IABC Masterclass - From Shared Clarity to Coherent Action: What Senior Leaders Told Us About Communication's Role in Strategic Alignment

Description:

To execute a strategy, someone needs to connect it with the people who carry out the work. That means helping them reach a shared understanding of the direction, then keeping their decisions, trade-offs, and course corrections coherent as the strategy moves (a constant reality today). Senior leaders in our research see communication professionals as well placed to play that role. They also see a function too often stuck at the tactical end, asked to announce strategy only after it's set. The gap between the role comms could play, and the one it is usually asked to fill is the opportunity this masterclass explores.

IABC is proud to have partnered with Zora Artis and Wayne Aspland on their third global study on strategic alignment. This study draws on 55 interviews with CEOs, Chiefs of Staff and senior leaders across five continents. Those leaders were candid about where communication falls short today, and equally clear about what it could become.

Session 1 (1 December): What the research found and the four shifts organisations need to make: from a group of leaders to a leadership group, from proxies to proof, from cascade to conversations, and from annual to agile. We finish with the first step: making the case that earns executive backing for the work.

Session 2 (8 December): A strategy refresh or announcement is one of the moments when communication professionals are most visible, and most likely to be asked for a launch plan or campaign. We use it as the working case for this session. What does your role look like in each of the four shifts, from early planning through to the months after the announcement? Where does it start and stop, and who do you need alongside you? We explore how to help leaders tell a consistent story, give executives evidence they take seriously, equip people leaders for the conversations that matter, and keep the strategy coherent when it needs to pivot.

Both sessions are interactive. If you have a strategy refresh or announcement on the horizon, bring it with you: you’ll have time to test the ideas against your own situation and compare notes with peers from around the world.

You'll walk away with greater clarity about the role you can play, more confidence to step into it, and strategic and practical steps on what to do and how to do the work.

Who should attend:

This masterclass is designed for senior and mid-level communication professionals, from Chief Communications Officers and Corporate Affairs Directors to the managers and advisers who lead or advise on strategic, executive, internal and change communication. It is for people who know their organisation's strategy depends on people understanding it and acting on it, and who want to play a stronger part in making that happen.

It will be particularly valuable for those who recognise that strategy depends on alignment, know they have a role in enabling it, and want to do that work well and with the influence their role should carry. Leaders who attend with members of their team will leave with a shared understanding of that role and a common starting point for the work.

Presenters:

Zora Artis, GAICD, IABC Fellow, SCMP, ACC, FAMI, CPM, helps leaders and their teams do the hard work of alignment when the stakes are high and the path is not obvious. As CEO of Artis Advisory and co-founder of Clear Leaders, her research collaboration with Wayne Aspland, she coaches, advises and facilitates C-suite and senior teams through change and complexity, turning competing priorities into clear decisions, stronger cohesion and coordinated action.

Over more than three decades spanning executive leadership, brand, consulting and strategic communication, Zora has worked with organisations across the public, private and for-purpose sectors on their strategic foundations: purpose, brand, culture and strategy, and how they connect to the way work actually gets done.

Zora has long been a leader within IABC. She has served as Chair of IABC Asia Pacific and as a Director on the IABC International Executive Board, and she currently chairs the IABC Change Management Special Interest Group. She is an IABC Fellow and a Strategic Communication Management Professional (SCMP). Her recognition includes multiple Gold Quill awards for communication excellence, the IABC Chair's Award (twice) and IABC Regional Leader of the Year.

With Wayne, Zora has completed three global studies on strategic alignment over seven years. The latest, From Groupthink to Governance, was produced in partnership with IABC and draws on interviews with 55 CEOs, Chiefs of Staff and senior leaders across five continents. She presented its findings at the 2026 IABC World Conference in Toronto.

Zora is an ICF-credentialed coach trained with the NeuroLeadership Institute, a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow and Certified Practising Marketer of the Australian Marketing Institute. She brings a director's view of governance and a coach's ear for what goes unsaid in the room. Based in Melbourne, Australia, she works with organisations globally.

Wayne Aspland helps organisations and teams realise their potential in today’s new world of work. A world where the opportunities created by AI are balanced against the strain of accelerating change and uncertainty. He achieves this with a focus on enabling AI strategy and capability, strategic alignment and communication and change capacity.

Wayne’s background is in senior leadership, strategy and change communication, as well as investor and industry relations. He has advised boards, executives and senior leaders on strategy and alignment, transformation, thought leadership, employee enablement, technology adoption and behavioural change. 

A particular area of interest for Wayne is strategic alignment. He has published three groundbreaking global studies on the subject with Zora Artis and helped senior leaders at many organisations design, launch and embed their strategy.

Wayne is also one of Australia's leading experts on AI in communications. He is an AI strategist at Red Marble AI, a member of the Claude Partner Network and a co-host of the monthly AI Discovery Forum from the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence. He has also provided AI enablement training to almost 4,000 people and written four research papers on AI and comms… the first in 2017.

Wayne is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow of the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence.