continues to push for organisations to give individuals from all backgrounds a genuine opportunity to thrive.
Listen to the Full Episode
For more practical insights from Sophie Timms on crisis management, coaching senior executives, and applying an endurance mindset to corporate leadership, stream the full conversation now.
To discuss your organisation's communications talent strategy or upcoming hiring needs, contact Max Forsyth and the team at Comms Search & Selection today.
