Natalie Swanser, MSc FCSCE CIIC MCIPR's CSCE Voice
Natalie Swanser, MSc FCSCE CIIC MCIPR
Senior Strategic Communication Consultant & Speaker: Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare & the wider Life Sciences sector
NS Communications Ltd
Learn more about Natalie Swanser, MSc FCSCE CIIC MCIPR Below
1. Why did you join the CSCE?
I joined because the articles, materials and conversations I had seen from the CSCE made me stop and really think. There was a level of depth there that really appealed to me, not in an overly academic or inaccessible way by any means, but in a way that showed real care for communication as a discipline. I liked that the questions being asked were not only about what we do, but about why we do it, how we think about it and what kind of responsibility comes with it. That felt very aligned with the way I have come to understand my own work. The CSCE felt like a space where critical thinking, professional curiosity and practical experience could sit together. That really inspired me then and continues to inspire me today. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?
2. What’s one thing you strongly believe about communication?
I believe communication has consequences. It can help people understand, trust and act, but it can also reduce people to assumptions, make change feel heavier than it needs to feel, or create confidence where there is not enough clarity behind it. A lot of my recent thinking has been around responsible communication and strategic restraint. Sometimes our job is to help an organisation speak., whereas other times it is to help an organisation pause, listen properly, check the evidence and understand the likely effect of what it is about to say. That is not about making communication less confident in the slightest, it is actually about making it more responsible. Good communication should not only be visible, it should also be useful, proportionate and honest about the complexity of the issue.
3. What are you currently focused on professionally?
I am currently focused quite deeply on accurate representation in healthcare and pharmaceutical communication. That includes the visible things, such as the use of stock imagery and how patients, families and communities are shown, but it also goes much further than that. I am interested in the language we use, the personas we create, the assumptions that sit inside internal decks and the way organisations describe the people they are ultimately here to support. I have been thinking a lot about what happens before something reaches the outside world. Before a patient sees a campaign, a leaflet, a website, a support programme or a public statement, there is often already an internal version of that person moving around the organisation. That version might be evidence based and thoughtful. It might also be narrow, passive, overly emotional, overly grateful, hard to reach, non-compliant, vulnerable, inspirational or simplified beyond recognition. The Chiesi UK ‘True Faces of Rare’ campaign and research paper written with Metabolic Support has been a useful reference point for me in this area, particularly around moving away from generic or tokenistic representation and towards something more honest, specific and respectful. Alongside this, I am still focused on change communication, strategic narrative, leadership communication and ethical advocacy in pharmaceutical settings. They all connect for me because they come back to the same question…what is communication doing in the real world, not just on the dashboard?
4. What conversation do you think communication professionals need to have more often?
I think we need to have a more honest conversation about impact and what we really mean when we use that word. We are much better as an industry than we used to be at measuring what happens in the moment. We can look at reach, engagement, coverage, attendance, sentiment and interaction. Those things are important and I would never argue that they do not matter, but I think the profession needs to talk more about the impact that is harder to see straight away. What does our communication change over time? What does it make easier for people to understand? What does it make easier for organisations to repeat without questioning? What does it protect people from, especially during change, complexity or uncertainty? What does it unintentionally make heavier, narrower or less human? That is where I think communication professionals have a really important role to play. We are often close to the language, the framing, the stories and the materials that shape how people understand decisions, change, science, leadership and the people an organisation exists to serve. That might include a patient persona in a healthcare deck, a change narrative for employees or the way a complex issue is simplified for different audiences. Those choices do not always stay where they start, they travel, they get repeated and they become part of how people think, decide and act. So, I would love for us to talk more about impact in that fuller sense. Not only did the message land, but what did it leave behind?
5. What’s something outside work that brings you joy, energy or perspective?
My daughter brings me the most joy and perspective. Every year, I plan her birthday party around the things she loves most and it has become one of my favourite creative briefs. I try to make it colourful, memorable and sustainable, using crafts, reused materials and imagination wherever I can. It is the one brief where I actively choose to bring every part of myself into it. She also makes the world feel much less abstract in a number of ways. Politics has become far more human since becoming a parent. Not the performative side of it, but the real life consequences of decisions about education, health, climate, equality, public trust and how we treat people who need support. Children notice the world adults build around them, they notice what is valued, what is ignored, who is listened to and how people are spoken about. That gives me perspective every day and it is probably why I care so much about communication too.
6. What topics, challenges or interests would you love to connect with other members about?
I would love to connect with people who enjoy bringing theory into practice. I do not mean theory as something that sits separately from real work, I mean using it to make better sense of what we are seeing every day. So many brilliant communicators, researchers and thinkers have come before us and I think there is something really powerful in using that work to sharpen our judgement rather than leaving it in academic spaces. I am always interested in speaking with people who are practical in how they work, but still willing to go further than the obvious answer and ask what is really happening underneath it.
Anything else you’d like the community to know about you?
Website: www.nscommunicationsltd.com
