The global communications director for professional services behemoth PwC has a remit that is geographically mind-boggling. But with a comms network of 380 people, he has quite a team behind him. Neil Gibbons reports

Photographs by Sam Friedrich

Offices in 757 cities, a presence in 154 countries worldwide and an employee roll call of 161,000 people – so vast is professional services firm PwC, that Mike Davies is a global communications director with the emphasis very much on the ‘global’.

Davies is a softly-spoken Welshman who is overseeing an unusually challenging period in the communications function – in September 2010, PricewaterhouseCoopers completed a massive rebranding exercise to rename the firm PwC and roll out a new identity. With such an enormous stakeholder base and amid unrelenting competition from the rest of the Big 4 accountancy firms, it’s a challenge that provides the backdrop to what is an already daunting workload.

By way of support, Mike works with comms professionals in each of the countries in which PwC operates – in all, a global network of 380 people. “They do differ in levels of skill and how much time they dedicate to comms,” says Mike. “Some are in sophisticated markets like the US, others are in Mongolia. So a large part of my role is linking the network together, making sure we sing from same hymn sheet and have a similar perspective on key issues.”

He’s also tasked with promoting the business day to day and dealing with difficult issues that may arise. “And issues do arise that affect lots of global companies: the Japanese earthquake, trouble in the Middle East. Of course, we also have issues that are uniquely ours, and we do a lot of work to help people to respond by putting training in place.”

Of course, there’s also the internal communications task of connecting 161,000 PwC people. Moreover, PwC recruits 35,000 people around the world each year, including around 15,000 graduates. “That intake is itself a big community that we need to engage,” he says. As is the vast global alumni of the firm, many of whom remain potentially valuable contacts, potential clients or possible returnees.

But the most pressing task is the continued roll out of the firm’s new brand. “We’ve updated our corporate identity to help clarify our market position,” he says. “It’s a re-examination of how we communicate to the market place. For us it’s about trying to create a user-friendly interface between our stakeholders and PwC. In an industry like ours with so much technical expertise, it’s tempting to use language that’s understood by us. With our new brand positioning, we asked what do people understand or want to understand – so we can say, ‘Here’s what PwC does and here’s how it can help.’”

Making it stick and getting people behind the new identity has been a major programme since September. “The key lies in making our people understand they are the brand,” he says. “They’re the interface between clients and other stakeholders, and when they talk they represent the brand.”

That said, the new brand position isn’t a radical change. “It’s more of a tweak, a change of emphasis. It’s the start of simpler, direct, evidence-based communications. We decided not to have a big slam dunk change to our corporate identity system. A staggered programme made the transition easier.”

Mike admits that getting the firm’s own people engaged was a good opportunity to involve them in a longer discussion and explain how they can incorporate the new identity into the day to day. But it wasn’t easy. “People these days are bombarded with comms. So finding an opportunity to engage and get them looking at it in detail was a challenge.”

Externally, the rebrand wasn’t quite shouted from rooftops. Mike admits that PwC had had its fingers burned in 2002 when it loudly trumpeted the rebrand of its spin-off consulting entity Monday, only for the brand to be roundly rejected by audiences. “We got a lot of flak for that, so we were a little cautious this time,” he says. “We didn’t go out with a huge external campaign. There was no great advertising push.”

And all the while, the intense competition among the Big 4 rumbles on. Of course, all brands enjoy rivalries to some degree – but to what extent does competition of such magnitude shape Mike’s comms output?

“Obviously we look at our competitors,” he says. “But we don’t drive our comms from the perspective of trying to be different from them. You’d expect the Big 4 to have views that are broadly similar, but our comms focus is different I think. We don’t go in for much paid-for media. We focus on PR and thought leadership. Among any large competitors, creating absolute difference is always going to be difficult but you can make sure there’s a difference in how you’re viewed or talked about.”

The assuredness with which Mike discusses the corporate communications challenge belies the fact that he practically stumbled into the profession. Having graduated from University College Cardiff where he studied English Literature, Mike admits that he “didn’t have the faintest idea what I wanted to do”.

Instead of the usual flurry of job applications, he spent a couple of months travelling before heading to London and finding his first role in the marketing department of City University Business School, promoting courses and “dabbling in a little bit of public relations and events”.

“This was before the advent of university degrees for PR,” he says. “To be honest, I wasn’t really aware of PR. But I found I enjoyed PR work immensely.”

So when he came to look around for his next move, he sought a dedicated PR role and in 1987 found a job as PR officer for the Advertising Standards Authority.
“It was an interesting job,” he says. “They were just three of us in the team and my role included a whole range of activities from producing brochures to organising events and exhibitions.”

As part of a small organisation with a large profile, Mike enjoyed a great deal of visibility for a relative novice, appearing on That’s Life, as well as acting as ASA spokesman for broadcast interviews.

In 1989, he joined Legal & General, which had been looking to beef up its communications output. “There was quite a lot of deregulation in the 1980s, which meant that the financial services sector was waking up to the benefits of PR and comms.”

His mentor there was Gordon MacDonald, the highly regarded head of the press office. “Gordon was an old fashioned press man,” Mike recalls. “He’d look at a story and know straight away how to make it appeal. He was great at making connections with journalists and really knew how to sell a story in. It was a great learning experience for me.”

In this role, Mike secured his first ever front page lead for a piece of Legal & General research – a story in the Today newspaper about how women’s reluctance to return to work had seen their salaries rise by 25%. “I think I’ve still got a copy of it somewhere.”

He stayed in the role until 1991 before moving to the Prudential, a bigger insurance company with bigger budgets and a bigger comms team – in a bigger role. Although still relatively green, Mike was quickly appointed head of the press office, overseeing 20 staff.

Daunting perhaps, but Mike relished the opportunity and stayed for seven years during which he became head of internal and external communications and took on responsibility for brand communications and investor relations. This was his first experience of IR – “It helped me work out how the City ticked.”

Mike’s job was made easier by two factors. It was and is an organisation that was interested in communications and put cash behind it. And Mike was also helped by the fact that both CEO Mick Newmarch and his successor Peter Davis were able communicators, in their own different ways.

In 1998, Mike joined PwC, originally as European marketing director for its financial advisory business. “I thought I could do with a bit of a change,” he says. “But I did marketing for six months then decided I didn’t like it. However, they very nicely offered me a job in Brussels.”
Profile Mike Davies

“The fundamental elements are there now – promoting the business, connecting people together, promoting the brand. And if something doesn’t fit in with the strategy, we don’t do it”
 
Mike had always been politically active but had never worked in a dedicated public affairs role. So he jumped at the opportunity to join the 50-strong Brussels team as director of EMEA public affairs and the head of its European office.
Domestically, this proved challenging. His partner is a doctor and wasn’t able to relocate so for five years Mike spent his weekdays in Brussels and every weekend in the UK.

And the work? “I found it interesting and challenging. It was a new environment, with different dynamics for dealing with different audiences. I found that the basic principles don’t differ from audience to audience. But it was a big learning curve.”

His time in the role coincided with a period of sweeping regulatory change, not least the introduction of the EU’s 8th Company Law Directive. The directive would have a profound effect on the profession so, working with European member states, he helped wage a two-year campaign to communicate the PwC view on the proposed directive. He was also part of the big accounting firms’ European Group, which meant working very closely with colleagues from PwC’s competitors.

In 2003, Mike returned to the UK. His boss, the European director of communications was retiring and Mike stepped into the role for only 18 months; because it was then that he was appointed to the role of director of global communications. These were substantial career leaps in a relatively short period.

“I think I’d just been in the right position when the European and global directors were getting to retirement age,” he says modestly. “But I also had a good relationship with the global chairman, and had done a lot of work with him in Davos for example. He thought I’d be good for the job.”

The role had always been based out of New York but Mike hadn’t been back in the UK for long and, in the event, his being based in London made sense. “London has its advantages in terms of time zones.”

He quickly set about identifying his priorities. “The main thing – in terms of comms – was that we didn’t have a discernible strategy. We had a programme of activity but didn’t have a strategy you could explain to the board in 10 minutes or a clear sense of how all PR activity fitted into that. So I sat down with the team and looked at what our challenges were.”

Brian Bannister, PwC’s head of communications, points to “an incredibly astute communications strategist who is also seen as a great practitioner”.

He adds: “Mike uses humour and his very amenable personality to build really strong teams around him where he seems to command much more than simple professional trust, and where people who work for him put in extraordinary efforts to make his projects a success.

“He has an unerring ability for predicting how a story will play out in the media and picking the right approach and time to get his points across. In meetings, Mike is not usually the first person to speak or the loudest voice at the table but his is the point of view that others always seem to seek out. And he also has that enviable knack of commanding the trust and respect of his CEO and board.”

The work itself can be gruelling. As well as the travelling, the role’s geographic spread does mean that Mike’s working day is elongated by late night phone calls and early issues to address. “I am available. But I do have certain boundaries. I’m not allowed the Blackberry in the bedroom, for example. I’m also quite diligent about going on holiday.”

Last year’s holiday allowed Mike to indulge his love for swimming. While in Turkey, he followed in the footsteps of Lord Byron and swam the Hellespont crossing, a 5km stretch of sea that separates Europe to Africa.

Back at work, though, Mike manages to avoid choppy waters with the help of “a great group of colleagues”. Having deliberately recruited experienced professionals, Mike is happy to devolve responsibility to team members. “I’m very interested in results and output. I tell you where we want to be but don’t quite tell you how to get there. I’m not hands-off, but I grant leeway.”

Today, the team has shrunk a little at global level, with resources moved away from fixed costs to allow for more discretionary spend. And at the centre of it all is the strategy. “The fundamental elements are there now – promoting the business, connecting people together, promoting the brand. And if something doesn’t fit in with the strategy, we don’t do it.”

Curriculum Vitae: Mike Davies
2006 – present Global director of communications, PwC
2003 – 2006 Director of corporate communications, Europe, PwC
1999 – 2003 Director of EMEA public affairs and head of European office, PwC
1998 – 1999 European marketing & communications director, Financial Advisory Services Practice, PwC
1993 – 1998 Head of public relations, Prudential Corporation
1991 – 1993 Senior press officer, Prudential Corporation
1989 – 1991 Senior press officer, Legal & General
1987 – 1989 Public relations officer, Advertising Standards Authority
Education: BA English Literature 2:1 – University College, Cardiff
3 ‘A’ Levels, 10 ‘O’ Levels