#WeLeadComms: Aanya Nanda

London-based communication leader Aanya Nanda is today’s #WeLeadComms honoree.

In her words:

“Just this week alone, I’m supporting a global pharma company as it works out how to introduce its brand into a new therapeutic area. At the same time, I’m helping a listed company understand how to get its business case across to its investor audience. And (!) alongside that, I’m helping B2B teams navigate why their key stakeholders; including consumers, employees, investors, the media…are arriving at their website, but no longer behaving the way they did a year ago.

“I’d challenge anyone to find another role that offers this level of variety so early on in a career. It’s one of the biggest reasons I chose to work in communications, and one of the reasons I’m so glad I did. 

“I’m Aanya, an Enterprise Solutions Executive at IDX in their London HQ. I work across multiple sectors, and my clients typically run corporate communications, marketing and digital channels. Two main threads run through nearly all our conversations. Firstly, visibility. When someone asks AI about an organisation, something gets said, and until recently almost nobody working in comms could tell you where that narrative was taken from. The second is evidence. I work with data that shows what content is landing for large corporations and what isn’t. Who is arriving at their sites, what they do when they get there, and how those behaviours are shifting.

“The advantage of working across sectors is not breadth for its own sake. It is that a constraint in one industry is sometimes the tested solution in another, and you only see that if you are in the room for both. We cut through the noise and make communication solutions that drive meaningful change, using the breadth of knowledge gained from having not just one vertical lens. 

“This has been instrumental in my thoughts about AI adoption. The part of my work, I care about most! Most organisations do not have a capability problem. They have a hesitation to just get going. People wait to be trained, or they treat these tools as a slightly better search box. The gap between the two grows, until it becomes a real disadvantage that is genuinely visible, and soon after extremely frustrating.

“If you want my advice, if you don’t know how to use AI simply ask it. That may sound silly, but it really isn’t. This is the first technology that can explain itself, using your language, on your terms. Don’t wait, be curious. No training module can anticipate every pain point in your role. But you can. So be curious and open minded to enjoy the benefits of what AI can do for you…and of course your clients and workflows. 

“In my opinion, curiosity gets you a long way with AI adoption, but your judgement is what tells you where YOU add value. Case in point: I love writing far too much to hand this over, so I didn’t. Thank you for reading… written by Aanya, not AI!”

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