Building trust through honest conversations with Kat Cooke

In this episode of The EX Conversation, Kaz sits down with Kat Cooke, Head of Internal Communications at SCC, to talk about what it really takes to build trust inside an organization. Their conversation explores how transparency, honesty, and two-way communication can shape culture in a meaningful way, especially when employees want more than polished messaging from leadership. Kat shares how her background in journalism shaped her approach to internal comms, and why she sees herself as “the journalist inside the business.” She explains how SCC creates space for employees to ask difficult questions, how leadership responds in visible and credible ways, and why authenticity matters if you want people to believe communication is more than a staged process. This episode will be especially useful for internal communications, employee experience, and digital workplace leaders who are trying to make communication feel more open, more human, and more trustworthy. If you’re working through questions around leadership visibility, employee voice, or psychological safety, this conversation offers practical perspective from someone doing that work every day.