Enjoy complimentary coffee, tea and continental breakfast as you meet your fellow attendees. Sign-in, pick up your materials and enjoy a continental breakfast before we start the day.  

Welcome to the 3rd Annual Strategic Corporate Communications West Conference. In this fast-paced forum, you'll get to know your fellow peers, their biggest internal communications challenges, and a few fun facts. 

What happens when a real controversy spawns a fictional one? During an active legislative controversy, an AI-generated news outlet published a fabricated version of the event, altering key facts and creating confusion about what had actually occurred. As the real and AI-generated narratives began to blur, our communications team faced an unprecedented challenge: maintaining a shared understanding of the facts while managing two interconnected controversies at the same time. This case study explores practical lessons in leadership communications, stakeholder alignment, frontline staff preparation, and crisis response in an era where generative AI can rewrite the story in real time.

This session examines how organizations maintain strong internal communication when budgets, staff, or tools are constrained. The focus is on prioritization, clarity, and effective use of existing channels. 

Key Takeaways 

• What to prioritize when resources are limited 

• Ways to maximize impact using current tools 

• How clarity outperforms volume in internal messaging 

Enjoy complimentary coffee, tea, and other refreshments as you network with your peers. 

In times of organizational change, mixed signals from leadership can quickly erode trust and disrupt frontline operations. This session presents an enterprise-scale case study from MGM Resorts International, sharing how to align corporate messaging and establish a single source of truth across a complex workforce of 60,000+ employees. Attendees will walk away with scalable, cross-industry strategies to ensure your leadership team speaks with a unified voice during times of transition.

This case study examines how organizations foster connection and shared purpose across locations and time zones. It highlights leadership communication and consistent practices. 

Key Takeaways 

• Communication behaviors that reinforce culture 

• The role of leadership visibility 

• Why consistency matters more than frequency 

Reservations have been made at a number of local restaurants. Don't miss this opportunity to have lunch with your peers at a local Seattle hot spot!
 

**Everyone is financially responsible for their own lunch.** 

In this interactive session, participants work through realistic communication scenarios where speed, transparency, and risk compete. Small groups choose a response path, weigh the tradeoffs, and discuss how different decisions can build or damage trust over time. The session highlights how judgment and alignment matter as much as messaging.

Most brands don't get to reset their voice. They inherit one. After acquisitions, leadership changes, pivots, or category shifts, companies end up with a patchwork of identities, competing executive instincts, and aspirational language. This session will offer a framework that communications leaders can utilize to clarify brand identity. Sharing her own experience with the Napster brand as a case study, Gillian Sheldon, Global Head of Communications at Napster will demonstrate how to reconcile your brand’s past with its present, align executive voices, create employees who are brand champions, and position communications as a strategic function whether you are experiencing minor turbulence or a major transformation.

Key Takeaways:

• Inherited brands can be simplified with the right framework.
• Your brand history can strengthen, not limit, your message.
• Aligned leaders and employees turn communications into strategy.

Recharge with coffee, light snacks, and great company. This informal networking break gives you the perfect opportunity to connect with peers, exchange ideas, and spark collaborations before heading back into the sessions. 

This panel examines both the promise and perils of artificial intelligence in communications. Topics include AI transformation across industries, jobs that will evolve versus disappear, ethics in AI deployment, required human capabilities for relevance, and where AI enhances versus where human judgment remains essential. 

Don't stop the conversation! Join us at the lobby bar as you network with your peers. Participate in raffles & sign-up for dinner with your peers! 

Want to keep the conversation going? Join a group of attendees for dinner at a local Seattle hot spot. Sign-up at the registration desk or during the networking reception to join a group at tonight's dine-around. Reservations have been made.
 

**Everyone is financially responsible for their own lunch.** 

Enjoy complimentary coffee, tea and breakfast as you network with fellow attendees on this final day. 

Together we will recap yesterday's top takeaways and set the stage for this final day of learning. 

RailPros uncovered a familiar but often misdiagnosed challenge in employee advocacy: employees wanted to share company content—but hesitated because they were afraid of “getting it wrong.” Instead of viewing this as lack of engagement, we focused on building confidence at scale.

In this session, learn how RailPros designed and launched a Social Media Ambassador Program that removes barriers and makes participation simple, safe, and effective. Backed by executive buy-in and built by a cross-functional team, the program includes a bespoke training course grounded in real-world examples — posts, scenarios, and clear dos and don’ts — that will be showcased during the session. We’ll also cover how a phased rollout strategy (starting with conference attendees and internal award winners) helped build momentum and refine the approach before expanding company wide.

To keep effort low for employees while maximizing impact, the program provides optional, ready-to-use tools such as pre-approved messaging and custom social graphics for employees featured internally, empowering them to share externally with ease. The result is a scalable, low-effort model that turns willing employees into confident advocates and meaningfully expands brand reach.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to unlock employee advocacy by addressing confidence, not willingness
• Tactics for securing executive buy-in and cross-functional ownership
• How to build a practical, real-world training program employees will actually use
• Why phased rollouts (starting with high-impact groups) accelerate adoption
• Ways to reduce effort for employees while driving measurable communication impact

In this fireside chat, senior communication leaders reflect on navigating moments when there are no clear playbooks. The conversation explores how experience, values, and judgment shape decisions around sensitive issues, stakeholder pressure, and reputational risk. This session offers honest insight into what leaders wish they had known earlier and how communicators can prepare for complexity, not certainty. 

Enjoy complimentary coffee, tea, and other refreshments as you network with your peers. 

This session challenges participants to connect communication decisions directly to business outcomes. Teams design a message, select channels, and define how success would be measured beyond basic activity metrics. The focus is on proving value in ways leaders understand and expect. 

Addresses the challenges of communicating in a polarized environment. Panelists discuss how organizations navigate sensitive issues, manage differing stakeholder expectations, and protect trust and reputation during periods of heightened tension and uncertainty.