WRITING

Crisis communications isn't about spin. It's not about making bad news disappear or crafting the perfect apology tweet. It's a stress test. When everything breaks, when the news cycle turns against you, when your stakeholders are watching — that's when you find out if your narrative infrastructure was ever real. Most companies fail this test because they never built the foundation. They waited until the crisis hit to figure out what they stand for. By then, it's too late. The work happens before the crisis. You define your narrative, you align your leadership, you build trust with your audiences. Then, when the pressure comes, you have something to fall back on. Without that foundation, you're just reacting. And reactive comms never wins.

Scaling a communications team isn't about adding headcount. It's about building a structure that can handle velocity without breaking. Most org charts get this wrong. They optimize for hierarchy instead of speed. They create bottlenecks where there should be clear lanes. At Match Group, I built a global comms function across Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, and the broader portfolio. Different brands, different audiences, different markets — but one unified approach. The key was clarity. Every person knew their lane. Every brand had autonomy within a shared framework. When a crisis hit, we didn't need three layers of approval. We had the infrastructure to move fast and the trust to make decisions. That's what survives the news cycle. Not perfection. Speed and clarity.

You don't control your narrative. Not fully. Journalists will write what they write. Competitors will say what they say. Social media will do what it does. But here's the thing: the narrative you don't control is still your narrative. It's still part of your story. The question is whether you're shaping it or just reacting to it. The best comms teams understand this. They don't try to control every headline. They build a narrative strong enough to absorb the noise. They engage where it matters and ignore where it doesn't. They know when to respond and when to let it pass. That's the game. Not control. Influence. And the discipline to know the difference.

People ask why I studied philosophy if I was going into communications. The answer is simple: philosophy taught me to think. Not in the abstract, impractical way people assume. In the most practical way possible. It taught me to argue precisely, to identify weak reasoning, to say what I mean and mean what I say. Those skills matter more in PR than any communications textbook. Because at the end of the day, this job is about language. It's about making an argument that holds. It's about clarity under pressure. Philosophy gave me that foundation. Everything else I learned on the job.

At Flo Health, trust isn't a brand value. It's the entire foundation. When your product touches reproductive health, fertility, pregnancy — when it holds some of the most intimate data a person can share — trust isn't something you build through marketing. It's something you earn through every decision you make. Every word matters. Every policy decision is scrutinized. Every communication is a test of whether your users believe you're on their side. This isn't abstract. It's survival. If your audience doesn't trust you, they leave. And they should. That's what working in women's health taught me. Trust isn't a campaign. It's a condition. And you either meet it or you don't.