This interview is part of a series called “The Compelling Communicator,” which is devoted to hearing from McKinsey leaders about the latest trends, insights, and thinking in strategic and change communications. Following are lightly edited excerpts from Mrinalini’s interview with Noorain Nadim, a knowledge specialist in McKinsey’s Dubai office.
Noorain Nadim: Mrina, tell us about yourself.
Mrinalini Reddy: I’m now in my fourth role at McKinsey. I’ve spent time in our offices in New York, Singapore, and Amsterdam (a short-term transfer). Each job has been connected with communication, whether writing for the McKinsey Quarterly or then looking after in-house communications for McKinsey’s offices in Asia or my current role as an expert in our Strategic & Change Communications Practice. Nowadays I spend my time partnering with clients across industries on strategic communications, usually in the context of transformational change.
I actually started my career in fund management in Los Angeles. I switched to writing and publishing after my master’s degree in journalism. After more than a decade of studying and working across the US, I found my way to Singapore, and I’ve served clients in most markets across Asia–Pacific now.
It’s been fascinating to be in Asia over the last decade, both in terms of its wide range of cultural and organizational contexts but also learning to be agile and entrepreneurial within a firm like McKinsey. My day-to-day work is focused on clients, often working flexibly across multiple engagements. And then within our practice globally, we regularly collaborate on developing new knowledge, and we take time to coach and mentor each other.
Noorain Nadim: What communications trends are top of mind for you and your clients right now?
Mrinalini Reddy: I’d say there are some recurring themes as much as trends. ESG has been a trend for some years now, but what’s new is strategy resets explicitly driven by ESG considerations. We’ve picked this up in McKinsey’s recent global survey of how organizations are addressing ESG. As communications professionals, we’re being asked for and about ESG-led narratives for investors, internal and external stakeholders, and how this can be incorporated into reporting.
Another theme we’re seeing is operating effectively in hybrid settings. More and more organizations are settling into a new equilibrium for time in and away from traditional workplaces, but there’s still much work to do in terms of preserving a great people and culture experience. Leaders have to communicate fluently across channels and formats if they’re to reach all of their audiences, and organizations need communications structures and mechanisms that can reconcile in-person collaboration and remote work.
Finally, you won’t be surprised I’m going to mention generative AI. The theme around this trend is very practical: How can you get AI to help manage the nuts and bolts of content creation and personalization so you can focus better on strategy and creation? Certainly, in communications, so far AI has been about empowering humans, not replacing them.
Noorain Nadim: With a proliferation of channels and stakeholders, how are your clients getting their signal to cut through the noise?
Mrinalini Reddy: It is challenging. And as always, you have to decide who and where to invest. I’m seeing this play out at a large client. They have more than 50,000 colleagues in multiple business units. They’ve developed a number of different digital solutions and are trying to scale them internally. They have so many internal communications channels at the enterprise, functional, and individual team levels, and messages were just not sticking. We had to take a step back and really dig into what it was they were trying to achieve. In their case, it was getting buy-in from senior stakeholders and building confidence in the solutions so they would be willing to test and roll out. That really sharpened our approach, and we’ve been working on improving the quality of one-to-ones, as well as an external strategy to build brand reputation and credibility for the solutions.
Noorain Nadim: In this always-on world, how do you decompress and unplug?
Mrinalini Reddy: Maybe it’s not a coincidence that I just completed my fourth trek in Nepal in five years. It’s my most intense form of decompression, and it works! Being in nature, switching off my devices, walking, having undistracted conversations—all of this makes a trek an amazing experience.
When I’m at home, I love playing tennis, going for weekend walks in the parks, and spending time with friends and family. It’s even better when those worlds come together. Books are another great escape. I’ve also learned to switch off most of the notifications on my phone and avoid downloading apps unless I really, really need them.
Noorain Nadim: We’re always keen on development advice. What’s the best you’ve been given?
Mrinalini Reddy: I can share three pieces of advice that have shaped my career.
First, just go where the smiles are. It’s always more motivating to work with people who are happy to help and give you genuinely helpful feedback. And that’s where you’re going to build and nurture friendships over time.
Then second, know what it is that gives you energy. I’ve got better at acknowledging what will excite me and thus reflecting honestly about my choices. That’s true on a day-to-day basis, and it’s true within a day. There are micro things I do to start the day or week on a positive note or to reset during the day.
And then third, take a team-first approach. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If you really do work collaboratively, you achieve big goals, you get through challenging situations, and you build long-lasting camaraderie. But healthy team culture needs to be shaped actively, ideally starting at the top. It doesn’t just happen by itself.
Comments and opinions expressed by interviewees are their own and do not represent or reflect the opinions, policies, or positions of McKinsey & Company or have its endorsement.