#WeLeadComms: Marsela Ivanova

Today’s #WeLeadComms honors go to Brussels-based communication leader Marsela Ivanova.

In her words:

“I have always been more interested in what people mean than what they say.

“I spent almost seven years at ZN, a digital communications agency in Brussels, rising from Project Manager to Senior Account Manager and Strategic Advisor, joining the senior management team at 27. I worked with EU institutions, UN programmes, and corporate clients, led integrated campaigns, grew accounts, and was consistently drawn to the work that sat at the edge of communication and strategy. Later, I moved into the corporate sector, supporting a company-wide organisational initiative at Toyota Motor Europe, contributing to workforce analysis, capability planning, and long-term operating model design across European markets.

“What all of that taught me is how much communication depends on trust. Not the polished kind, but the kind that gets built when people feel genuinely heard, when messages reflect what is actually true, and when the distance between what is said and what is meant stays small.

“That is what I keep coming back to: communication that does not just inform but actually connects. Change that is built with people, not delivered to them. And helping people, particularly women, find and trust their own voice, not just use it in service of someone else’s message.

“I hold a BA in International Relations with Honours from the University of Leeds and an MA in Digital Media and Society from KU Leuven, where I graduated with Distinction. I am originally from Bulgaria and have built my career in Belgium over the past eight years.

“Outside work, I am training for a 20K in Rome this autumn. I ran my first 10K this spring. I read compulsively, and go to ceramics every week at an atelier in Leuven, where I signed up specifically to remind myself that being bad at something is occasionally very good for the ego.”

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