To celebrate International Women’s Day 2026, we’ve gathered top insights from women in internal comms at organizations like Love’s Travel Stops, Sumer, and AMS. Discover how these leaders use AI, two-way storytelling, and smart metrics to transform the employee experience.
International Women’s Day (IWD) is this week, a global moment to recognize the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. IWD is observed all over the world as a day of celebration, reflection, and action.
To mark IWD, we explore the vital role women play in the internal communications field, and lay out advice from women leading comms efforts at their organizations. You’ll get eight strategies shared by these comms experts at Interact’s events and webinars – with practical takeaways so you can start applying them today.
What is International Women’s Day, and why does it matter?
International Women’s Day, held on March 8th every year, is a dedicated time to focus on the progress made toward equality while acknowledging the work that still needs to be done. For organizations, it’s also an opportunity to celebrate the women trailblazers who drive culture and connection within their teams.
What is the history of International Women’s Day?
International Women’s Day observances began over a century ago by activists in the women’s rights movement. Since then, it has evolved into a global movement observed through diverse traditions – from professional awards to community activism – depending on the region. It matters because it keeps the conversation about equity front and center in our lives and workplaces.
This year’s theme: Give to Gain
The official theme for IWD 2026 is Give to Gain. This campaign encourages a mindset rooted in generosity, collaboration, and the power of reciprocity. The core idea is that when people, organizations, and communities give generously – whether that’s through time, resources, or mentorship – opportunities for women increase.
This year’s “Give to Gain” theme specifically connects to the sharing of knowledge. Educating others and sharing strategies and experiences helps to create a more supportive and interconnected world and elevate women in various fields.
The state of women in internal comms
Internal communications is an industry where women truly lead the way. It is a field defined by empathy, strategy, and connection – skills that the women in the comms community demonstrate every day.
What role do women play in the internal comms field?
Internal comms is a female-dominated industry. While some estimates are more conservative, one survey found that as many as 75% of internal communicators are female. This means that the majority of people designing the employee experience, managing change, and driving engagement within the world’s biggest organizations are women.
Why is it important to celebrate and empower women in comms?
Communicators are the architects of organizational culture; they’re the ones who ensure that employees feel supported, seen, and empowered to do their jobs. Because they spend so much of their professional lives lifting others up, it is incredibly important to recognize their own contributions.
If you’re a communicator, International Women’s Day is a time to take a breath and recognize your own accomplishments alongside those of your peers. Celebrating women in comms isn’t just about a “thank you”; it’s about empowering those who make our businesses places people want to work.
6 tips from women in Internal Comms
To celebrate International Women’s Day this year, we’ve put together some of our favorite pieces of advice from notable women in internal comms. We have the privilege of hearing from many talented leaders at Interact events, and we want to pass their insights on to you. Here are six pieces of advice you’ll want to apply in your internal comms and employee experience strategy starting today.
1. Say goodbye to one-way comms
At Interact’s Communicate London event, Alana Foster, Head of Communications at Travelex, shared her insights on the challenge of engaging a global workforce of over 5,000 colleagues. To move away from traditional top-down narratives, her team encourages employees to share personal and professional stories through internal blogs. This approach has transformed their communications into a genuine two-way conversation.
“Something that we’ve noticed this year is the ability to engage in that two-way conversation with our colleagues. We’re harnessing blogs and encouraging colleagues to blog about personal stories, days of significance, and business priorities. The uptake in blog posts has been instrumental this year.”
Alana Foster, Travelex
Practical Takeaway: Create space for employees to be storytellers. When people see their own “days of significance” and professional journeys reflected in company news, they feel like active participants rather than just passive recipients. This gets them involved in and excited about your company culture, promoting engagement.
2. Measure success in several ways
Jessica Jensen, Senior Manager of Corporate Communications at Love’s Travel Stops, discussed moving beyond simple adoption metrics during Interact’s Vibes to Value webinar on workplace social media. While desktop and mobile adoption are obvious starting points, Jessica takes a holistic approach to measuring how comms “moves the needle” for the business.
Her team focuses on whether they are truly taking care of employees by looking at retention numbers – crucial in high-turnover industries like retail – and participation in open enrollment. Jessica also highlights how comms can spotlight specific departments. For example, by training the IT department on how to communicate their own resources, Love’s saw a significant increase in IT engagement.
The results of this approach speak for themselves: a 11.7% improvement in staff retention and 80% employee participation in open enrollment.
“When we see things like an improvement in staff retention, you can’t help but also draw the correlation between communication and employee engagement and how we’re making a difference for team members. … When those team members are cared for … they’re just better leaders for culture in the company.”
Jessica Jensen, Love’s Travel Stops
Practical Takeaway: Don’t just report on clicks, which are just one way to measure your employee experience and internal comms. Look for correlations between your communication efforts and broader business goals like employee retention, benefit enrollment, and departmental engagement.
3. Leverage your leaders
During our Fostering Inclusivity webinar, Kristi Delynko, Internal Communications Lead at Denver Water, explained how leadership storytelling has become a cornerstone of their digital workplace strategy. Executive blogs invite conversation, foster familiarity with leaders, and create touchpoints that feel meaningful rather than transactional.
This authentic leadership presence has become a magnet for employees: Denver Water now sees 97% of its workforce regularly accessing its intranet, spending time exploring culture content, featured news, and cross‑team stories once they’re there. As Kristi puts it, employees come for the human stories and stay for the business‑critical updates.
“We put a face and a voice behind our organizational messaging by launching an executive blog… We have posts about ride-alongs with employees. They highlight awards or recognize teams. One of our most popular was a post from an executive who traveled the country watching his son play competitive baseball [and shared] the importance of using paid time off to be there for those moments.”
Kristi Delynko, Denver Water
Practical Takeaway: Turn leaders into storytellers. Encourage executives to share personal reflections, behind‑the‑scenes moments, and real‑world experiences. When leaders show up authentically, employees are far more likely to return to your digital workplace again and again – creating the engagement momentum your comms rely on.
4. Bring hidden information into the open
Holly Pratt, Internal Communications Lead at Weatherby’s Bank, spoke to us at Communicate London about the “trapped” knowledge often buried in shared drives and Microsoft files – an all-too-common problem for organizations. When information gets siloed in this way, people don’t know where to find it, or even that it exists in the first place – and it can be nearly impossible to locate if authors leave the company.
As a one-person comms team, Holly’s challenge was surfacing this information to provide up-to-date content. By using AI to help spin these hidden documents into news stories and broadcasts, she is able to publish about 38 articles a month, ensuring that subject-matter expertise stays within the company long after an employee might leave.
“The challenge we were trying to solve was that a lot of our information was in our shared drives and kind of hidden away in our Microsoft files and storage. And we needed to surface some of that and be able to give people up to date content and news. I’m a team of pretty much one… and the speed that AI [takes] is just incredible.”
Holly Pratt, Weatherby’s Bank
Practical Takeaway: Audit your “hidden” resources. If a document contains evergreen knowledge that could help someone today, pull it out and spin it into a featured news story or a broadcast email so it doesn’t get lost. Your goal should be to create a reliable knowledge base that employees turn to again and again.
5. Amplify organic employee moments
Chloe Canham, Internal Communications Business Partner at Miller Insurance, joined our Vibes to Value webinar to discuss how to unite a global organization. Rather than always creating content from the top down, her team monitors internal social feeds for “on the ground” moments – like a Singapore office celebrating Chinese New Year – and amplifies them. By taking these organic posts and turning them into deeper stories or weekly newsletter roundups, Chloe ensures that diversity and inclusion efforts feel authentic and peer-driven.
“It’s just nice to see that something’s happening on the ground in a different country. How can we leverage it (and make) much more of it… It’s about not just the top down comms, but getting everybody involved in the conversation.”
Chloe Canham, Miller Insurance
Practical Takeaway: Make it a weekly habit to look for employee-created content on your social feed. Reach out to those individuals to turn their “moments” into a deeper dive on the intranet or a highlight in your newsletter.
6. Use comms to lead AI
Mairi McInnes, Head of Internal Communications at Sumer, highlighted the rapid growth of her company (from 3 to 3,000 employees in two years) at Communicate London. Mairi advocates for internal comms to lead the “AI movement” by connecting the employee digital experience in a human way. By establishing comms at the forefront of AI adoption, you can guide employees to use these tools responsibly and safely while ensuring the company’s best interests are maintained.
“What I’m most excited about in internal comms at the moment is really our role as leaders within the AI movement… If we get at the forefront and set ourselves up as leaders [who] really enable others around us to use it in a safe way that works for the individual – but also the company as well.”
Mairi McInnes, Sumer
Practical Takeaway: Don’t wait for AI adoption to unfold around you. Get involved early and establish internal comms as the guiding force that helps employees get the most out of AI while managing the associated risks.
7. Activate your employees
At one of Interact’s recent events, Caroline Johns, Vice President of Corporate Communications at Saatva, told us how expanding Saatva’s employee advocacy program transformed engagement both internally and externally. Integrating advocacy into the company’s centralized digital workplace made it easy for employees to share content, empowering them to become true ambassadors of the Saatva brand.
When workers feel confident and equipped to participate in employee advocacy – with tools, training, and easy‑to‑share content – it supports not only marketing goals, but also internal connection. The very behaviors that make someone an active advocate externally (engaging with content, feeling invested in the brand story, participating in communities) translate into a more engaged internal audience, too.
“[We] opened up our employee advocacy program to all employees… Now any employee who wants to share great information about Saatva with their professional networks can do it in one easy click… Over the past year, our employee advocacy program has contributed to a 545% increase in engagement on our brand’s LinkedIn profile.”
Caroline Johns, Saatva
Practical Takeaway: Give employees a low‑friction way to champion your organization. A simple “one‑click share” tool, paired with clear guidance and ready‑to‑use content, removes barriers and turns everyday employees into active supporters of your digital workplace.
8. Cater to employees short on time
Magda Bojda, Internal Communications Channels Principal Specialist at AMS, shared advice at Communicate London for reaching colleagues who spend most of their time in client environments. When employees only have a few minutes a day or even a week to devote to engaging with your comms, you need to maximize that time. Magda’s solution is to create a “single source of truth” and tell employees the most efficient way to stay informed.
“The biggest challenge we face is the fact that most of our colleagues are client based. If you only have a few minutes a day, or a few minutes a week, to spend within our environment, the intranet is your place to go. And that’s the source of truth, and that’s where the most important information you need to know is.”
Magda Bojda, AMS
Practical Takeaway: Be upfront with busy employees that you understand they’re short on time. Clearly communicate exactly where they should go to find the most important information to ensure they stay connected.
Embracing wisdom this International Women’s Day
From pioneering AI leadership to driving business-critical results through data, these insights show why women in internal comms are the backbone of the modern employee experience.
By embracing the “Give to Gain” spirit, these leaders shared their knowledge, which will help others rise. We hope these words of wisdom inspire you to recognize your own accomplishments and continue building supportive, interconnected workplaces. If you’d like even more tips on elevating your internal comms, check out our Internal Communications Strategy Playbook, which lays out 14 steps to outstanding internal comms.
Frequently asked questions
The IWD 2026 theme is “Give to Gain,” which calls for intentional generosity and reciprocity at work. In practice, “give” isn’t subtraction; it’s multiplication – sharing time, knowledge, resources, and visibility so more women thrive. Simple actions like mentoring, advocating for colleagues, and opening doors to opportunities create a more supportive, connected culture. When women advance, teams and organizations rise with them.
Internal communications is female‑dominated; one survey estimates that up to ~75% of internal communicators are women. This means the majority of the people shaping employee experience, managing change, and driving engagement are women. It’s a useful lens for leaders considering who holds the day‑to‑day responsibility for culture and connection inside organizations.
Make International Women’s Day feel authentic and ongoing, not a one‑off campaign. Elevate women’s voices with blog posts and takeovers, invite leader storytelling in a human tone, and amplify employee‑generated moments so recognition feels peer‑led. Include clear calls to act – mentoring sign‑ups, ERG events, or learning resources – and consider easy sharing options to extend impact. This approach builds inclusion while strengthening everyday engagement.
Stand up a single source of truth and state plainly that it’s the fastest way to get essential updates. Keep content scannable, prioritized, and mobile‑friendly so colleagues with only minutes to spare can stay informed. Consistency builds trust: when employees know exactly where to look, they return more often and miss less. This is especially helpful for frontline or client‑based teams..
Focus on behavior and outcomes, not just opens. Track retention trends, open‑enrollment participation, and engagement with priority programs or departments (e.g., increased IT self‑service after targeted comms). These indicators connect communications to business value and show whether messages lead to meaningful action. Use these signals to refine topics, timing, and channel mix.
People respond to human voices. Executive posts that share ride‑alongs, recognition, and real‑life moments invite comments and repeat visits, helping employees feel closer to leaders. That human draw brings people back to the intranet, where they then engage with business‑critical updates. Over time, this builds trust and a habit of staying informed.
