September 26, 2024
September 26, 2024
Mission North began working with Tenable nearly eight years ago. During this time, we’ve forged a strong partnership, working closely with the PR team and executives, including Chief Communications Officer Michela Stribling. She joined Tenable in the lead up to their 2018 IPO after serving in a variety of communications, marketing and editorial leadership roles at big brands like Google, IBM and HP. She’s a strong team leader who understands the power of authentic communications, and the need to be mindful of all audiences.
I recently spoke to Michela about her approach to managing communications ahead of an IPO, and other lessons she’s learned throughout her career. Here is an edited version of our conversation.
Twenty years ago, Google was expanding globally and preparing for an IPO when they hired you to build their internal communications department. What are some of the lessons learned from that moment that you take with you today?
Google was a wild ride. Every day was a masterclass in something. As the internal comms lead at Google pre-IPO, I focused a lot on alignment. Everybody has to be invested and understand what you're rowing toward. You absolutely need your team to be as inspired, invested, and energized to achieve great things, so employee communications is critical.
To prepare for your IPO, you have to work on your investor deck, the road show, the PR and all that. But once you're public, that's when the race really starts. You need to execute with precision and discipline, and you behave differently. For example, there are things you can tell your employees when you're privately held that you absolutely cannot tell them when you're publicly held. That requires a culture shift.
<split-lines>"Everybody has to be invested and understand what you're rowing toward. You absolutely need your team to be as inspired, invested, and energized to achieve great things..."<split-lines>
What advice would you give to companies in the lead up to going public with regard to internal comms?
Don't make internal communications an afterthought. Employee communication should be an extension of all the other work you're doing in PR. In fact, the best employee comms people have worked in PR – it's a fluid exchange between executive communication, PR and internal comms because they understand how to ladder the messaging up and down accordingly. In an era where employees all have publication platforms, can press record and then unleash confidential internal communications online, you need to think about what it means to be open, respectful and transparent.
Taking a company public places tremendous stress on your systems. It’s important to build a foundation of trust during the really, really good times, because there are going to be hard times. If you can talk to your employees and show some vulnerability, then you’ll receive grace in return.
<split-lines>"...You need to think about what it means to be open, respectful and transparent."<split-lines>
Recognizing that the markets ultimately dictate when a company goes public, what is your advice for a comms lead at a company that may have an IPO on the horizon?
People tend to underestimate how much time and preparation goes into an IPO. My advice is to start early. This is not an exhaustive list, but some specific guidelines are:
- Set your employee communications guardrails to act like a publicly traded company before you go public.
- Create detailed plans and work streams with clear owners in the leadup to IPO day.
- Assess your team's strengths and weaknesses going into the process because IPOs are hugely stressful. You may need to switch your agency or hire different people who have complementary skills and mindsets that will set you up for success.
- Think about dependencies and multiple ‘if, then’ scenarios, including crisis mitigation and planning.
- Create a PR plan for every geography where you operate.
- Train your employees on their responsibility to represent the brand on social media.
- The work doesn't end on listing day. Plan for the first quarter of results reporting and how that will change the cadence of your employee comms.
The work that we do as communications professionals is critical to the business, and that's never more true than during an IPO. You have to work in lockstep with your CEO, CFO, general counsel, and the whole C-suite. You need to brief them regularly on the plan, stress test and confirm your assumptions, and adjust the approach accordingly.
<split-lines>"The work that we do as communications professionals is critical to the business, and that's never more true than during an IPO."<split-lines>
And remember to have fun! There’s nothing quite like ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange!
