Interview with Lisa Mudge, VP of Employee Communications, LinkedIn
Employee communications (EC), traditionally known as internal comms, has never been more important. As organisations grow faster and more decentralised, employees need clarity, focus and engagement. Internal comms teams have the opportunity to deliver all three while shaping business outcomes.
As part of our ‘In conversation with’ series, we spoke to Lisa Mudge, VP of Employee Communications at LinkedIn, to hear her perspective on how AI, innovation and human-centred leadership can transform internal comms and, in turn, the employee and customer experience.
Why does employee communications need to evolve to remain strategic over the next five years?
Lisa: Businesses are moving faster than ever, they’re more decentralised and the pace of change is relentless. So in that context, our role isn’t to communicate more. It’s to create clarity. As an employee comms team, that means steering the conversation to what truly matters, what people need to do differently, and what can wait. At the same time, our teams are more global and multi-generational than ever. And the lines have blurred. We all now expect communication that meets us where we are, across different channels and formats in the way we want to get information. Staying strategic means evolving how we communicate, and also being willing to let go of what no longer serves the moment.
Across many industries, from telecoms to financial services to tech, over the years I’ve seen how employees’ understanding of the strategy helps people navigate complexity, builds trust through change and turns strategy into action, ultimately showing up in the customer experience. When people get the 'why' and the 'what now', the whole business benefits.
Where are the biggest opportunities for innovation in EC right now?
Lisa: I love this question, and something that gets me so excited about the future of EC. For me, our biggest opportunities sit at the intersection of clarity, creativity and technology.
First, innovation isn’t about more channels or shinier tools. It’s about focus. Employee comms teams have a massive opportunity to act as stewards, or think about it like an in-house editor, helping leaders cut through noise, prioritise what matters and bring strategy to life in people’s day-to-day work. A good example at LinkedIn is our bi-weekly global company meeting called Company Connect, led by our CEO. It isn’t a dumping ground for updates. It’s structured around our fiscal year company plan and we’re deliberate about what makes it on to the agenda and what our teams need to hear about right now.
Second, we’re only just scratching the surface of the end-to-end employee experience. How employees experience strategy, change and leadership moments matters just as much as the message itself. A recent example is our annual Company Kickoff. In July 2024, we introduced this annual event to shift from rolling out our new fiscal year strategy over months to a shared moment that brings the whole company together over three days. From leadership conversations to live demos and cultural moments, the experience is intentionally sequenced so people leave knowing what matters in the new fiscal year, how it connects to their role, and what they’ll do differently the next day.
We also pride ourselves on making sure we keep the formats fresh and have fun pulling in trends happening outside of work. There's growing research on the power of music and creativity at work, and how that breeds not just deeper connection but also better brain work and thinking and innovation. All to say, creativity is a strategic lever and a delivery mechanism.
Finally, AI is a genuine inflection point for us. Used well, it helps our teams move faster and free up time for higher-value thinking. I often use AI to pressure-test the clarity of a message or make sure something incredibly technical can be understood by everyone.
I think about innovation as a combination of technology with strong human judgement, infused with some x-factor execution (I am partial to a drone video!), so communications stay trusted, relevant and anchored in what the business is trying to achieve.
What feels genuinely new in EC today, and what hasn’t changed enough?
Lisa: The role employee communications now plays during change feels new and quite different. We all know change is constant, but strategic and proactive comms has become one of the biggest differentiators any business can have. It’s no longer about keeping people informed. It’s about helping people stay oriented, able to contribute to a change and focused when everything is moving at speed.
At LinkedIn, we take an employee-first approach to communications, which means sharing decisions with our employees before any other audience. This has been true well before I joined the company, and it’s a principle that creates consistency, transparency and authenticity. People can also tell when communications are overly polished, fully written by AI (who’s not following the great em-dash debate?!) or when messages aren’t truly owned by the leader sending them. That’s why we work closely with leaders, but we don’t own the first draft. The person making the decision carries the responsibility for communicating it. It doesn’t get 'comms’d'.
What hasn’t changed enough in our profession – though thankfully it’s not how we work at LinkedIn – is the perception of employee comms as a delivery function or a team brought in to pretty things up. Being part of the conversation before communication is even discussed gives people in employee comms teams the context needed to shape messages that actually land and drive impact. That’s when the function moves from execution to strategy.
How do you decide what deserves attention and what shouldn’t be communicated?
Lisa: Now more than ever attention is a finite resource. Not everything that happens needs to be communicated, and not everything that’s communicated needs to be elevated.
The first filter is impact. We ask what will materially change how people prioritise their work, make decisions or show up differently. If the answer is no, it probably doesn’t need broad airtime.
The second filter is timing and context. Even important messages can lose impact if they’re shared at the wrong moment or compete with higher-priority focus areas. Sometimes the most strategic decision is to sequence, pause or deliberately say “not yet.”
And finally I look at ownership. If a message doesn’t have a clear decision-maker or accountable leader behind it, it usually isn’t ready.
What mindset shift do EC teams need to move from broadcasting messages to driving action?
Lisa: The biggest shift is moving from “what do we need to say?” to “what do people need to do?” Broadcasting is about information. Driving action is about behaviour. That means employee comms teams are strategic partners who understand the business, the decisions being made, and the moments that truly matter.
It also means letting go of the outdated idea that success is reach or volume. The real measure is whether people understand the priority, feel confident about what’s expected of them, and can see how their work connects to the bigger picture. That’s when communication stops being noise and starts being a driver of business success.
What operating model best supports modern employee communications?
Lisa: There isn’t a single operating model that works for every organisation. The right model is the one that best supports the business strategy, the pace of change and how decisions actually get made. At LinkedIn, we have a centralised employee communications team model, and that works for us because it creates clarity, consistency and air traffic control at scale. It allows us to prioritise what matters most, sequence messages thoughtfully and give employees a clear sense of focus, especially during moments of change.
That said, centralisation isn’t the point. Impact is. In other organisations, a more federated or hybrid model may be the right answer if it better reflects how the business operates. What matters most is that employee comms has proximity to decision-making, clear ownership and the ability to exercise judgement, regardless of structure.
How are data and AI changing how employee comms teams plan, prioritise and demonstrate value?
Lisa: It really comes down to making better decisions. Data and AI help us work more efficiently by synthesising feedback, spotting patterns and pressure-testing clarity before messages go out. That frees up time for higher-value work like partnering with leaders, shaping narrative and designing human experiences that bring the work to life.
When it comes to demonstrating value, the metrics that matter most are the ones that show clarity, trust and action. Ultimately, the function proves its impact through business results. When strategy consistently shows up in how people prioritise their work, talk about the business and serve customers, it’s working.
Looking ahead, what will distinguish high-performing EC teams?
Lisa: I've been spending quite a bit of time on this lately, particularly when AI entered the comms chat in a real way. I recently shared with our employee comms team at LinkedIn three focus areas that are shaping how we approach our work: Excellence, Authenticity and Creativity. And in full transparency, we’re still discussing these areas as a team so this is early thinking.
For us, excellence starts with developing a deep understanding of the business and holding an uncompromising bar for quality. This is not just about strong output. It is about judgement, craft and follow-through as a trusted partner. When EC teams operate at that level, they naturally get pulled into decision making earlier. They help shape clarity rather than react to it, and they raise the quality of thinking across the organisation.
Authenticity is equally important. Right now, helping leaders connect and communicate with their teams in a way that feels true to who they are, while still driving clarity, is essential. People can feel the difference between communication that is real and communication that is a template or written with AI without any original thought.
And finally, creativity is becoming a real differentiator. We’re designing communications around people, not channels, and doing it in ways that reflect our culture. Creativity shows up in how we solve problems, how we communicate updates and how we design meaningful events for everyone at the company. It means resisting the default, like sending yet another email or panel discussion, and instead finding more meaningful ways to keep everyone on the same page and supporting the business priorities.
