Rippling blue water with warm reflections

Nathalie Gross

Clear stories for complex companies. Independent communications advisor and executive coach in Rotterdam, after 17 years in Brussels agencies and in-house in chemicals, biotech and food.

Start a conversation

A few lines on what you are facing are enough to begin.

  • 17 years in communications
  • 9 organisations
  • 4 working languages
  • 6 countries lived in abroad

What I do

Three ways in, depending on what is on your desk: a function to build, an issue to get ahead of, or a leader who needs a sharper story.

Interim or part-time head of communications

For when the role is empty, new, or not yet a role. I step in as your head of communications, for a period or for part of the week, and build the function and the team that stay when I go.

Crisis and issue readiness

Which issue could reach your company next, and who speaks when it does? I map the issues, write the plans and statements before they are needed, and rehearse the response with your leadership team.

Executive positioning and media coaching

What do your leaders stand for, and can they say it in one clear line? I work with executives on the story they carry, where it gets told, and how they hold up in an interview, on a stage or in front of a sceptical room.

Track record

2024 to 2026

Ecolab, Netherlands · Director, Europe Communications

2023

Kemira · Director, Head of Global Communications

2020 to 2022

Veramaris, Delft · Senior Manager, Global Communications & Marketing

  • A joint venture of DSM and Evonik, on secondment from DSM. Communications for both aquaculture and Veramaris Pets.

2018 to 2020

Cargill, Netherlands · Senior Manager, Global Business Sustainability Communications

2017 to 2018

Cefic, the European Chemical Industry Council, Brussels · Senior Manager, Communications & Change Management

2013 to 2017

Weber Shandwick, Brussels · Director Corporate Communications

  • Crisis, change management and social impact.

2011 to 2013

Edelman, Brussels · Consultant, Corporate Communications & Public Affairs

2010 to 2011

Policy Action (now Instinctif Partners), Brussels · EU Policy Researcher

2009

Burson-Marsteller, Brussels · EMEA Media Communications Trainee

How I work

  • One discipline

    Paid, earned, shared and owned are one discipline. I run them as one, so the story is the same wherever it lands.

  • In service of the strategy

    Communications exists to advance what the business is trying to achieve. So I start from the strategy, alongside marketing and commercial, and work back to what needs saying, to whom, and where.

  • Storytelling

    Every technical subject has a clear story inside it. I find it, then tell it the way each audience and objective demands.

Nathalie Gross

Nathalie Gross

About

I started in Brussels in 2009, in agencies and EU policy work, and moved in-house in 2017: first at the European chemical industry's council, then in global and European communications roles in industry. Along the way I built and ran communications functions in corporates, in consulting and in a start-up joint venture.

The technical and complex is where I like to work. I am endlessly curious, quick to master unfamiliar territory, and energised by fast-moving, intellectually demanding work.

I have Dutch, German and Polish roots, have lived in Belgium, Germany, the United States, Singapore, Kuwait and India, and now work from Rotterdam in Dutch, English, German and French.

"If your narrative isn't strong and consistent across those sources, the AI won't fill the gaps in your favour, but your competitors might."

Studies

Executive MBA

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University · 2020 to 2021

Certificate, Innovation Ecosystems

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University · 2023

Masterclass, Sustainable Investing

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University · 2021

MSc and MPP, Public Policy and Sustainable Development

Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, United Nations University-MERIT · 2007 to 2008

Bachelor of Liberal Arts, Social Sciences

University College Maastricht · 2003 to 2007

Start the conversation

Tell me what you are facing, in a few lines: a function to build, an issue on the horizon, a leader who needs a sharper story. That is enough to start.

Based in Rotterdam

Location

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Start a conversation