Communications & transformation advisory
Clarity, when the organisation is in motion.
Apropos Consulting advises international organisations and their leaders on corporate positioning, executive narratives and stakeholder engagement in complex regulatory and societal environments, and on making transformation stick.
Fitting the moment, and to the point. Apropos is named for the standard the work has to meet. Say what matters, clearly, to the people who decide.
The work
Three practices that make complex organisations easier to understand.
Most organisations have a strategy. What they lack is a shared way of talking about it, inside the leadership team, across the matrix, and with the regulators, communities and institutions they answer to.
A corporate position is the single account of the company that holds up in the boardroom, in front of a regulator and at a staff meeting. We build that account with the executive team, then turn it into language leaders can use in their own words, in keynotes, investor conversations, media interviews and the internal meetings where people push back.
- Corporate narrative and messaging architecture
- CEO and executive-team positioning and thought leadership
- Narrative for leadership transitions, restructurings and M&A
- Executive communication coaching and speech development
Regulators, governments, industry bodies, communities, employees and journalists all watch an international organisation at once. We work out which of them actually shapes the outcome, what each of them needs to hear, and how to engage them steadily over time rather than only when a story breaks.
- Stakeholder mapping, prioritisation and engagement planning
- Corporate affairs and public affairs strategy
- Positioning on regulatory, health, sustainability and societal issues
- Issues preparation and reputation management
Most transformations fail in the gap between the announcement and what thousands of people actually do the following Monday. We give leaders a version of the change that still makes sense three levels down, then build the plan, the manager training and the regular communication that keep it going long after go-live.
- Change narrative and case-for-change development
- Change-management strategy for large-scale programmes (ERP, operating model, culture)
- Training leaders and change networks across functions and countries
- Measuring adoption and planning for the long term
When we are called in
The problems clients bring us.
Most engagements start just after a decision has been made, when it has to be explained to the people who were not in the room.
A new operating model has been announced, but not adopted.
The org chart changed but the way people work did not. Leaders need a clear explanation and a practical mechanism to make the new model real across regions and functions.
A regulatory or societal issue will reshape how the company is seen.
Scrutiny is rising, and the answer needs to be consistent and ready before a journalist or a regulator asks the question in public.
A leadership transition must carry both continuity and change.
A new CEO or executive team needs a voice of its own, without unsettling the people and institutions that trusted the last one.
A programme touches 100,000 people and a hundred stakeholder groups.
Large-scale change such as ERP, shared services or global process harmonisation, where communication decides whether people follow the process or believe in it.
The executive story sounds different in every market.
Positioning has drifted across countries and business units, and needs one credible version that local leaders can still adapt.
The communications function needs senior hands, now.
An interim head of communications or change lead who can join the executive team, steady the function and deliver while you recruit.
How we work
Four stages, in order.
The order matters. A narrative written before anyone has listened turns into a slogan, and engagement that starts before the leadership team agrees only adds noise. Working in sequence keeps what the organisation ends up living with close to what leadership actually decided.
Discuss an engagementListen
Structured conversations with the executive team, the people who will have to live with the change, and the outside stakeholders whose approval you need. We look for the gap between what leadership intends and what the organisation currently hears.
Frame
One account of where the organisation is going and why, precise enough to guide decisions and plain enough that people repeat it. We write it with the leaders who will use it rather than hand it over finished.
Align
We test the narrative across functions, regions, regulators and partners. Then we design how to engage each audience that shapes the outcome, and prepare leaders to hold their position in their own words.
Embed
Change management that outlasts the launch. We hand over the change network, the measures that show whether people have adopted it, and a regular communication routine, so the new way of working becomes normal.
Experience built inside
Senior in-house and programme roles held by the founder across pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, financial services and government.
About the founder
Isabelle Van Laethem
Isabelle founded Apropos Consulting after two decades leading communications, corporate affairs and change inside some of Europe's most scrutinised organisations. She spent nearly five years as Head of Communications at Roche Services & Solutions, the group's global business services organisation, working with its leadership team as they brought separate functions together into one organisation serving the whole of Roche. Over the same years she supported ASPIRE, Roche's global SAP S/4HANA programme, from its inception through a rollout that reached more than 100,000 employees. She also spent six years as Corporate Relations Director for Diageo across Benelux and Western Europe.
Earlier she held senior communications roles at Swiss Re, covering fourteen EMEA markets, and at Credit Suisse, and began her career as Advisor for General Policy in the cabinet of a Belgian Vice Prime Minister. Having worked on the corporate, regulatory and political sides, she knows how the same message lands differently in a boardroom, a ministry and on a factory floor.
She works in English, French, Dutch and German, lectures on communications and leadership at ISME Business School in Bordeaux, and divides her time between Bordeaux and Switzerland, where Apropos Consulting is registered.
Ways of working
Three ways to bring us in.
We shape each engagement around the decision in front of you rather than sell a standard product. Most take one of three forms, all contracted through Apropos Consulting GmbH.
Interim & embedded leadership
Isabelle joins the executive or programme leadership team as interim Head of Communications, Corporate Affairs or Change, typically for six to eighteen months, on site or hybrid.
Fits when a senior seat is vacant, a programme is at a critical phase, or the function needs rebuilding.
Defined engagement
A defined piece of work with a start and a finish, such as a corporate narrative, a stakeholder engagement strategy, or the change-management plan for a transformation.
Fits when the question is clear and the organisation will own the result.
Executive counsel
A standing advisory relationship with a CEO, executive team or transformation sponsor, usually monthly, with availability in between when something cannot wait.
Fits when leaders want an independent voice close to the decisions, without adding headcount.
“You know the change has landed when the new ways of working stop being new.”
Start a conversation
Tell us what has just been decided.
A first conversation costs nothing. Forty-five minutes on your situation, the stakeholders involved, and what needs to be true in six months. If we are not the right fit, we will say so and suggest who might be.