Strategy, Story & Stakeholders
Sep 21, 2026 · 53 min · 15 segments
Gab Ferree has helped lead communications at some of the world's most recognised technology brands, including Slack and Bumble. In this episode of *Strategy, Story & Stakeholders*, Gab joins Max…
Gab FerreeGuest
Max ForsythHost
In spite of that, though, you've described yourself as spending years feeling successful on paper while still feeling alone and overwhelmed professionally.
I just mentioned being thrown in situations and getting told to just figure it out.
That is the reality for most people when they are rising up as a communications leader.
It's usually those really strong individual contributors that get promoted into management or they get hired as like the first comms hire at a fast growing startup, similar to what happened to me.
But if you're asked to build a five-year plan, they'd be like, I can't build a five-week plan.
And they want to be like, how did you make that decision? And how did you think through that? And how did you handle that tricky reporter situation? Why did we do this cadence when we did this change management, et cetera? But that head of comms is too busy to give you the mentorship.
They have 12 direct reports and a team of 50, right? There is very little support for the function and especially the growing leader within the function.
And that is the genesis to what I'm doing now, which is I needed somebody to be like, hey, this is what's happening in the world.
And here's a literal copy paste template that you can use to execute that within your own company.
I needed somebody to tell me, to help me see around the corner, to help me notice when I had spinach in my teeth, to help me figure out what I was messing up on and where I wasn't reading the room right.
And that really is the genesis of Off the Record, which is what I'm doing now in the communications community.
In spite of that, though, you've described yourself as spending years feeling successful on paper while still feeling alone and overwhelmed professionally.
I just mentioned being thrown in situations and getting told to just figure it out.
That is the reality for most people when they are rising up as a communications leader.
It's usually those really strong individual contributors that get promoted into management or they get hired as like the first comms hire at a fast growing startup, similar to what happened to me.
But if you're asked to build a five-year plan, they'd be like, I can't build a five-week plan.
And they want to be like, how did you make that decision? And how did you think through that? And how did you handle that tricky reporter situation? Why did we do this cadence when we did this change management, et cetera? But that head of comms is too busy to give you the mentorship.
They have 12 direct reports and a team of 50, right? There is very little support for the function and especially the growing leader within the function.
And that is the genesis to what I'm doing now, which is I needed somebody to be like, hey, this is what's happening in the world.
And here's a literal copy paste template that you can use to execute that within your own company.
I needed somebody to tell me, to help me see around the corner, to help me notice when I had spinach in my teeth, to help me figure out what I was messing up on and where I wasn't reading the room right.
And that really is the genesis of Off the Record, which is what I'm doing now in the communications community.
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