How Cultural Intelligence Shapes Great Public Relations

In public relations, success often depends on one quiet skill: knowing how to adapt. The best communicators read the room, sense the temperature, and adjust their tone without losing their message. 

In this episode, we explore what it really means to be a PR chameleon – someone who can blend into the cultural landscape enough to connect, yet still stand out enough to be remembered. 

Jessica Hope, founder of Wimbart, has built one of Africa’s most respected tech PR agencies by mastering that balance. From WhatsApp-based storytelling to navigating privilege, identity, and power across 54 distinct markets, Jessica reveals how empathy, adaptability, and emotional intelligence have become the true currencies of influence in global communications.

Listen For

4:36 How Do You Break the “One Africa” Myth in PR?
7:40 What Is Emotional Intelligence in African Business?
9:22 How Do Comms Channels Differ in Africa?
12:06 Should Brands Adjust Their Values in Africa?
16:26 What’s Africa’s Media Landscape Really Like?

18:30 Answer to Last Episode’s Question from Jo Jamieson

Guest: Jessica Hope, Wimbart

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Ted Talk Farzana mentioned

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg

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Chapters

• 4:36 How Do You Break the “One Africa” Myth in PR?
• 7:40 What Is Emotional Intelligence in African Business?
• 9:42 How Do Comms Channels Differ in Africa?
• 12:06 Should Brands Adjust Their Values in Africa?
• 16:26 What’s Africa’s Media Landscape Really Like?
• 18:30 Answer to Last Episode’s Question from Jo Jamieson

Transcript

David Olajide (00:00):
Before words ever crossed borders, nature had already mastered communication. Across Africa's grasslands lives a creature that changes not to hide but to be understood. It listens to its environment first, and then speaks in colour.

Farzana Baduel (00:22):
In the tall grass of the African savannah lies a quiet master of communication. The African chameleon does not rush, does not shout, and never looks the same for too long. When the light shifts, when it shifts too, when the wind stirs or leaves, it adjusts its colours ever so slightly. It is not pretending to be something it is not. It survives by understanding its surroundings better than anyone else. Unlike what many people believe, the chameleon does not change to vanish into the background. It changes to be seen in the right way. It shifts its colours in response to light, temperature, and emotion, and even sends messages to other chameleons through those colours, calm greens, warning reds, and deep blues that say, keep your distance. Its skin is not a disguise, it is a language. If you watch one long enough, you will notice something remarkable. Beneath every change.

(01:26):
 The same pattern remains. The chameleon never loses itself. Adaptability for the chameleon is not about invisibility, it is about clarity, and that is what allows it to thrive in a landscape that never stays the same. It endures heat, rain, and the shifting moods of this environment by adjusting its tone, never its identity. It listens in, then speaks through colour. Now imagine if it refused to change, it would stay bright green against a dark bark of a tree, insisting that the world should adjust to it. It might be beautiful for a moment, but it would be misunderstood or perhaps never seen at all. The chameleon reminds us that the goal of adaptation is not to disappear, but to be understood. In communications, the same truth holds, the best messages fit their surroundings, yet still shimmer enough to be noticed. Today on Stories and Strategies, we explore what it means to adapt, to listen, and to find the right tone for every landscape because in the end, the point is not to blend in, it is to stand out and still belong. My name is Farzana Baduel.

Doug Downs (02:52):
My name is Doug Downs. Our guest this week is Jessica Hope, joining today from London. Hello.

Jessica Hope (02:59):
Hi, Doug. Hi, Farzana. Thanks for having me.

Doug Downs (03:01):
I have heard that it is a London day today. It is rainy, it is cloudy, probably foggy.

Jessica Hope (03:09):
And windy and cold, all of the above.

Doug Downs (03:12):
Excellent, excellent. I was just there a couple of weeks ago and I escaped all of that. It was sunny and beautiful, so I know those days happen. Jessica, you are the founder and CEO of Wimbart, a leading tech and communications agency focused on markets across Africa. I bet it is sunnier there in most spots. You blend deep cultural insight with strategic PR skills, navigating fifty-four distinct countries in Africa. Africa is not a country to help global brands connect, adapt and succeed. You are an advocate for emotional intelligence and communication committed to workflows that transform local nuance into global influence.

Farzana Baduel (03:49):
So Jessica, I am so thrilled that you are with us because I have been hearing about you from multiple different people, and I am absolutely fascinated by how you are leading the way in helping brands and organisations navigate Africa. Now, a lot of organisations, they sometimes underestimate the complexity of Africa, the fifty-four countries, the fact that it has completely different histories and ethnicities and cultures and tribes and languages. How do you go about overcoming that sort of stereotype where some people approach market access to Africa as this homogenous continent and not quite understanding actually the nuanced approach that it takes?

Jessica Hope (04:36):
Thanks, Ana. That is a great question. I think the first thing is just being bold and just informing people, international brands that this is the situation and across multiple countries. So we always say we cannot really do PR just for Africa. We focus, we specialise mostly on English-speaking Africa. If we had a brief come through which was only Francophone Africa, we would not attempt to do it by ourselves. We would find someone on the ground who has that experience and maybe we would collaborate with them or we would pass the work onto them. So I think it is being honest and understanding what the market is, but I think that in the defence of a lot of international brands, a lot of heads of comms, heads of marketing, they are probably still stuck in the Live Aid era of Do They Know It’s Christmas, this kind of Oxfam charity lens of starving children across a big homogenous continent. And that is the kind of impression that the global media has had and continues to push in a lot of ways. So yes, it is a sort of re-education process and actually bringing people on that journey of actually this is what is happening on the continent and Nigeria is different to Kenya, is different to South Africa, different to Morocco, different to Egypt, etcetera. So I think it is just sort of accepting that people have homogenised ideas and then unpicking them, and that is the kind of slow process.

Farzana Baduel (05:57):
What I am going to do is add a link by one of my favourite videos on TED is by a Nigerian novelist, and she talks about the inequity of storytelling

(06:06):
 And how she came from Nigeria from a middle-class family, and she landed in London and became a celebrated novelist, but people just could not get their head around how well educated and that she came from a middle-class background because they had this one vision that if you are from Nigeria or indeed any country in Africa, then you must come from a rural background, uneducated, and you do not have that class complexity that they are used to. And so she actually spoke about this in a really powerful compelling TED Talk, which I would love. Doug, if we can share the link because I think it is one of those most viewed TED Talks on the website.

Jessica Hope (06:46):
Is that Chimamanda? Yes, that was TEDx Houston, I think 2011 or 2012. So my former colleague Jason Anku is also part of that TEDx Houston event. Yes, she is right. I mean, Chimamanda is a fabulous advocate for all things, I guess Nigeria and Africa in terms of intellect, in terms of culture, in terms of creativity, in terms of intellectual robustness and plenty more. I do not want to do a disservice to her by just trying to capture her in those very, very basic terms. But yes, that makes sense.

Doug Downs (07:20):
You coined emotional intelligence. We did not coin the phrase, but you use the term emotional intelligence. I think to describe this, it sounds like awareness, overcoming ignorance, emotional intelligence, how does that weigh in? I conjure up the images of empathy when I hear emotional intelligence.

Jessica Hope (07:40):
I think empathy not so much, but it is actually taking the time and being patient to actually understand the markets you are operating in and then adjusting how you do business accordingly. And I guess it is that sort of emotional intelligence, business intelligence. If I had been to Harvard or Stanford, I am sure that there would be a better term to summarise that, but that is what I would call emotional intelligence in terms of not just assuming everybody is exactly like you, not assuming that how people do business is the same as you, not assuming that how journalists do business is the same way of doing business as you as well. And so it is having that time and being able to understand and reflect on how different markets and different cultures do business and engage. That is why emotional intelligence is definitely required.

Farzana Baduel (08:24):
When there are some people who are looking for some market access, they often think about accessing countries in Africa, thinking about the countries that they are based in. So if they are based in London for instance, they will think about the channels that they are familiar with and they will use the channels in a way that is familiar to them and not actually understanding that different channels in different countries are used in different ways, and there is a preference for perhaps one or the other. For instance, when I chat in the Middle East, they love WhatsApp and there is so much business that is done on WhatsApp, whereas perhaps the more formality of emails is less. So Jessica, what advice would you give to people about what you have learned about the way that different channels are approached and how you see working in the UK versus working across countries in Africa?

Jessica Hope (09:22):
Well, I will answer that and then I have a question for you. So Africa is a mobile-first continent, so you have to go where your audiences congregate. So our audiences congregate on WhatsApp. When Doug and I were speaking the other day, he was like, the Americans and North Americans do not really use WhatsApp because most

Doug Downs (09:40):
I get texts.

Jessica Hope (09:41):
Text. Text, right.

Doug Downs (09:42):
And WhatsApp, I have to, yes.

Farzana Baduel (09:45):
I mean if you text me, I will just ignore you.

Jessica Hope (09:47):
Yes, that is very peculiar to get a text.

Farzana Baduel (09:50):
Message these days. We operate in...

Jessica Hope (09:52):
WhatsApp. I feel if someone texts me, and I guess in North America and in Europe, a lot of people, like a huge amount of people have an iPhone. An iPhone is an extraordinarily expensive piece of equipment. Africa really is an Android-first continent. So even if I met someone who said that they were building an app in any African country, but it was predominantly focused on iOS, I would know that they are not serious about Africa because the percentiles of who actually has an iPhone are teeny tiny. I do not have the exact numbers, but I would think it would be way less than ten per cent of people that have an iPhone. So iOS just does not scale as much as Android. So you have to build for the market. So again, we congregate on WhatsApp. We have a WhatsApp group with almost every single client. My biggest deal I have ever done was done on WhatsApp.

(10:41):
 I think that the African tech space in particular is still growing. It is getting bigger, but still relatively small. Really and truly, there is not anyone that I could not find on WhatsApp within two WhatsApps, as in ask someone to introduce me, to introduce me. We will be in a group, I can find them on WhatsApp, and that is the means of doing business. The same with journalists as well. Yes, we do send email pitches, but we are more than comfortable sending WhatsApp follow-ups. Now, Za, I think you probably pitch more UK-based journalists than I do. How do you think that a UK-based journalist would feel if you just slid into their WhatsApp DMs?

Farzana Baduel (11:16):
God, I think I will get abused.

Jessica Hope (11:18):
And they will go on Twitter or X or Blue or whatever people are using these days. And they will also say they see it as you are invading their privacy.

Farzana Baduel (11:26):
Yes.

Jessica Hope (11:27):
So it is just a different platform. You have to congregate where the market is and we congregate on WhatsApp.

Doug Downs (11:35):
If I am expanding into a global brand by that point, I have built principles, I have built values for my company. We live and breathe, especially if you are the CEO, you live and breathe those. But now introducing my brand to Africa, I am not going to amend my principles and my values. Do I first look at the local culture and make sure that this fits my brand or like a chameleon, do I understand how my brand and my principles would apply here?

Jessica Hope (12:06):
So I think you actually have to monitor and spend time in the market. That is the main thing, understanding. It would be odd to launch a brand, launch a product without understanding the market. But there are some brands that would necessarily, if they were going after the top one per cent or top two per cent of the market, they might actually come into contact with say a lot of diasporas. The African diaspora is huge, so they might base a lot of their value judgment on the Africans that they know within the diaspora. However, that might not translate to actually what is happening on the ground. You have to adapt the brands. I would look at how international brands do it. Look how Coca-Cola advertises in Nigeria, look how Zoho advertises, look how all the other brands advertise and then see how those models are adapted. I see kind of like Guinness adverts, Guinness has a massive following. It is a big, big brand in Nigeria especially. They do not use the same adverts as you would see in Ireland. Their brand strategy is modified specifically for that market. You have to speak to your end users.

Farzana Baduel (13:10):
So Jessica, if a brand wanted to really think about accessing Africa, would you advise that they focus on a particular region first, for instance? Okay, so which region would it be? East, West,

Jessica Hope (13:26):
South Africa. That depends on where they actually have a footprint and what they are actually willing to do. You cannot just go and own Africa from day one. You cannot go into all fifty-four countries. So you would probably see where there is a product market fit. So it goes back to products before the kind of brand and the communicating in terms of market entry. And also do you have people on the ground? One of the issues I have noticed a lot over the last ten years is people will, international brands are like, yes, we are going to go and launch in Nigeria. They have never been to Nigeria, they do not have any Nigerians on the ground. They do not really understand the market differences. Or they might send a European member of staff to launch the brand and that person is there for six days and then they expect to own Nigeria and its two hundred million people. In terms of a so-called captive audience, that is really not possible. So I think it is actually being operational, having people on the ground first before then trying to do the branding and the marketing. But I would have thought that that is the case for most countries. It is not necessarily specific to Africa.

Farzana Baduel (14:34):
Yes, I mean usually if you go to, for instance, the UK, people would naturally initially perhaps think, let me start off in London. If people, for instance, would go to, and indeed American companies when they are looking to go to Europe, they would start off perhaps in the UK because they feel some sort of cultural affinity to it. Language would be one important one. For instance, if they want to go to the Middle East, they may start off with Dubai because they feel there are a lot of expats there. So that is kind of what I was trying to gauge. Got it. Yes.

Jessica Hope (15:05):
That makes sense. And I think stability, market stability, currency stability, a lot of African markets have sometimes volatile currency exchanges, so that could wipe out your profits as well. Time zones are a difference. So for example, at most there is only ever one hour difference between the UK and Nigeria. For example, Kenya, I think it is up to three hours depending on the UK. Time differences as well, ease of doing business, there are all those kinds of factors that are important. But I think having a network on the ground and actually having people who will give you an honest understanding of what is happening in the market. But language, time zone, currency and political stability I would say are very key, absolutely key, unless you have a high appetite for risk.

Farzana Baduel (15:53):
And what is the media ecosystem like there? So for instance, are there very well regarded, trusted Pan-African networks that you tend to work with quite a lot? Do you layer that with obviously these in-country media outlets, and then also are there Western media outlets that are consumed there as well? I imagine you probably have Francophone like UK, the US, you probably have Chinese, so it must be quite a fragmented media landscape.

Jessica Hope (16:26):
Fragmented, yes. I guess Wimbart specifically works in tech corporate B2B, so we really understand the media landscape very well. Let us take the tech space. There are some in-country tech blogs and tech outlets. Then there are some really large tech focused publishing houses. TechCabal is sort of Pan-African based in Nigeria, but they have scaled to Kenya, they have scaled to South Africa, they now have French speaking editions. So it is interesting to see the evolution of some of the publishing houses, digital first, and then they have, in terms of their monetisation models, events, they do digital video production. So they are evolving in a similar way as Western media outlets have as well. Then obviously because Africa is a huge continent and lots of business and opportunity and activity is happening, Reuters has a large bureau, Bloomberg has a large bureau, Financial Times, CNN, BBC. I mean, it is interesting how media is consumed. So for example, in the UK, I would never watch CNN particularly. It is not a common media platform that Brits watch. I would say that Brits probably only really watch it when they are abroad.

Farzana Baduel (17:40):
That is so true.

Jessica Hope (17:41):
Yes. In Nigeria, it is the go-to international media brand. CNN Africa is one of the biggest media targets for us. And interestingly, they have this incredible reporter called Larry, who is one of their roving reporters who started off as a tech journalist and he has grown, I believe he went to the BBC and then he is at CNN. He does CNN Global now. Amazing. And I think that it is great that some of the international outlets are actually using local talent to report on local markets, and then it gives them a platform to go global as well.

Farzana Baduel (18:17):
Thank you, Jessica.

Doug Downs (18:19):
Thanks, Jessica.

Farzana Baduel (18:20):
I feel like I have had this whirlwind tour, which has been absolutely brilliant.

Doug Downs (18:26):
I want to go. Hey Jessica, in our last episode, our guest, Jo Jamieson, she left a question for you.

Jo Jamieson (18:34):
I would be keen to find out what book the next guest has read that has changed the way they think or behave this year.

Jessica Hope (18:45):
So actually this year I have read more books than I have done for a really long time because lots of people ask about books. And for too long I just felt really uncomfortable, the fact that I could not remember a book that I had read. So I was intentional about reading. And then when you asked this question, I thought, I actually cannot remember what books I have read. However, I have read two in particular this year that I remembered. One actually is very boring but very useful, The Shortest History of Economics. It is one of those airport books that you pick up and it just talks about how money and economics work. And as a business owner, I found it very interesting to look at the fundamentals of scale and business economics. So I read that and I think it just made me think about the unit economics of running my own business.

(19:33):
 I have also had a big James Baldwin run this year, so I read If Beale Street Could Talk. I had not realised that it had actually been made into a film as well a few years back. But the book is incredible. And I also read quite a lot of books on religion because I am one of those people who find religion fascinating, but I just do not have faith, right? But I find the politics behind it fascinating, how people react, how people make decisions based on religion. Absolutely fascinating. So those are things that would almost...

Doug Downs (20:06):
That would be a great episode for us at some point, the communication strategies you can take from the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, all those.

Jessica Hope (20:14):
All of them. To be honest, if you are able to combine, well, anyone who combines religion and technology, they will make a fortune, especially in Africa as well, where there are these super churches, huge, still quite religious populations across the continent, different religions represented as well. It is a really massive, fascinating market.

Farzana Baduel (20:41):
Love it. Absolutely love it. So Jessica, now your turn. What question do you leave for our next guest?

Jessica Hope (20:48):
My question would be, when was the golden age of public relations?

Farzana Baduel (20:55):
I would probably say now, no.

Jessica Hope (20:59):
I think it is the days where you could turn up to work at nine o’clock and then have long boozy lunches, still get work done. Oh.

Farzana Baduel (21:06):
The Ab Fab days.

Jessica Hope (21:07):
The Ab Fab days for me.

Doug Downs (21:09):
Actually I side with Farzana on this. I think we are heading into the golden age. It is getting so hard and so fragmented, just technology and the human species. We talk about being polarised. We are going to be multi-polarised as we move forward.

Jessica Hope (21:25):
I agree in some respects, but I think that it is going to be difficult for PR because for example, a lot of the entry-level jobs...

Doug Downs (21:33):
They are going to change.

Jessica Hope (21:34):
Are no longer open. So we are going to change, but I think there will be an issue with the PR talent pipeline.

Doug Downs (21:43):
Awesome. Thanks so much for this, Jessica. Great point. Here are the top three things we got today from our guest, Jessica Hope. Number one, Africa is not one market for goodness’ sake. Jessica explains that treating Africa as a single uniform market is a major mistake. Each of its fifty-four countries and the pockets of civilisations within them have their own unique histories, languages, and consumer behaviours. Number two, emotional intelligence in public relations. Success in African markets requires emotional and business intelligence, taking the time to understand local culture, communication styles and market norms before acting. And number three, you go where the audience is. Africa is mobile first and WhatsApp driven. So brands need to adapt their communication and marketing channels to where people actually connect and do business, just like you and me. Farzana.

Farzana Baduel (22:40):
Doug, I learned a lot from Jessica. And I think whether you are thinking of market access in an African country or just a different market to one that you are familiar with, I think her principles just resonate. It is all about empathy and really understanding the nuance. Now, if you would like to send a message to our guest, Jessica Hope, we have got her contact information in the show notes for you. Stories and Strategies is a co-production of Curzon Public Relations, JGR Communications and Stories and Strategies Podcasts. If you liked this episode, please leave a rating and possibly a review. And thank you to our producers, Emily Page and David Olajide. And lastly, do us a favour, forward this episode to one friend. And thank you so much for listening.