#WeLeadComms: Jessica Gibson Yadav

Today’s #WeLeadComms honors go to India-based communication leader Jessica Gibson Yadav.  

Jessica started her career writing content. Not crafting strategy, not advising leadership, not building culture frameworks. Just writing.

It was 2017. She was a Content Writer at Info Edge, fresh out of a Master’s in Journalism from Lucknow University, five gold medals in hand, and figuring out, like most people at that stage, what she actually wanted to build.

“What I didn’t know then was that I had already found it. I just hadn’t discovered what to call it yet.”

Nearly a decade later, Jessica leads Corporate Communications and Culture at Damco Solutions, a 1,500-person global organization spanning India, the US, and the UAE. The role doesn’t fit neatly into one box. It spans internal communications, employee experience, culture transformation, employer branding, EVP strategy, mental health and wellbeing ecosystems, and change communication. She partners directly with the CEO and CHRO and is the strategic lead for all of it. The journey from content writer to this chair went through Dun and Bradstreet, HCL Technologies, and programs that touched employees across the US, UK, APAC, EMEA, the Middle East, and Australia.

The part of the work she is most passionate about is culture.

“Culture isn’t a value on a wall. It’s how people feel on a Monday morning. It’s whether a new joiner feels welcomed or just onboarded. It’s whether employees trust that leadership is being honest with them. Communication is the thread that holds all of that together, and when it’s done with intention, organizations transform from the inside out.”

Which is why what she sees in India troubles her.

Jessica sat in journalism and mass communication classrooms and was told about reporting, anchoring, advertising, and PR. Not once did anyone mention that a career like this existed. Internal communication is one of the youngest functions in the country, and for her, this is personal.

“I was that student. If it wasn’t on the map for someone who was actively building a life in communications, it isn’t on the map for most.”

She is now on a mission to change that. To walk into colleges and universities, show up in conversations, and tell young people that there is a space in the professional world where strategy, storytelling, culture, and people all converge.

“That space is internal communications, and it is one of the most meaningful careers you can build.”

Jessica started by writing words. Now she helps organizations find theirs.

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