It started on the walk home from playgroup
In 2006, on the walk home from playgroup, a neighbour asked if I could write a newsletter for a small community development finance initiative.
I said yes without thinking much of it.
Someone at Microsoft UK picked up that newsletter and asked who’d written the stories.
At the time, I was working as a European technology correspondent — not someone you’d expect Microsoft’s director of citizenship to call.
But call me, she did.
Hired to research, kept on to write
She wanted someone who could work out what the company’s societal values looked like when they were actually lived — then find the people living them. The result was a book of thirty one-minute stories.
What I discovered, buried across teams and projects, were stories nobody had thought to tell because nobody had recognised their worth.
That project led to a long-term retainer as Microsoft’s CSR newshound — and crystallised something I’ve carried through every piece of work since:
Organisations doing remarkable work almost always have everything they need to prove it. They just haven’t found the whole story yet — the version that makes people believe, care, and act.
Finding the whole story isn’t just a writing task. And it’s not something you can outsource to a machine. It takes curiosity, judgement, and tact to ask difficult questions of the right people at the right time.
That neighbour on the walk home from playgroup had no idea she was handing me my life’s work: finding stories that move minds, and shaping them so they do.
Neither did I.
The playgroup walk was happenstance. What I did with the opportunity it led to wasn’t. That came from more than a decade in agency PR and strategic communications.
I learned the trade in the 1990s, and have since worked across PR, brand, journalism, training and development and storytelling for organisations ranging from global technology companies to local social enterprises and international impact ventures.
“Nicki has the ability to communicate the essence of a person, team, or organisation. She has done remarkable work in bringing to life the values of organisations.”
— Mike Pegg, author, The Art of Strengths Coaching
How I work
Four things matter: compassion, curiosity, creativity, and connectedness. Together, they help me find the story people can believe, care about, and act on. Underneath all four is a simple rule: the story has to be true — and whole.
1. Compassion: builds trust
→ People share their best thinking when they feel safe. You’ll be listened to properly before we start pushing for the whole story. Clarity emerges from trust, not pressure.
2. Curiosity: digs for what’s true
→ The whole story is usually hidden behind the safe one. I dig for it, then test what I find to ensure it’s true in the parts, honest in the frame, and complete enough to hold up when the difficult questions come.
3. Creativity: shapes the story
→ I shape what emerges into something people can understand and act on — something that reaches the people whose attention you need.
4. Connectedness: follows the thread
→ Every project belongs inside a bigger story. Together, we find the throughline.
I make strong cases for work that deserves to be seen. The line I won’t cross is fiction dressed as fact.
Got something important to say?
Let me know where you’re stuck. A few sentences will do.