Project: COVID-19 Crisis Communications

Unified Response & Communications Leadership

Challenge:

In early 2020, just after Prysmian Group acquired General Cable, the newly integrated company became the largest wire and cable manufacturer in North America, with 5,800 employees across 23 plants and 6 R&D centers. As the COVID-19 crisis rapidly unfolded, the organization faced unprecedented demands: protecting employee health, maintaining plant operations, ensuring transparency with customers, and communicating consistently across a newly expanded network.

Adding to the complexity, Prysmian’s Corporate Headquarters in Milan, Italy—one of the earliest and hardest-hit regions of the pandemic—was operating under strict lockdowns. With limited centralized support available from Europe, the North American team had to lead the communications response, setting protocols, messaging strategies, and employee engagement plans from the ground up.

At the time, there was no existing crisis communications framework, messaging was fragmented, and operational leaders lacked a centralized strategy or channel to effectively reach and engage employees and customers in real time.

Solution:

As the head of marketing and communications and a member of the North American Leadership Team (NALT), I led the full internal and external communications response. I served as the communications partner to our CEO, VP of HR, VP of Operations, VP of Quality, Health & Safety, and Commercial leaders—translating evolving business priorities into clear, actionable messaging. Highlights include:

• Executive Collaboration & Strategic Messaging:

  • Partnered with all NALT functions to create unified messaging around health, safety, operational continuity, and customer commitment.

  • Established a message architecture grounded in three pillars—Health & Safety, Business Continuity, and Customer Excellence—to ensure clarity across all touchpoints.

• Employee Engagement & Operational Communications:

  • Issued 20+ executive communications covering protocols, policy changes, and site-level updates in coordination with HR, Safety, and Operations leadership.

  • Created an 11-edition bilingual newsletter tailored to plant teams and frontline workers to ensure consistent and inclusive communication across all sites. Before the newsletter there was no direct communication to 75% of our workforce.

  • Produced internal safety videos, multilingual signage, and video messages from leadership to build trust, reinforce critical behaviors, and support plant-level compliance efforts.

  • Distributed multilingual educational materials alongside PPE safety kits, promoting understanding of new procedures and personal accountability across diverse workforces.

• Customer Confidence & Sales Enablement:

  • Developed comprehensive customer updates, continuity plans, FAQs, and editable templates for sales teams to maintain aligned, proactive outreach.

• Digital Asset Innovation:

  • Reimagined a newly implemented marketing Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform into a centralized COVID-19 Communications Hub.

  • Served as the company’s most visited internal resource during the pandemic, with 999+ unique views in just 60 days.

  • Created a single source of truth to ensure real-time access, message consistency, and operational alignment across all departments and facilities.

  • Housed all critical COVID-19 communication materials, including:

    • Executive memos and plant-level policy updates

    • Health and safety protocols and response guidelines

    • Multilingual educational materials and on-site signage

    • PPE distribution instructions and supporting collateral

    • Customer letters, FAQs, and editable sales templates

    • Internal campaign assets and leadership messaging toolkits

  • Enabled faster decision-making and streamlined distribution of up-to-date information during rapidly evolving phases of the crisis.

• CSR & Community Leadership:

  • Amplified employee-led efforts such as 3D-printed PPE and community donations to drive internal morale and demonstrate external leadership.

Impact:

Unified crisis response across 5,800 employees and 29 facilities in North America through clear, consistent, and timely communications.

1. Strengthened customer confidence through transparent and responsive updates, preserving continuity amid global supply chain disruptions.

2. Closed critical communication gaps for plant-floor teams with the launch of a bilingual newsletter and centralized messaging hub.

3. Transformed a marketing tool (DAM) into the most valuable internal platform during the pandemic, streamlining access to real-time COVID resources.

4. Positioned marketing and communications as a core function in Prysmian’s crisis leadership model—setting a precedent for future cross-functional collaboration and change management.