Today we’re joined by Sara Kenny – Communications and Marketing Manager at Biodiversify – for a rich conversation on the power of messaging, the art of communications strategy, and why brand matters in conservation.

We dig into Sara’s journey from zoology and human rights into charity communications, and now, leading communications and marketing for one of the UK’s most distinctive biodiversity consultancies. She reflects on brand-building, crafting effective messages, collaborating with corporates, and the role of hope in tackling environmental issues.

We also explore careers advice for people wanting to work in conservation communications—what skills matter most, how AI is reshaping the landscape, and why it’s okay to have a squiggly career.

It’s a practical, honest, and empowering episode about the human side of making nature recovery happen. Enjoy!

Hi there.

Nick here from Conservation Careers, and welcome to the podcast.

Now today, we're joined by Sarah Kenny, who's the the communications and marketing manager at Biodiversify for a rich conversation on the power of messaging, the art of communication strategy, and why brand matters in conservation.

Now we dig into Sarah's journey from zoology to human rights into charity communications and now leading communications and marketing for one of The UK's most distinctive biodiversity consultancies.

She reflects on brand building, on crafting effective messages, collaborating with corporates, and the role of hope in tackling environmental issues.

We also explore careers advice for people wanting to work in conservation communications, what skills matter most, how AI is reshaping the landscape, and why it's okay to have a squiggly career.

It's a practical, honest, and empowering episode about the human side of making nature recovery happen.

Enjoy.

So, yeah, I am Sarah Kenny, and I'm the communications and market manager at Biodiversify.

Great.

Well, Sarah, thank you for coming on.

Nice having you on the podcast and sharing your time with us today.

We spoke with Michael Burgess, I think it was last year on the podcast, about Biodiversify.

And I'm really interested in the organization that you do, and particularly to dig into the work that you're involved with in terms of communications and marketing as well.

So but for people who perhaps didn't hear that podcast, they've never heard of Biodiversify before, what is Biodiversify, and what is the kind of work you do as an an organization?

Just sort of set the scene for us, please.

Yeah.

Happy to.

So Biodiversify is a conservation consultancy that, unsurprisingly, focuses on biodiversity.

We work with a range of global businesses like Amazon and Premark and Tetra Pak to help them act strategically for nature.

So what that looks like in practice is working with them to understand things like their supply chains or their sites and basically work out ways for them to invest in nature and get the best return.

Yeah.

Okay.

Great.

Yeah.

So you're working with some really big clients.

It's quite a different type of conservation activity that you guys are involved with in terms of really integrating with the big sector.

Yes.

You've got Amazon, Primark, Tetra Pak.

They're huge Tetra Pak.

Pak.

Right?

They make those little kind of milk cartons that we all kinda see in our fridges, that sort of stuff.

Yeah.

Well, there's a few things to do about that.

One, let's talk comms briefly.

So, biodiversify, I know you didn't name it, but it's a great name.

It really sticks, doesn't it?

Oh, it's a fantastic name.

That was actually Shelley Sinclair who came up with that.

She's married to one of our directors, Sam.

And I feel when I joined, I inherited the website, all these beautiful illustrations, and she is the brains behind quite a lot of that.

So I joined and just got given all these amazing assets to do fantastic communications with.

Yeah.

So you can sort of run with that, and it does sort of stick in your mind.

And if anyone goes to your website or sees your comms, they are sort of beautifully designed.

The brand does resonate who you are and what you do and really kind of match up, yeah, with what you're trying to sort of see in the world.

Before we kinda talk about your role and what comms in more general terms, just paint a bit more of a picture if you can about the sorts of work you do for clients.

Can you sort of bring an example to life for us?

Like, maybe one client and some of the work you've been doing with them as an organization.

Yeah.

Of course.

So like I said earlier, we've been working with with a couple of, loads of really big businesses, which is, I think, surprising given the size of Biodiversify.

We're quite a small team that have a really large impact.

So one of our longer standing clients, Tetra Pak, we've been working with them for quite a couple of years now.

And the way that started off was a partnership that grew over time.

So we took them from the early stages of really putting together the building blocks of what then became a full blown corporate biodiversity strategy, which was published, I think, around this time last year.

So that's their nature strategy, and it has all of their goals for what they want to see happen with their protection of nature going forward.

And that was quite exciting for us because that was the first time that a corporate biodiversity strategy had been kind of bought brought to full fruition and published online.

Mhmm.

That's I mean, what what do you think is driving the interest in these corporate biodiversity strategies for these big clients?

Is it legislation?

Is it customers?

Is it coming from the board?

Have you got a sense of that?

I think it really depends on the client.

It's a bit of a mix.

There's probably an element of all three going on when it comes to each client we work with, I'd say.

It's definitely something that businesses are becoming more aware of, and we can even see that in terms of the interest that we're getting in.

I always think it's quite funny because, obviously, my job title is communications and marketing manager, but we actually do a lot less formal marketing than people might imagine because we are in this very beautiful but strange situation where interest comes to us.

We don't have to go out and chase leads and stuff in the way that other marketers would.

So I'm always I'm always a bit mindful when I'm in a room with other marketers not to say that too loudly because I'd say I'd be in a position of envy there.

But, it's nice to see, and it's a very positive thing for the environment that we are getting a lot of businesses who care about these things and who want to work and make positive change.

Yeah.

That's great.

And it obviously shows the work you're doing is attracting more word-of-mouth.

You're in a in a sweet spot of interest right now, which is great.

So your communications and marketing manager, yeah, paint us a bit of a picture, Sarah.

Like, what does that what does that mean in terms of your role, duties?

Have you met someone in a pub?

They don't know who you are, what you do.

How would you describe what your job is?

You know, what's a typical day?

Sort of bring it to life for us.

Happily too.

So I think with job titles and the communication and marketing space, they often mean very different things across different companies and even within different sectors, and I think that's very true of my role here.

Whenever I joined three years ago now, I joined as communication specialist.

And because it was a brand new role, a lot of the first year was really just working out what we could do, what gaps I could fill.

And what that's grown into now is I kind of set across communications and marketing.

Marketing was something we kind of recognized that we needed formally later on in my time at the company.

Mhmm.

So I wear a lot of different hats.

My early career was very I think I really resonate with the term squiggly career, and that's because I did work from the get go that was always very broad.

So there is really no typical day in the life for me at Biodiversify.

I do things like looking after all the digital platforms.

So that's things like LinkedIn and the website, but I also do some support with the team internally.

And that's things like creating infographics, creating graphics and things, and making things look nice and be communicated clearly.

And then more recently, I have taken on more of a formal role with marketing.

So building out the market function has been something that I've been doing for the last, I would say, six months, and we're gonna keep pushing that for the next six months going forward and then look to kind of do a bit more in 2026.

Got you.

Yeah.

And silly question, one zero one, but what's the difference between communications and marketing?

How would you kind of differentiate the two things?

Because there's clearly overlap, but do you see a clear distinction between the two things?

Oh, it's not a silly question at all.

It's a question that I get asked quite a lot, and it's a question that I've had to think about too.

And that's because, like you say, there is such a big overlap between the two things.

But the way I see it is I see communication as communications as being the thing that feeds the marketing machine.

I see marketing as the way that we distribute communications to the target audiences we want to speak to.

So I almost see marketing as, you know, systems and ways of reaching people and then communications as being the thing that feeds that and the thing that we create to kind of push out to people.

Right.

Okay.

Okay.

Can you give us an example of that then in in in action?

So maybe could you kind of draw from, I don't know, a campaign or a message or a piece of content you're working on within Biodiversify and and showcase where he see the kind of the the the differentiation between the comms aspects and that kind of marketing connective funnel you talked about.

Absolutely.

So I think a really good example of this sits within content marketing

Mhmm.

Which is something that we've always been, I think, quite fond of.

And me, personally, I've always been quite fond of because I really love to write.

I had a stint as a copywriter before I joined the team, so I've always really seen the value in content marketing.

And I think that it's a nice one because you can see the impact of content marketing throughout the whole funnel.

So I think the communications element of that is when you're creating your content, you're working out what blogs you want to do, what you want to write about, and you're putting that together.

And I think that that is the element where you can be really creative and you can lean into that kind of communications creativity.

And where marketing comes in is when you think, okay.

I've got my blog.

It's all ready.

It's on the website.

How do I want to push this out to people?

And for me, if I was to do that, there would be a couple of different avenues.

So for us, we have a email newsletter, so I can push it out like that.

So that is one element of marketing I can bring in, which would be email marketing.

Mhmm.

And then I can also use things like social media marketing to target a different audience there and get that out wider.

So you can kind of see how, like, one kind of leads into the other.

And then, hopefully, at the end of that towards the bottom of the funnel, you will start to see a little bit of engagement with those blogs.

You may be able to follow-up that with some different kinds of communications when you can see who's engaging with your content and what ways they're engaging with your content and then bring them from that awareness stage to that conversion stage right down the bottom.

Mhmm.

And what are the different stages then?

So yeah.

So you're bringing up awareness of people.

If the yeah.

Well, I was thinking more broadly, actually.

What are the kind of communications goals you're working towards, and then what are the stages that work towards that?

So I guess for you, it might be, I guess, bringing in a new client.

Yeah.

Or it might be helping the client to communicate a message or or or something more broad than that.

So I guess there's two parts to this question.

One are what are typical communications goals?

What are the outcomes?

You know, what does success look like for you in terms of comms and marketing?

And then two, like, what are the typical stages you might take someone through to to reach that that goal or that outcome?

So that's an interesting question, and I think that it's something that we've thought about internally and kind of gone down certain directions and then changed our minds.

For a lot of companies, their marketing is a lot is very strongly influenced by lead generation and the desire for lead generation.

And I think maybe around my second year, I just became very aware of the benefits to brand strength.

And I think that that came due in part to the fact that I did come into a company that had such a strong brand.

And for a company at the age biodiversify was to have that is quite an asset, and I was really able to understand the difference that that made.

And I had the sense that if we were to kind of prioritize brand awareness and look after our brand, that everything else that we would want and we could desire would follow naturally.

Mhmm.

I think that I really have seen that when we have people coming to us, they do come to us first off.

It is largely because they already know who we are, and that is because we have created a brand that is very strong by its own rights.

And that is things like, you know, having graphics that are really beautifully put together.

You know, we have a really fantastic brand designer who cares about the environment just as much as we do.

We work with a designer called Ed Harrison.

We have done for pretty much the entire time.

So having things like that in place has really helped us achieve those goals.

So there did come a point where we thought, should we focus more on lead generation in a formal way?

But for us, it really has always been about the brand, and that has been something that has been successful for us.

And I think that that kind of resonates when you look at the funnel because that top stage is awareness.

And having a brand that is strong and a brand that is appealing to people.

It really just gets them aware in a way that is very low effort for you.

It's just about keeping your house ticking over nicely after a point once you have those core foundational things in place.

So once you have, you know, a strong name and a strong set of brand, and then you have your brand guidelines and you can stick to them and create consistency there, the rest does just become easy.

And in terms of your brand guidelines and the biodiversity brand, I find that really interesting, the brand.

I like the power of a brand and and how it has value and how it's created and what it means to people.

You've obviously got the name.

You've got the imagery you talked about too, which I totally agree is actually it's it's beautiful.

It really does kinda resonate and projects a very professional, a very warm, friendly, actually, sort of image to the world as to who you are and what you do.

What are the other aspects that create and make a brand, like, specifically?

Like, yeah.

Could you maybe talk to that a little bit?

If you've got a a brand guide already, like, what's in there?

What what what are you capturing in terms of this is the brand, this is what we're looking to protect, what we're looking to grow, like, what are the elements should we think about?

Absolutely.

So our brand guidelines document is probably one of my favorite things that we've produced.

It is a rather lovely but very long document.

I think it's about 72 pages long.

Within that, I know it's it's a beast, but it is my bible.

In that, we have things like our mission and our values, and that is just to kind of set our team up to understand who Biodiversify is.

I always say, when our team are acting for the brand or writing for the brand, to think of Biodiversify as a living and breathing person.

If you met them in the street, what would they sound like?

What would they be like?

What would they come across like?

And creating the brand guidelines was kind of creating a written version of that.

So there's a lot of information in there that might seem like things people would know such as our mission and our purpose, but it's good to have it in writing alongside those creative assets.

It also has the very standard things like, you know, the do's and the don'ts.

Don't don't change the color of the logo.

Don't make it too small.

This is where you should this logo, this is where you should put that logo.

So it has all the normal things in there, but it also has a lot of really helpful information in terms of, like, what what it should sound like when you write.

Because a brand goes beyond what you see visually.

It is things like how you sound, and I'm glad to hear that you feel like the brand is warm and friendly because we do put a lot of effort into making our written content warm and friendly.

Mhmm.

So with the brand, it kind of comes down to the visual things, but then also all the little things that help tie that together.

And it is things like how you execute that and how you write and complement things.

Because I think when you look at brands, you can often take things out and still find that a brand is strong.

And we actually did a presentation with our team where myself and our operations manager, Daisy, did a little quiz, and we did things like just putting together colors and saying, based on these colors, what brand do you think this is?

And it was really a good exercise for us as a team to see that brand can be communicated just through color.

Or equally, if you're to look at things like I think, innocent to notely are fantastic examples of this.

If you were to take their copy and remove every other element of their brand, most people would know who they are just by the way that they write because because they have such a distinctive way of communicating.

Mhmm.

So I think there's a lot of different elements to a brand, and that is why our brand guidelines is so full of so much more of things that go from visual to absolutely everything that brings together a brand as a whole.

I love the way you describe it as a bible as well.

It's something that you all use and is there, and you sort of codify a personality through that, and it sort of projects out from each and every one of you if you understand that.

What process did you go through to create that 70 page brand guideline?

Like, what yeah.

Talk talk us through.

Like, was it already in place, or did you drive that process?

How does how how could someone else go about creating a a brand guideline like that for a sustainability or conservation organization?

So it wasn't already in place, but a lot of the work had already been done by Ed and Shelley whenever they had started to put the website together.

So we already had a really strong visual brand.

We had the logo.

We had the brand colors, and the brand guidelines was just about bringing that together within a document and then creating something that the team could use.

I think that whenever I started this process off, I was really aware of the fact that in previous places that I'd worked, the brand guidelines were something that weren't being engaged with by the team because they felt scary.

And I really wanted to do something that was something that people would feel comfortable to engage with, but also to be positioned in a way that they understood that it was there to help and it wasn't a set of rules to be afraid of breaking.

And then, you know, if they got things wrong, that was okay.

And that we use the brand guidelines to look through and be like, right.

This color's slightly off.

Here's the right hex code for this.

This is how I can make this correct now.

So when I started doing this, I worked really closely with Ed to bring together all the technical stuff, and that was things like the hex code, detailing the primary color palette, the secondary color palette, working out where we could use those, but also getting a lot of feedback from our team.

And that was really important to me because I was so passionate about having communications be something that the whole company was engaged with.

And because that was so well met, it meant then that creating the brand guidelines was something that we did as a team.

It was something that I obviously led on and I had led on, but the whole team had engagement.

So when we had the first draft through, we all looked through it.

We were a much smaller team at that stage, but we all looked through it and gave feedback.

And it was things like, we have a team that would produce a lot of maps.

And when it came to colors, they wanted their maps to be, you know, colors that would fit with the brand.

But we had so many colors that were needed in maps that the primary even and secondary brand palette wouldn't be enough to fill that.

So we were able to add things like a palette just for mapping.

So there is, I think, maybe 60 colors, but all look absolutely beautiful together, but that element of our team can use for their maps.

And then there was also things like I am quite passionate about accessibility, and I wanted to make sure that there was information in our brand guidelines that actually really showed people how to create accessible content and when to create accessible content.

So we have guidelines on that, and we have websites where people can insert, you know, graphics or pieces of text to make sure that they are fully accessible and that they align with the guidelines because it's something that is it's an area that people specialize on specifically, so I wanted to make it as easy as possible.

So that's all in there.

And then things like doing our tone of voice guidelines.

And this was something that was started with the brand guidelines, but ended up being a completely separate document because in a lot of brand guideline documents, you have things like, you know, we want to sound warm and approachable.

And I sat down and thought, when does a brand want to sound unapproachable?

What does sounding approachable look like?

So I ended up having an element of that within the brand guidelines, but we have a completely separate document that shows practically this is what approachable sounds like.

This is how we can make the same pizza text sound unapproachable to really show the clear differences between the two just to kind of give an extra this is what I mean, this is how you do it, set of guidance.

So it was a very collaborative thing, and I think that that is something that has been a consistent piece of, I guess, expertise that has really driven the communications function within Biodiversify is that we have really, really fantastic engagement from the wider team.

So when I'm doing stuff, I can make sure that it's really closely aligned with what the people here are delivering our services actually need.

Yeah.

I love it.

I I love how it it gives you a clear voice.

It gives you a clear image, and it and that you're encouraging it as like it's an enabler.

It's not a barrier for people.

It's something to really help people.

Yeah.

I I I think that's really lovely.

Before we talk about, like, your career prior to Biodiversify, Sarah, I'd also like to talk about, like, messaging as well, like, how we craft good messaging within conservation or even more generally.

Yeah.

We we we face a lot of challenges in conservation.

You know, we we see biodiversity, wildlife, nature, whatever you want to call it.

There's a message there, isn't there?

Three different words for the same thing.

Mhmm.

We see it in decline around the world, and we see lot we hear lots of doom and gloom messages.

How can the conservation community craft messages that really resonate, that perhaps create change that we want to see in the world?

What are some of the common mistakes or pitfalls?

Have you got any thoughts around that?

Like, what really works?

What resonates?

So this is something that I think about quite a lot, and it's something that I noticed.

Messaging is a challenge, and I think that when you have people that set in comms and marketing roles, it's easy for people like myself to not understand that it is actually a challenge.

Mhmm.

I think what I've seen a lot of as businesses creating communications that they think is of value to the audience that they're trying to reach, and it actually isn't.

And I think that's because a lot of brands, a lot of businesses maybe don't see the difference between what they think is important and what their audience think is important.

So I think one of the things I've really became more mindful of in the last year is to touch base with the people that you're trying to communicate with and talk to them.

And I think that will allow you to understand on a deeper level what it is that people want from you.

I think then there's a separate challenge.

Like you say, there is a lot of doom and gloom around the subject area, and climate anxiety is a very real thing.

Mhmm.

And I think that it's important not to shy away from that, but there is a balance to be had.

And I think that I've always been really aware of that because I came from the charity sector.

And I think with the charity sector, you're always trying to communicate about things that aren't quite right.

You're always trying to advocate for positive change.

And what became very clear in charity sector communications as that matured, and this is going back twenty, thirty years, was that that sector itself really shifted from messages of here's the problem, this is the issue that's happening, this is negative.

Mhmm.

Actually seeing that when the messaging was shifted to more positive terminology and more empowering messages, the people really responded to that quite warmly.

And it was something that I was it it really played out before I joined that sector, but it was something that when I learned about it and when I went back and reviewed the change and some of the organization's communications, I was quite surprised to see.

Because you would naturally think that by pointing out the problem, people would feel motivated to donate and to try and help part of the change.

But actually, I think that there is a a bit of a sweet spot for that.

And I think it's similar to the kind of curve that we get in terms of productivity.

There's a certain amount of stress that will make a person be really productive and be able to really take action, but then there is a point where that becomes too high and the opposite becomes true, and they feel almost inhibited to act.

Mhmm.

I think that it's a reason that I love borrowing techniques from other sectors and borrowing techniques from other areas is because you often find that the things that work in one area often work everywhere, and I think that it's no different for conservation.

I think that there's definitely value in striking a balance.

But ultimately, not to shy away from the issues, but just to kind of communicate that in a way of not creating tension without providing a way to relieve it.

And I think that's why call to actions are really important.

I have a love hate relationships with call to actions, but I think when you're creating a post that has, you know, a heavy prevalence of here's the issues that we're facing, it is good to kind of create an outlet for that in terms of, like, this is what we can do.

This is a positive.

This is something good that we've seen.

And it's why I love the work of organizations like Conservation Optimism because they do just show people that there is hope to be had, and I think that's very important, particularly when the world does feel challenging as it does right now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it makes me think of some work that was done by, an organization called, Futera.

Actually, it's called Branding Biodiversity, where they did a review of lots of different communications, messaging, and, yeah, marketing strategies, and looked to see what sort of messages were resonating.

And what they found is that purely doom and gloom, although it captures the newswires attention, it's really good for press releases and getting into, you know, onto the TV and in newspapers and radios and whatever, it doesn't enable change.

People tend to bury their head in the sand.

And I love what you said about kind of getting the balance right.

It needs to be there to peak attention, to put to pieces of motivator, but not to kind of to scare people into inactivity.

It needs to then be linked to change.

So an an action and an outcome and a hope and something you can actually do that would make a difference, something quite tangible.

Yeah.

I guess, I mean, so David Attenborough sort of did that.

He spent he spent his career sort of showcasing the beauty of the world linking to love, but then more recently talking about some things we can actually do, marine plastic pollution and the like.

You know?

Sort of it's giving that outcome and connecting to hope, which really, I think, also connects back to what you're doing is by diversifying the clients you're serving.

People are coming to you because either they're bored or their customers, you know, or something else, whatever it might be, policies around the world, are pointing towards this is an issue we need to tackle, and there's some action we can do here as an organization.

100%.

And one of the things that I find because like I say, I did come from the charity sector, so this was a new area for me when I joined the team.

One of the things that really surprised me was how how knowledgeable the client teams that we work with are on biodiversity.

It's it wasn't really the norm for me that you would work with a company where the internal skills on your client's team were just as strong as your team, but that is very much the case for us.

So we have this really lovely thing where we're working with people who are just as knowledgeable as we are, and they care just as deeply as we do.

And that really does create such a fertile ground for really creating positive change.

So it's it's it's a lovely situation to be in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love it.

And you can sort of draw from those skills too.

Yeah.

Let's switch gears slightly then and talk about your career, Sarah.

You've mentioned there a few times that you're working in the charity sector previously.

In a nutshell, like, what's been your career journey so far so far, you know, prior to where you are right now?

So my career journey is strange to say the least.

Yeah.

That started with my academic journey.

I did zoology because I was really split between studying English and doing something that was more in line with biology because those were the two things that appealed to me the most.

And that was a kind of internal battle that I had when I was choosing what to do at university, but I didn't expect it to continue throughout my academic career, but it very much did.

So I did zoology at John Muir's University, and then for some strange reason, I don't know why I chose to do it.

It was a terrible idea.

I decided to study human rights and political science afterwards.

And that was a huge change, but in the middle of that, I had moved home and was working in Tesco, which I really loved, but I felt that I needed to do something alongside that.

So I ended up calling up a charity that I had done some fundraising for in school and saying, do you need any volunteers?

I would love to come and give you a hand.

Unfortunately, they were all aboard that, and they let me join.

And it ended up being that that is how I got my first job.

So it was very, I guess, lucky.

So I did their I did their digital communications for, I think, two years on a consultant basis when I did some freelance work for other charities, and then I was employed full time by them for about a year.

And then I moved into a more market and focused role at an elearning company.

And it was kind of there that I learned that I I love marketing, but I love communications more.

And I like to write, and I like to create content.

And the entire time that I was working in the charity sector and working in the elearning company, I was, I guess, aware of the fact that I did have the theology degree.

I did have this love for nature, and it was just by chance that I seen the job come up with Biodiversify.

And I was scrolling on LinkedIn one day, and it just seemed that I'd seen this job with this, you know, real collection of different things that they wanted in a person that really aligned with what I had done in the past.

And that was very much so because I was given kind of free rein in the charity.

I got to do a lot, and I had this broad, broad scale of experience that I then topped up with freelance work.

So I was very well positioned to work for a company who was very much at the start of their journey, who kind of wanted to work out what it was that they wanted to do.

So I would say I've had a untraditional route to my career so far.

People are often really surprised when they hear of the fact that I haven't always worked in the conservation space, but it's been something that because I've always been very aware of making sure that I was picking up transferable skills, I think I've been able to work that well.

Mhmm.

Yeah.

And you described your career as squiggly earlier, which I love.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a great podcast on squiggly careers too, which I quite enjoy listening to sometimes.

Yeah.

It's interesting what you mentioned as well also about kind of moving into conservation.

I mean, from our side, we see jobs as sort of formed of two things, really.

One is, like, the cause you're looking to tackle.

And right now it's sustainability, it's biodiversity loss, it's climate change, it's there's causes they're attacking, but there's also there's the skills and the role you're playing.

And for you, that's marketing and communications.

And it feels like marketing marketing communications have been there, but the the cause has been shifting and moving and aligning more with, right now, biodiversity.

Yeah.

100%.

And I feel like I have been so fortunate in my career and that I've been able to pull a lot from different sectors and be able to use techniques that might not more traditionally be something that you would see within brand to brand marketing, which is what businesses like Biodiversify would love to do.

And I do feel very lucky that I've been able to bring the benefits of a broad range of experience to Biodiversify because I think that it was quite, I guess, brave of them to hire somebody like me who who didn't come from that space already.

So I think that that has been something that I'm really happy to be able to bring to the team.

Yeah.

And communications and marketing has been an area of and you've mentioned this sort of growth of increasingly professionalism within conservation and sustainability more broadly.

How do you how do you feel about the role or the need for people from outside the sector like you were to come and bring their expertise into the sector?

There's lots of people listening to this.

There are people who want to switch their careers, who are working outside thinking I don't have the skills or the role or or whatever it might be to kind of move across.

Do you see the need?

Do you see expertise that that, the industry requires?

Yeah.

Do you see the demand changing?

It's hard to answer that because I feel that things have changed so much in the last couple of years, and that is largely due to AI.

I think that with the way jobs and communications and marketing and really just creative spaces have become so competitive that having a niche is really, really important.

Mhmm.

I think that people who are searching for jobs now when they have got a niche and they have got subject matter expertise, they will have a level of appeal to them to hire managers that other people won't have.

But that said, I do still think that it is so important to have a broad range of experience within a marketing team.

Mhmm.

And I think that that is just down to doing what I think is fundamental to being successful in communications going forward, which is being able to, I guess, break the mold.

And that doesn't mean breaking the mold once and then thinking, right, I broke the mold.

It's broke.

I'm done.

That's gonna be about breaking the mold every year.

I think things are changing so rapidly, and we're in such a different space that I think the thing that people with other areas of experience and who have come from different sectors, what they can bring is a really unique perspective.

So I think that it's good to have that within your team, but where you have a team and if there's any organizations listening to this and they do have a team built up of subject matter experts who haven't got that outside experience, what they can do is look to borrow from other sectors.

So I think that it's one of those things where it's fifty fifty.

I think that it's really important, but I think that if that isn't something that's accessible at that time, looking to supplement that with similar things such as looking at other sectors, looking at other, you know, completely different businesses from what you're doing and thinking, what are they doing?

Is there anything like that that we can bring in?

And I think even a great example of this is TikTok.

Mhmm.

I remember for a long time thinking LinkedIn is probably going to bring video content in.

And I remember saying this to people for ages, and I said, look.

I'm not sure.

This is just me being, I guess, forward thinking.

I've got my crystal ball out.

If I'm gonna make a prediction, this is what I think is gonna happen.

I think that LinkedIn is gonna start borrowing from TikTok.

And I think that you can really see that happening now, and there's been bands like RSPB who have really lengthened to that kind of communication style that you would more have seen on TikTok in the last couple of years, and it has been so successful on LinkedIn.

So I think that it's yeah.

To answer your question, well, not really.

It is fifty fifty.

I think that being open minded to bringing people in when there isn't subject matter expertise is important, But, also, there is very much still a place for subject matter expertise within communications teams, particularly in areas where you are communicating technical expertise such as with ourselves.

I've been really lucky that we have had such a high input from our team, so I can make sure that when we produce communications, it is really technically guided and technically correct.

Yeah.

And you mentioned something there that we've not discussed, actually.

It's making huge changes across almost every element of the workplace, which is AI.

Yeah.

How how has AI changed your work and and, yeah, the work that you're focused on, like communications and marketing more broadly?

Do you use AI?

Yeah.

How is it changing the work that you're involved with?

And and interest, like, you know, where do you think it might be going?

Because it's it's changing so fast, but where where where might be we'd be in, you know, a few years' time or so?

It is changing so fast, and it's something that I've given a lot of thought to over the last twelve months, and I often change my opinion on how I feel about it.

Sometimes I think it's fantastic, and other times I think that it's great.

So I do use AI, and it's more to speed up work that I'm doing.

But more recently, I have seen that it has almost inhibited my creative process.

Mhmm.

The way I see AI is that it's very much an analogy that I use as it's like a professional camera.

So you can have a photographer, and you will often see a photographer come out, and they'll have a beautiful big camera.

And they'll have all their case, and they'll have their lenses, and they'll have different lenses for different things, and they'll have their lights.

And if you were to give that set of tech to somebody who hadn't trained to be a photographer, they might expect that they'll be able to take beautiful photographs, but the fact of the matter is is that they can't.

And I think the AI is the same.

I think when you have core skills to do content creation and you've worked hard to kind of develop those skills and to be a good writer or to be a good graphic designer, AI is something that can really, really help you along.

But I think when you haven't built that foundation, AI can rob you of the chance to grow that.

And I think that is where you will see poor content coming in.

So I think that it's not that AI can't be useful.

I think that we all and I mean people working in any kind of role, we all need to be mindful not to rob ourselves of good learning opportunities and to not allow ourselves to become too reliant on AI because that's when it becomes dysfunctional.

So I think where this is going is it's gonna be very similar to anything else that we've seen in the marketing space.

I think that it's gonna be a little bit cyclical.

I think that there might be a period where a lot of businesses over rely on AI.

I think there might become a point where you will get businesses who are doing too much with AI and creating too much content with AI, and they will probably start to see a drop off in their engagement, and they will start to see issues occurring in other areas of the business.

They might not generate as much leads.

They might not close as much sales.

And it might take them a while to realize that that has become due to AI use.

But there's gonna be, I think, a return to human driven content.

And I think that striking again, I'm all about striking a balance, and I feel like AI is no difference with that.

I think that there is definite benefits to be had.

It's great for supplement and work, but I think that the businesses who continue to do human led work are gonna be the ones that are most successful.

I don't really know where AIU is going to go in the next twelve months, and that is because it has been something that really just rocked the space, I think.

Mhmm.

It's hard to tell where it will go next, but I think that it's one of those things where we just need to continuously check-in with ourselves as individuals and more broadly as companies to be like, is this helpful?

Is this serving us?

And just to keep checking on with that because Mhmm.

I know for me personally, I got to a point where I almost felt my my right muscle was getting weak.

And I thought, you know what?

I need to just go back to it just being me, a piece of paper, and a pencil, and really build that strength up again.

And when it comes to doing things like checking if something's technically correct or checking if something sounds right or if I have a sentence that I have tried to make better and I just can't crack it, at that point, I will go use AI.

But I've just been having to be really disciplined with myself to make sure that I'm not descaling myself in the process.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Really thoughtful.

Yeah.

I love it.

Yeah.

I think sort of seeing it as an assistant to your expertise, yeah, and not a replacement of.

Yeah.

And and using developing your skill as a muscle.

I think that's that's really kind of useful thoughts.

Yeah.

It's gonna be fascinating to see, like, where things go, and I think lots of organizations and individuals are wrestling with how and if and when to use it.

And it'll be interesting to see if people do actually pull back and humanize content again and create things a bit more, yeah, sort of, yeah, in house with humans and whether we, as society, you know, want and we'll spot that.

Yeah.

I think it it it's gonna be interesting to see.

As we start start to wrap up, I'd love to hear a bit more around sort of careers advice, that you might have for the audience.

If people are looking to perhaps follow in your footsteps, I know you've had a squiggly career, but, you know, if people wanted to say work in communications and marketing, or perhaps they want to convert their their skills from outside the industry, communication and marketing, into the industry, into conservation or sustainability.

Yeah.

What advice would you have for someone who's looking to kind of make that switch or start their career?

So the first thing I think I would say to people looking to start a career similar to mine is to understand that the the space that I entered into, gosh, it seems so long ago now, seven or eight years ago, was very, very different to what people are facing now.

Mhmm.

We were recently hiring for a junior content marketing coordinator, and I was really, really blown away by the level of skills that entry level people had, and these were genuinely entry level people.

So the first thing that I would say to people as a piece of advice is to understand that the competition now and the difficulty now is like nothing I have seen in the last seven years.

And to be patient with yourself and to forgive yourself if you are fighting things hard.

There are people who are very, very qualified and very, very skilled being rejected for jobs that they absolutely could do and not to be disturbed by that.

And the second piece of advice I would say is to find ways of gaining experience because that experience is so much harder one.

And that is something that I faced a little bit, but I do think is a much more prevalent thing now.

So one of the things I did when I was in my early career to supplement my experience was to do some voluntary work for different charities.

And I'm very mindful that that comes from a pace of being privileged financially to be able do that, and I was very lucky that that was a thing that I was able to do.

Mhmm.

And I guess to look for people who will help you, I think that that is something that I was really pleasantly shocked by in my early career was that when I reached out to people and said, look.

When I look at your career history, when I look at the things that you're doing, this is something that I really aspire to.

Can we have a chat?

A lot of people were very willing to give me guidance, and it's something that I've tried to replicate in my career now.

You know, when we did that hiring process, when people were asking me for career like, for feedback on their application, I want I was saying yes because I think that it is such a big thing for a person to apply for a job and to be able to give them even a pointer on why they didn't get that place on the shortlist is really helpful.

So my advice would be to just to reach out and find help where you can.

I was really lucky that I found a mentor who I have kept in contact with for years and years, and that was through a voluntary project that I did with West London Mind.

They were working with a consultant chief marketing officer called Dani Smallbone at the time.

And myself and her worked together on their communication strategy, and she has just been a really inspire and force in my life since then.

Anytime I've had, I guess, doubts about my career, doubts about my skills, I've been able to go and kind of bounce ideas back and forth with her.

And that's been really important for me because I've always worked in organizations where I even if I myself am not senior, I'm always the most senior comms or marketing person because I've always been a team of one.

Mhmm.

So I would say, go look for help because you would be surprised at how much people out there are willing to give you a hand up or to share their expertise or to share their experience on things and to try and supplement skills as much as you can.

I think that people upskill on themselves is just really important.

There are really good free spaces where people can learn, such as LinkedIn Learning or HubSpot Academy that will help people get ahead.

I think that that is important, but doing things and having evidence of having done things is more important.

And I think that that is where the charity sector is a wonderful place to start a career because there's a lot of charities out there who maybe don't have the budgets to have people in on a paid basis, but they will let you do things on a voluntary basis.

And you will often get to do things that are maybe things a more senior person might traditionally get to do.

So you'll often be in a place where you get to lead and you get to innovate very early in your career, and I think that is something that was really wonderful that I got to do.

So I think if people are in a position to do that, I would advise them to do that as well.

But also just to let things unfold.

I think when I was at university, I was really, really obsessed with the five year plan.

And I remember it was actually a conversation I have with my dad, and he was like, just stop worrying about it.

Things will happen that are meant to happen, and doors will open for you that are meant to open.

And I think whenever I really made peace with that and I started to allow myself to follow a path that naturally occurred to me, it was when I was able to really play into my natural skills and find a career that really suited me as a person.

And I think that's why I have, I guess, thrived so much in marketing communications, particularly in biodiversify because I almost came full cycle and that that war that had been going on in me between a love of content creation and writing and English and then a love of biology and nature, I found somewhere that I was able to do both.

I never expected that.

And if somebody had told me, you know, couple years ago that I would finally find a place where the zoology degree made sense and people weren't raising eyebrows at me, I wouldn't have believed you.

But here you are.

Yeah.

It feels like the Venn diagram came together, didn't it?

And, again, it's that sort of role and and cause and skill kind of coming together.

Really practical advice there, Sarah.

I absolutely love it.

Yeah.

Getting skilled up.

You don't have to pay for that.

There's there's free stuff available online that's really valuable.

Getting experience, and I totally agree.

If you can get experience, it shows people you can do something and have done something to a level rather than you know about it and you've learned about it.

You're applying those skills.

But as you say, it's more accessible available to some than others, but if you can get experience, then brilliant.

And I loved what you're saying there about sort of getting help, asking for help, whether it's a mentor or whether that's just a a a an informal chat with someone.

I also reflect that it can be scary to do that, but, actually, more than not, people are very willing to kind of share and help and support and sort of throw the ladder down a little bit, you know, and and I think that's really inspiring, and it's really true.

I think conservation's a very small world.

We share one thing, which is we're all trying to conserve wildlife.

We're on the same page, you know, we're on the same team, and we are here to help each other.

We're generally pretty friendly bunch.

100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's been lovely talking to you.

I've got a few sort of open questions to ask then as we sort of wrap up, and then we have someone in our audience who wants to ask a question, I'm sure, after we finished our recording.

So, quick question.

If if you could go to one place in the world, Sarah, and see one's one animal, one species, or whatever it might be, where would you love to go and what would you love to see?

Oh, wow.

What a question.

I feel like picking one is really hard, but I would have to say Madagascar.

And that is because and this is gonna sound so silly, but I just loved the film when I was a child, and I became really, really obsessed with lemurs.

And I just thought that they're such a wonderful species.

So, yeah, that would be where I would go, and that would be the animal that I want to see.

They are gorgeous, aren't they?

They are fun.

Yeah.

If we could make you like a global czar for the day, a global leader of humanity, and you can enact a new law or a decree or whatever you want to call it that would have a significant impact on the environment.

What might your law or decree be?

Oh, gosh.

What a question.

I'm not even too sure.

I think that I would have to I think that I would have to get a group together and decide because that would just be too much authority for one person to have.

You want a focus group?

Yeah.

I would have a focus group.

Well, that's good.

Yeah.

That would that would broaden the opinion and give you a bit more time to think about it.

Great.

Yeah.

Well, that's Parker and me coming out.

Yeah.

And a final question.

If you were talking to someone who just didn't care about wildlife, who just didn't care about climate change, what sort of things might you say to them to try and at least get their attention to get them thinking about it?

Well, I think that I would have to get over the shock first.

Mhmm.

And that's because I think that even if people think that they don't care about these things, I think they will, on some level, have a connection to it because we are surrounded by nature.

We exist within nature, and I think that it's very easy to get disconnected from it.

I grew up in rural Ireland and was surrounded by such a wonderful biodiversity and wonderful nature that I myself experienced becoming disconnected from it when I moved to Manchester, and I was surrounded by bricks.

But, actually, I think that we all have that within us.

But I think that if I was to try and change somebody's mind, I would just say, you know what?

Let's go out and get into it, and I will show you what to love about it.

I love it.

Sarah Kenny, communications and marketing manager at Biodiversity Fight, thank you so much for jumping on the podcast.

It's been lovely talking to you.

Thank you so much for having me.

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