On Tuesday last week (16th April) the NNC Network met once again at the beautiful offices (courtesy of Hanover Communications) for a fireside chat with Meta’s former Head of Internal Communications, Inara Pilatti. With the NNC fast approaching it’s first birthday as a community for Internal Communications professionals, speaking English as a second language, there are now over 100 people in the network with more than 30 nationalities combined.
Spill the Tea!
“So, tell us, how did you end up in Internal Communications?” was my first question to Inara. This is one of my favourite interview questions to really open up the conversations, as it’s rarely a profession that people set out to do from a young age. Inara has an academic background in journalism and with combined interest in psychology, she soon began her career at HSBC, giving her a flavour of the corporate world in an HR position. From here, she honed her skills progressing into a Communications role, in the knowledge it would fuel her ambition to combine her love of writing, storytelling and understanding human behaviour.
In a room of internationals, of course I was quick to ask how Inara found herself in London; the answer to which was a combination of fulfilling a personal dream and pursuing an opportunity to move with her most recent employer, Meta. From here, the conversation opened up to wider questions around cultural differences in working life and the benefits of being a multilingual in the workplace. Whilst Inara acknowledged some of the challenges faced, such as having to check dictionaries in the working day to make sure she was following conversation, she explained how language is so closely connected to culture. In a positive light, this means having multilinguists on board helps a wider cultural und
