“The Nomad” is a fortnightly published series where I talk to expat PR and Comms professionals, then delve into the insights which inform and help other people to live or to do business in an intercultural world. If you or someone you know would be happy to share their perspective, please get in touch! I’d love to hear from you.
As part of my series about how we can learn from intercultural insights to embed them into PR and Comms practices and help create positive social impact, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Ann Hughes, Director at Intent Health. Having worked in healthcare for more than fifteen years and worked and held leadership positions at some of the biggest agencies including Publicis Resolute, Red Door Communications and Galliard Healthcare Communications, Ann knows more than many about PR and Comms in general and healthcare comms in particular.
She holds a dual honours degree in Theatre and Communications, both from Tufts University in Boston. She says that “many skills acquired in theatre apply towards working in comms – ability to take and apply feedback, working as a team toward tight deadlines”.
We discussed the challenges of working with and within different cultures, the stereotype of being a “naïve American” and the importance of having an open mind and space for open dialogue.
Hi Ann, how are you doing? What’s been keeping you busy lately?
From a work perspective it’s been all about 2022 planning. Helping to launch Intent Health as a start-up in the last year has been intense and we’ve learned so much from it so we can go into next year with a clearer sense of what works and what needs work. Personally though I’ve been getting VERY excited about travelling back to the States with my fam, and for my young daughters to see their American grandparents and auntie and uncle and cousins for the first time in 2 years. Plus Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday – it’s all about the food and my mum makes amazing stuffing.
Can you tell us about your theatre background? How does that help you during your career in PR and Comms?
I was on a maths and science track, do doubt influenced by my ‘mad scientist’ father, when I got bit by the theatre bug my first year in uni. And I never looked back. For someone plagued by anxiety and perfectionist tendencies, rehearsing for a play is amazing for exactly that – playing. Trying things out and failing in a safe space. And it was an incredibly cathartic experience. Unfortunately it’s a challenging job to have and pay your rent in NYC. So I found myself blagging my way into a role at a PR agency in their burgeoning health business. And quickly learned that so many skills acquired in theatre applied – ability to take and apply feedback, working as a team toward tight deadlines (the show must go on!), problem-solving on your feet and self-awareness…I was one of the few juniors who despite being bored in meetings recognised that it was better at least to ACT like I was interested. Which means that whenever I see a CV or speak with someone with a theatre background I’m always very encouraging of them to consider trying out the business world because they’ve got such relevant transferable skills.
What brought you to the career of PR and Comms? Did you stumble upon it, or is it something you always wanted to do? And why healthcare comms?
So my mum worked in PR for the local Veterans Hospital and she really loved her job. I’ve always kept a journal, loved reading and writing and writing is a core PR skill. I’ve prefer to ‘think out loud’ by bouncing ideas around verbally and then the process of writing has always helped bring clarity to that thinking. So when I started in PR from acting and started progressing based on my skills, vs whether I looked the part or sounded the part or knew the director, it sounds ridiculous but it was really refreshing. But the truth is – my PR mum put her foot down on my acting career and told me to get a job. I just had no idea at the time it’d become my career!
What are the differences between the PR landscapes of the US and UK?
This is a tough one because I’ve not lived and worked in the US for over 15 years. And the roles I’ve had here have mainly been global or pan-EU roles where my work hasn’t necessarily had a direct impact on the U.K. market. But a big difference I noticed immediately upon moving here and buying every tabloid and broadsheet was how much more sensational the media is in the UK. Mind you this was before Trump and ‘always on’ culture of the constant churn of the news cycle. Now I think the differences lie most in the working culture – I’ve worked on accounts where we would partner with a US team and there’s still the sense that people are working longer hours and it’s a very competitive atmosphere. Not that it can’t be in the U.K. but there’s far more emphasis on getting a better balance.
The healthcare system of the United States and the United Kingdom closely represent the extremes — the former has the largest private-sector system, while the latter has one of the largest public-sector systems (Bolnick, 2002) – They are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Can you share with us your experience as a citizen, but also as a PR practitioner?
I’m both a US and a U.K. citizen. I never had a broken bone before moving to the U.K. so my experience of the US system was as a relatively well person with no acute medical needs. In the U.K., I’ve experienced the NHS via birthing my twin daughters and through the lens of getting to know people living with various conditions and healthcare professionals I meet through work. The US system was so badly in need of an overhaul when ‘Obama Care’ came along to rectify the fact that too many people were dying if they couldn’t afford healthcare. On the flip side, my work has seen me campaign against NICE decisions not to fund certain cancer treatments because the risk/benefit profile wasn’t favourable enough to justify the cost. These are incredibly tough calls to make, and neither side gets it right all the time. The more the US edges towards a universal healthcare system the better, but the NHS, whilst brilliant for maternity services and cancer care, needs help too.
You’ve been working in healthcare comms for more than 15 years and worked for some of the biggest names in health comms, but recently decided to make the move to a smaller start-up company. What was your thinking behind that decision? And why?
I had already made the decision to leave my corporate job because I just didn’t feel much purpose in it, and finding purpose in my work had become increasingly important to me. I loved the people and the work; I was less a fan of just making money for faceless shareholders. My clients were getting the best of me and my family was getting the leftovers. So I knew I needed to make a change, I just didn’t know to what, but I sensed the first step was to stop doing what I was doing in order to make space and time for my next move. And literally 3 months into it, the pandemic hit and someone needed to look after our 4 year old twins and that fell to me, since I was no longer in full time work and my partner was. In that time I realised that I definitely missed work, and I also found myself tuning in more to the social injustice going on particularly at the time in the US with George Floyd (which I now recognise as total BS and white privilege that such events weren’t constantly on my radar) and found myself taking a cold hard look at my very white middle class bubble. I was questioning things and how I could use my skills more intentionally, not for posting black squares on Instagram, when an email from Jane landed in my inbox. We spoke and she shared with me the premise and vision for Intent. And also said she’d already hired a ‘…f*cking awesome junior who’s got his Masters in PR and doing this incredible blog…’ So here we are!!!
When we’re talking about managing different people with different (cultural) mindsets and growing a team, that normally comes with a few challenges. Have you faced any challenges and what are the lessons learnt?
Being part of a team with different cultural mindsets wasn’t new to me – working in pharma on a global and pan-EU level I was often in meetings where I was the only native English speaker and I really relished that. Working in the US, everyone was usually American and here I was part of a cross-functional, multi-national team launching the latest breast cancer treatment and it was just so interesting, so much richer, people coming at problem solving from different perspectives and all striving toward a common goal. Plus so many people learn English by watching American television so my accent was far better understood than my UK colleagues 😉
That said – there can be cultural challenges when it comes to where people’s natural expectations and processes for decision-making come from and Erin Meyer lays it out through research published in her book The Culture Map. It’s essential reading for anyone working in a multi-cultural environment. And one of the challenges can be communications style – some cultures are more direct, so you always know where you stand [think Germany, and the US], in other cultures what people say doesn’t necessarily match up with their actions [the UK is further towards this spectrum]. So I found this tricky to navigate at first – but also I just try to take every person as they are, as an individual, I try to understand their unique context and where they’re coming from. So it wasn’t until years later and it was all laid out in The Culture Map that I could look back retrospectively and think ‘yes, that makes sense.’
How have the intercultural insights helped you during your career, if at all?
I’ve maybe played into the ‘naive American’ stereotype on occasion so I could get away with asking dumb questions. It gives people permission to be the teacher, bringing me in on their point of view and allows for more open dialogue where I can explore issues coming from a place of total curiosity, having fun and ‘playing’ with problems rather than it being an obvious, solution-driven mindset. You can use your position as ‘the outsider’ to your advantage, like the child asking ‘why,’ and no one is going to look down on you for not already knowing the answer, which invites loads more dialogue and back and forth.
What are your predictions for the (healthcare) PR and Comms landscape in 2022? Are there any trends to watch?
I am a bit rubbish with trends and predictions, unless it’s to do with fashion trends coming out of Sex and the City 🙂 Seriously though – I think the industry has finally woken up to the fact that representation and equity is appalling and companies are taking action. But a friend at a big agency said to me in reference to our mission at Intent that they were only 2-3 yrs behind, so how will we compete and I just laughed because it shows that people don’t realise how much work getting it right entails, and it’s so systemic it’s not going to be fixed overnight. Then we can see this cascading down to our healthcare clients, where a starting point for many has been engaging in gathering data and insights to understand the health inequities that exist in the disease areas for which they have treatment solutions. It’s essential these are better understood and defined if we’re going remove the barriers to addressing them.
Can you tell us about your love for Sex and the City? What are the must-see places when we go to New York?
Yasssss, thought you’d never ask. I mean, it’s a totally fantastical world, complete escapism. No way could Carrie afford that West Village apartment and all those shoes on her writer’s salary. My uni mate lives opposite to where where the exterior shots of Carrie’s place are actually filmed; she’s got a PhD and is a sought-after sex therapist and SHE can’t even afford her rent! But what IS real is that bond and banter between the ladies, I’ve always been part of a group of girls and that’s what I love. One day we will go to NYC together – we’ll hit up my fave cheeseburger place in the West Village called Corner Bistro and then head to Magnolia Bakery for banana pudding. Better than sex 😉
