When Honesty Becomes a Strategy
BBC Radio 4’s When It Hits The Fan The goal in most PR crises is not to win everyone back. It is to find the people still willing to listen,...
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Connecting The Dots
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” — George Bernard Shaw I’m writing to you from the storied city of Istanbul. As a...
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Lower Value Human Capital
BBC Radio 4’s When It Hits The Fan Lower Value Humans, yep, that’s us folks, in the eyes of our technocrat overlords punch-drunk on AI Does AI have a PR...
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What Leaders Say When No One Is Supposed to Be Listening
When It Hits The Fan cover There is a unique kind of reputational damage caused by one careless sentence escaping the room it was meant for. This week on When...
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The Week Unspun
BBC Radio 4’s When It Hits The Fan I’m still getting my head around my new BBC gig. It feels a bit odd to have one foot in the BBC...
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Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Last week, David Yelland and I unpacked the King’s speech to Congress and the careful communications behind it. Thank you to Neil Kerber for the wonderful cartoon. This Week’s Episode:...
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From King Charles to Dolly Parton: Lessons in Modern Communications
BBC Radio 4 Fridays are usually wind-down days for most of us, but today feels different. As I write, England’s council results are streaming into my BBC News app, alongside...
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I’ve joined BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 After years as a loyal listener of When It Hits the Fan, I’ve stepped behind the mic as co-host alongside David Yelland, and I have to say,...
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The Epstein Files Didn’t Just Expose Peter Mandelson.
Peter Mandelson | Credit: Starlings_images|Shutterstock There is a particular kind of vertigo that sets in when the people we were taught to trust turn out to have been unworthy of...
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First Lady Melania Trump’s Film Deal: Gender Pay Breakthrough or Power-Driven Branding?
Farzana Baduel on BBC News. Courtesy: BBC News With a reported total investment of around $75 million, including $28 million said to have gone directly into the First Lady’s coffers...
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Is the Grass Greener in the United Arab Emirates?
With Lamia Kamel and Alex Aiken at the Praxis MENA Conference. PHOTO: PRAXIS I have been coming to the UAE for almost two decades, so I am no stranger to...
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A Nation of Storytellers
Travel teaches you things no classroom can. Not just about countries, but about yourself. When I arrived at the Sheraton in Colombo, to speak on risk, resilience and crisis communications,...
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How the Power of Narrative Drives Investment, Exports, and Economic Growth
Farzana at the AmCham Sri Lanka forum In Colombo, business leaders and policymakers gathered to explore a force that now shapes capital flows as decisively as interest rates or regulation....
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The Women Who Actually Run Things
Farzana Baduel and other speakers at the panel for WIM Sri Lanka Something felt different that morning at Port City Colombo. People had come early to the Women in Management...
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Women Don’t Lack Ambition, They Lack a Level Playing Field
Before school drop-offs. After the children are asleep. Between paid work, care work, and the invisible labour of holding families and communities together. During motherhood, that is exactly what entrepreneurship...
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The Mountain Where Power Goes to Be Seen
The World Economic Forum 2026 | Source: weforum.org Snow is falling on Davos again, the way it does every January, turning a Swiss ski town into something between a fortress...
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Why We Listen
Left to Right: Doug Downs, Farzana Baduel, David Gallagher Most mornings, before the inbox floods and the day’s demands announce themselves, I’m out walking the dog in West London. I’m...
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What War Leaves Behind
Sometimes, life delivers a humbling reset. Last week, I travelled eight hours north from Colombo to Jaffna, Sri Lanka, with The HALO Trust, the world’s largest humanitarian demining organisation. What...
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The Psychology of Feedback
Every leader has been told that feedback is essential. Business books and management consultants have built empires on frameworks for how to give feedback, how to make it “constructive,” how...
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Cognitive Load: The Invisible Weight We All Carry
Like most working mothers, I juggle. I juggle being a mother, a wife, a daughter, a businesswoman who runs a strategic communications firm, and someone who sits on several charity...
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Inside Prague’s Forum Media 25
In the last week of November, Prague, a city whose beauty is matched only by its sense of history played host to the 25th anniversary of the Forum Media Conference,...
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Manufacturing Consent
Edward Bernays was born in 1891 in Vienna, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His family emigrated to New York when he was still a child. He had a unique...
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A Changing World Calls for New Skills in the Boardroom
Last week I chaired a panel at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations National Conference which explored a question that, until recently, many in our profession never imagined would...
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The BBC, trust, and the grey rhino we all saw coming
There are very few media organisations in the world that genuinely transcend their national borders. Many outlets are well-known globally, of course, but the vast majority are read primarily within...
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Sri Lanka must win the PR battle for its economic future
Every few years, Sri Lanka finds itself at the same crossroads, compelled to prove, once again, that it deserves continued access to the European Union’s GSP+ trade concession. Each...
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When Women Lead, Nations Rise
A Room Where Power Felt Different In the grand committee rooms of the British Parliament, under the portraits of old white men and centuries of history, I sat among women who embodied...
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Raising The Resilient Generation
Me at age 20 traveling across the South of Italy When I was growing up, slippers could fly. Not figuratively, but quite literally across the room. Discipline was swift, emotional,...
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The Stories That Bind Us
From ancient myth to modern cinema, the same universal story continues to unfold. What Joseph Campbell called “the hero’s journey” is not only found in books and films, but also...
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Learning the Art of Negotiation
For years I mistook people pleasing for diplomacy. It took time, training and humility to realise that negotiation is not conflict but connection. I have always been a people pleaser....
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The Currency of Influence In everyday life, persuasion, not power, moves the world forward.
Last week in New York, I found myself watching the dance of influence at the United Nations General Assembly. Delegations swept into meetings with carefully chosen phrases. Leaders leaned into...
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From Colombo to New York why Sri Lanka needs its own stage at the UN
As Sri Lanka marks 70 years as a UN member amid shifting global power, the global south must stop waiting for invitations. By creating its own presence during United Nations...
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When Fear Marches Through London
That was the message flooding WhatsApp groups in South Asian communities across London last week. On Saturday, I went for my usual Hyde Park walk. It took me a few...
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Soft Power, Strong Future: Why Sri Lanka’s Story Matters.
There is something magical about Westminster on a crisp London evening. Last week, as I walked past the historic buildings glowing in the soft light, I felt the hum of...
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Cracking the UK PR Industry
A Comprehensive Guide for Outsiders, Students, Interns and Career Switchers When I first entered the world of public relations over 15 years ago, I had no idea how intricate and...
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How to land a non-executive director role and what to do when you get there
As a somewhat crude saying goes, non-executive director (NED) roles are a bit like bidets: no one knows quite what they do, but they add a touch of class. I...
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Does space have a PR problem?
To a certain generation, the word space will always be followed by “The final frontier,” as spoken in the opening credits of popular sci-fi series Star Trek. However, is it...
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To service or not to service, that is the question
In this increasingly complicated world, where the relative political certainties of the Cold War era grow fainter by the day, Britain is far from impervious to dubious foreign influence. This...
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The Language of Truth
<p>When I started out in PR over a decade ago, I would work for clients by disseminating information without any real regard for the responsibilities that come with communication. As journalism declined, due to a loss of advertising revenues moving across to Big Tech’s pockets, I witnessed the shift of journalists moving into PR and bringing their journalist mindset.</p>
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Do brands need to do media relations any more?
Elon Musk, not the most media-friendly tech tycoon, has been rattling cages again. In late April he indicated that he had no plans to reverse last year’s closure of Tesla’s PR department. Musk has...
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Reputations at stake in post-covid Asia supply chain shakeup
Western firms looking to build greater resilience into their supply chains in Asia in the wake of the pandemic could face reputational nightmares unless they undertake thorough risk assessments when...
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The art of storytelling
<p>“Whilst fiction told stories hook, build and reward with insight, the purpose-told stories which hook interest for both head and heart, express a need or problem, build interest and involvement, show a path to fulfilment, reward, and motivate action”</p>
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The building blocks of negotiation
<p>After almost 20 years of running businesses, I decided to confront my biggest weakness – negotiation. Throughout my career, I developed coping strategies to avoid negotiation where possible…</p>
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PR for Humans by Mike Sergeant
A book review by Farzana Baduel We are living in uncharted waters. Social media has opened a gateway to self-storytelling. We are no longer the passive audience consuming stories about...
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How to build influence in the workplace
Like most skills in life, building influence starts with self-knowledge. Know thyself. Research-based development for leaders focuses on three main themes: Self-acceptance Self-management Self-development Self-acceptance involves undertaking a self-audit. Understanding...
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Psychology of negotiation
There are certain principles that one can follow in order to negotiate a successful outcome. Negotiation is both an art and a science, one which requires the skillful mastery of...
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Diversity: how we can change the face of the PR industry
Diversity is the future of public relations. Without a diverse and multi-skilled team, an agency cannot cater to today’s ever-globalised market, writes Farzana Baduel of Curzon. Diversity gives agencies a...
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The business case for diversity
I started Curzon PR, a public relations and strategic communications agency six years ago in 2009. My entry into public relations seemed to coincide with a time when the industry,...
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Top tips for starting your own PR agency
Setting up your own PR company can be a daunting task and there are a number of key factors you should bear in mind. Research and planning are vital when...
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