The Strategic No: Earning Trust and Driving Impact in Internal Comms

Emma Fischer: Hi, guys and welcome to You've Got Comms, the podcast for internal communicators shaping the future of work. I'm Emma Fischer, and today we're going global. I'm so excited to sit down with my guest today, María Luisa García Pérez, Global Internal Communications General Manager at Cosentino. And María Luisa, you are an overall communications powerhouse. So, for those of you who don't know, for over 20 years, she's built a global IC function from the ground up, and that's spanning employees across North America, Latin America, Europe, and beyond. Although Cosentino has over 6,000 employees, María Luisa has grown the internal comms function from a group of just three to an entire team of operators. She's a true pioneer in transforming internal communication into a strategic driver of culture, engagement, and business success. So, if you ever felt like you are not being taken seriously as an internal communicator, or you're being treated as though you are a service function, this is your episode and guide to being taken seriously as a strategic partner. María Luisa, welcome to the show. We're so happy to have you on today.

María Luisa García Pérez: Hello. How are you? Thank you for the invitation. I am so happy to stay here today, too.

Emma: To get started, you've led the internal comms function at Cosentino for over two decades. So, in the past 20 years, what do you think is the biggest shift you've seen in how organizations value internal comms today compared to when you first got started?

María Luisa García Pérez: Okay, good question. I think that over the last 20 years, I've been working very differently. And at the beginning, I only had to focus on newsletters and postings and that's all. And now, I'm focused on the strategy of the company. So, I have changed my role from the beginning. And I was, at the beginning, only an operative person, taking care of sending comms and building the strategy, but it was quite easy. And now, in a simple way, now I'm focused on the real strategy of the company and I'm focused on the more important objectives of the company. So, I think that this is the most important change. Of course, the tools that I have used over the time, over the last 20 years. At the beginning, I didn't have any professional tool for intranet, for mailing, or for TV screens. And now, I have very professional partners that help me with the tools and that help me with the strategy of my company.

Emma Fischer: Do you think, as you guys have expanded across regions, that has had you adapt your strategy at all?

María Luisa García Pérez: Yes. I think that we have adapted our strategy over the regions. And we have taken care of the strategy from the beginning. And we have personalized every single campaign and every single comms link to the strategy of the company. And of course, we take care of the segmentation of our content in order to reach our employees and to reach our population.

Emma Fischer: A question that comes up — I've heard before — is, how far in advance do you plan? Do you have a roadmap for two years, three years, five years in advance as well?

María Luisa García Pérez: In this case, I have a roadmap for one year because my company is growing very fast, and we need to check out the strategy every single year. So, every single year, or at the end of each year, I have a meeting with the different vice presidents and with the executive team, mainly to set up the priorities for the coming year. That's so important. So, I know that imagine that next year, 2026, I'm going to have like four or five priorities because those priorities are linked to the business, and those are the most important things to my business. So, I try to set up my internal comms plan, and all my actions and all my campaigns should be linked to those topics or to those strategies. I think that that's the most important thing, to plan every single campaign and to know what's going on and to have time for each action, activity, or comms. That's so important.

Emma Fischer: And I guess when everything is linked back to a specific objective, that makes . . . I know this is the biggest challenge in internal comms is measurement. So, I think that makes it pretty clean. When you want to prove exactly why you're doing something, you can immediately be like, "I'm doing this, and then it's tied to this objective."

María Luisa García Pérez: Exactly. I used to measure every single channel because, for me, the KPIs are so important. So, if I have, for example, the newsletters, the email, an intranet, or even if I'm trying to organize a breakfast with managers, or with teams, a town hall, I used to find out the main KPIs and the main numbers and figures in order to see if my actions have impact on the business. So, if I decide to send out a campaign or an internal comms, I define with the project manager, or if I'm the project manager, I decide which KPIs are going to say the success of my campaign. Imagine that I'm sending a campaign, for example, about open job positions internally, and then a KPI for success. It could be the number of people who apply to the different job positions. This is an example. And I used to mix different KPIs, for example, numbers, figures, and opinions. In my opinion, I think that it's so important to have a mix of KPIs and statistics, and the perfect mix, it could be numbers, and of course, it could be the opinion of your community.

Emma Fischer: I love that. Do you have any specific tools or platforms that have made the biggest difference in creating that two-way dialogue between the internal comms team and the community? Because I know you guys have reached an open rate, I believe, of 75%, which I think a lot of companies would love to emulate that.

María Luisa García Pérez: Exactly. For example, I have a platform for emailing, and I'm so happy, of course. And the platform for email reach, I could see the number of opens. That's so important. And of course, the engagement of my community, because for every single comms or newsletter, I insert emojis, and I insert a survey, and then I analyze the survey. And within the survey, I have the opinion of the community related to this campaign. And of course, sometimes, if I'm sending different campaigns, for example, Environmental Week or the Health and Safety Week, I used to pick up or select 80 people. And then I send out a survey to those 80 people around the world from different roles in order to see their opinions, their comments, and to know if they participate in the campaigns. So, that's so important and I think that those feedbacks are so important for me as a project manager and as an internal comms responsible.

Emma Fischer: And do you see that a lot of people respond to the surveys?

María Luisa García Pérez: Not the 80 people, of course, but maybe half of the population, and with half of the population, with 40 and 50 people, for me it's enough because it's like a sample. Of course, it's difficult to have the whole universe, the whole team, but a sample, it could be like the sample of okay, for my numbers, and this is the opinion of 40 people, and this is a sample of, a representation of the company. When I finish a campaign, I used to prepare a PowerPoint or any document with the main KPIs, including the survey, including the results of the survey. So, imagine that I'm launching a campaign about a new launch product. Then I used to specify every single action or comms, or impact. And then I include the KPIs from my email platform, and I include the KPIs from the community, their opinions.

Emma Fischer: I think if you get 50% responding to a survey, that's a great way. And if you overestimate how many people you send to, that's a really good way to get a solid sample size.

María Luisa García Pérez: Yes.

Emma Fischer: Now, as we move on, there is something I actually wrote down last week when the two of us talked. And you said, "In less than one year, all of us are going to use agents in our personal lives, too." So, now, as we dive into AI a little bit, how does using agentic AI give you a competitive advantage, and what advice would you have for helping other communicators leverage the tools?

María Luisa García Pérez: Okay, I think that AI is so important for a professional, even if you are in the communication field or in another kind of work. But in my opinion, AI is going to be the future for all of us, and we should use it as an important tool for us. So, agents are going to be so important, or are so important, because if you need to work in repetitive tasks, or if you want to improve, for example, your content, your policy, your strategy, maybe you could create an agent for each single task, and you are going to multiply your productivity. So, in my opinion, I think that you need to take advantage of AI. And for us, it should be as a tool, for example, Photoshop or PowerPoint, or other type of tools that we could find in the market. I think that with the agents, you will be able to reach more employees and to be more productive, and of course, to prepare all your work with a lot of efficiency and to reach more projects. So, in my opinion, we should face AI as the best partner that we could have. They are not going to replace us, I think, because finally, you need to implement, you need to be the leader of your company, you need to lead your campaigns, your projects, and AI is going to help you with all of this.

Emma Fischer: I think that's absolutely the mindset that we need to embrace. And one that you mentioned is reaching every employee, but there are definitely times when that's not the goal. If you have a company of 6,000 people, like you guys do at Cosentino, not every message belongs with every department. How do you personalize your messages to avoid that message overload that a lot of people . . . I know that leads to disengagement?

María Luisa García Pérez: This is a good question. For example, I used to reduce the number of employees per comms or per action. In this case, I used to personalize every single comms or every single campaign. And for example, if my universe is 6,000 people, I don't send any comms to the whole company, because I prefer to send it by market and to adapt the message, the content, the photos, and everything, or I prefer to send it by role, for example. And if it's a global campaign, of course, I take into consideration the linguistic differences.  And of course, I take into consideration different aspects.But in my opinion, I think that you need to know your employees, your user persona. That's so important. If you know which kind of people or which kind of employees do you have within your company, you will be able to personalize the messages to them. So, if I have, for example, people between 30 and 40 years, or between 30 and 50 years, I need to reach those employees. I need to use a different language and a different channel, too, because maybe, as you may know, a lot of people, they don't want to read. So, if they don't want to read, I need to change my strategy and I need to use videos rather than letters or newsletters. So, in my opinion, I think that you need to personalize your content to reach them. And of course, you need to know who is your user persona.

Emma Fischer: I really like that, because it also reminded me of something we said last week. I think this is part of the reason why you've been so successful, because one thing I really admired about you is, I think, your confidence in delivering messages. So, how do you decide when you have to say no to somebody? Because I know a lot of people maybe misunderstand the role of an internal communicator, and they'll come to you and be like, "Send this message, send this message." How do you decide when you have to say no, and then you make that polite but also firm?

María Luisa García Pérez: I think that this is a wonderful question, too, because I used to say no thousands of times. Why? Because I have a clear strategy within the company and I know my priorities. And my priorities are linked to the business. So, if I have, I don't know, 20, 30 requests and they are not linked to the business objectives, I used to say no and I used to explain then why. I think that the most important thing is to say no and to explain then why, they will understand that. And of course, to try to explain then a solution or to try to find a solution for them. Imagine that you can't assume everything, every single comms within the company. This is my case. If I have 100 departments, for example, or 80 departments, I can't offer my service to the whole team because we are a small team and we can't reach all of them. So, I think that the most important thing is to clarify the rules, to set up the rules, and to establish a policy. And then, within the policy, you could say, "Okay, if you want that I send out these comms, you need to wait for, imagine, 10 days or 15 days." And if they say no, you could say, "Okay, this is the policy, I'm so sorry, but those are the priorities for the company, and this is the option that I could offer you. Maybe you could do it, following those guidelines."And I think that this is the key to set up your priorities and to have the support from your managers and, of course, to give them or to offer them a solution.

Emma Fischer: This leads really well into the next question because what you're saying is internal comms is not a service department, it's a strategic department. But unfortunately, that's not always what people have the perception of. What advice would you give to other communicators who are trying to build trust with their executive team?

María Luisa García Pérez: I think that the most important thing is to have meetings with the executive team or with the directors or with the leaders and to ask them about their needs related to internal comms and to take notes of everything and to clarify that you are not going to be able to reach every single action or every single step, but of course, to set up a strategy. Follow those recommendations. So, in my opinion, I think that you could transform your internal comms department from an operative department to a more strategic department if you focus on the strategy of the company and if you focus on the strategy of the rest of the departments. But you need to have meetings with the leaders, with the vice presidents or directors, and you need to, for example, establish two or three priorities for each department, and then you need to create a roadmap following those recommendations. And you need to decide what you are going to achieve or what you are going to focus on the coming year because, of course, everything is going to be impossible. So, if everything is going to be impossible, you need to be smart and you need to focus on the real strategy of the company. I think that this is the best way to show up your value within the company.

Emma Fischer: I really like that because it helps you come prepared so that you don't risk being caught off guard.

María Luisa García Pérez: Yes, exactly.

Emma Fischer: Now, as we start to wind things down, I would love to ask you a few rapid-fire questions. So, these are questions we haven't discussed, but you can just give me a quick response, whatever comes to you. The first one is, when it comes to work, what is one app or software that you just could not live without?

María Luisa García Pérez: I think that I couldn't live without my planner, for example, because I plan everything, and for me to be an organized person is so important. And I couldn't live without my agenda and my personal planner or professional planner because it's so important to know what's going on next and to set up your daily tasks and your priorities.

Emma Fischer: I totally agree with you on this one. I really like that answer. Do you have a book or a podcast that you would recommend to your fellow communicators?

María Luisa García Pérez: Yes. I don't know if it's in English yet, but maybe we are going to translate it. Here we have an association of directors, and we just wrote a book about internal comms with a lot of recommendations. I'm going to speak with the association because I would like to translate the book. And yes, this is a book that we published two months ago. I wrote two articles, one about how to measure internal comms and another one, it was about the latest trends within internal comms, including AI. And it could be a very good book to read. And yes, I think that it's in Spanish, but I would like to speak with the association in order to translate it.

Emma Fischer: Awesome. We can link all of that in the show notes. At least one of the good things about all the technologies these days is it also does help you access other languages because there's a lot of tools for translation.

María Luisa García Pérez: I will link the book, and yes, maybe it could be interesting for them. And about podcasts, I used to listen to thousands of podcasts. For example, from Staffbase, your podcast, and from a lot of resources, so, from a lot of places. So, I love podcasts and I used to listen to podcasts when I'm driving. Of course, I used to listen to TED Talks and a lot of content. So, I consume a lot of content. It could be books or it could be podcasts because I think that this is the best way to learn new things and to improve yourself.

Emma Fischer: Yeah, I love audiobooks personally. I have just one more quick question. I think this actually might be hard for you because you've been in this position for 20 years, but if you weren't in communications, what would you be doing today?

María Luisa García Pérez: I think that I would be working as a teacher, as an English teacher, for example, because I love English, I love teaching things, and of course, I love my job, but I would love to teach, too. I think that it could be a wonderful job for me.

Emma Fischer: I think that makes sense because an internal communicator is also an educator.

María Luisa García Pérez: Exactly, yes. I'm teaching, training, and helping people. This is my role, and this is part of my core values.

Emma Fischer: I have just one more question, and this might be actually in relation to what you were saying. I saw that you've recently contributed to the Internal Communications White Paper 2025. Maybe that was the trends paper you were speaking about. So, what trends do you believe are going to most shape our profession in the next few years?

María Luisa García Pérez: Of course, as you could guess, it's going to be AI. In my opinion, AI is going to be the most important trend because we are going to change how we are working today. Not only for communicators, for the rest of the people, but in our case, I think that in less than five years, we are not going to do what we are doing today. I'm sure that in less than five years, we are going to change our tasks, we are going to change our projects, and we are going to change the way we are working right now. So, in my opinion, this is my personal opinion, we need to elevate our role. We need to be more creative because the repetitive tasks are going to be done by AI. If you want to work in internal comms or in a business, or in another company, you need to be more creative. And you need to add the value that the AI couldn't do. So, I think that we need to be open-minded, and we need to change the way that we are working today because it's a reality. This is my opinion.

Emma Fischer: Well, I think the advice you gave today certainly helps people prepare themselves and show the strategic side of comms, and that really helps clarify and differentiate why we need humans as well. So, thank you so much for the talk today, María Luisa, we really appreciated having you on.

María Luisa García Pérez: Thank you for your time. I think that it was a wonderful talk. And see you soon. Thank you for your time.

Emma Fischer: Thank you, guys. That was You've Got Comms. We hope to see you next time.