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In the world of corporate communications, we often pride ourselves on being the bridge between a company’s message and its audience. We interpret strategy, craft narratives, and protect reputations. But there’s a skill we rarely talk about. One that quietly separates the good from the exceptional: financial literacy.
Having spent over 15 years in this industry, I’ve seen incredibly talented people rise through the ranks with sharp instincts and creative brilliance. Yet too often, even the most promising communications professionals hit a wall when the conversation shifts to numbers. They’re stumped by budgets, scope, resourcing, or profit margins. Why? Because we’ve built a culture where financial fluency is treated as something you ‘pick up later,’ if at all.
It’s time we change that.
From timesheets to decision-making
Let’s start with something simple: the humble timesheet. Most agency professionals fill one out weekly, if not daily. But how many understand the deeper purpose? For many, it’s a task completed with little context. Codes, minutes and billing increments. Rarely is it explained how those entries link to project margins, client satisfaction, or team sustainability.
This disconnect isn’t benign. When teams don’t understand how scopes of work are built, how time translates into cost, or how over-servicing affects profitability, they’re working blind. Worse, they’re missing out on vital learning opportunities that could help them evolve from executors to strategic advisors.
Financial literacy shouldn’t be reserved for directors. Even entry-level team members benefit from understanding how their work fits into the broader business model. That knowledge doesn’t just inform, it empowers. It enables more responsible time management, better communication with clients, and a keener eye for scope creep. It helps teams see that when we talk about value, it isn’t just about output, it’s about outcome, efficiency and return.
Understanding the business we work in
Communications professionals often find themselves at the table during business-critical moments. Mergers, acquisitions, restructuring, or crisis management. These are situations where messaging and financial stakes are deeply intertwined. To contribute meaningfully, we need to understand the commercial context, not just the communications strategy.
Take, for example, a client announcing a cost-saving initiative. A communicator with strong financial understanding will ask: What’s the expected impact on EBITDA? How might this affect employee sentiment or investor confidence? What’s the relationship between cost-cutting and revenue growth in this instance? They’ll shape messages that reflect not just empathy, but precision.
When we understand the numbers behind a narrative, our advice becomes sharper. Our questions become more relevant. And our seat at the table becomes more secure.
Aligning with 2025’s agency and in-house realities
The communications industry has changed dramatically over the past decade and continues to evolve in 2025. Clients demand more accountability, integrated services, and measurable outcomes. Budgets are scrutinised. Scopes are tighter. ROI is non-negotiable.
In this landscape, communicators who understand business fundamentals stand out. They build tighter scopes. They allocate time more effectively. They recognise when a client’s needs have shifted and can flag changes before things go off-track.
They’re also better collaborators. When you understand how a P&L works, or what drives gross margin, you work more efficiently with finance teams, procurement, and senior leadership. You don’t just defend costs, you explain them.
For agency professionals, especially, this is critical. Too often, financial responsibility is dumped on directors without any real succession planning. By the time someone is promoted, they’re expected to know how to run an account like a business, with no formal financial grounding. The result? Poor forecasting, reactive staffing, burnout, and missed revenue opportunities.
We need to normalise financial learning early in a communicator’s career. Not because everyone needs to become a finance expert, but because everyone benefits from understanding how agencies run and how value is created.
The gender dimension
It would be remiss not to address the gendered aspect of this conversation. Communications is a sector with a high proportion of women, particularly in junior and mid-level roles. Yet globally, women report lower levels of financial confidence than men, even when performance and outcomes are on par.
In the Middle East, for example, a UBS study revealed that 54 per cent of women in the region felt they understood investments poorly. While that statistic focused on personal finance, it reflects a broader discomfort with financial topics that can carry into the workplace.
Closing that confidence gap is critical, not just for individual careers, but for the future of leadership in our industry. When women, and all underrepresented professionals, are supported in building financial acumen, they are better positioned to lead, to advocate, and to influence.
A culture shift worth making
Embedding financial literacy into the culture of communications isn’t about turning creatives into accountants. It’s about making sure that every team member, at every level, understands the mechanics of the work they do—not just the message, but the model.
It’s about giving people the tools to ask better questions, to understand trade-offs, to forecast effort, and to lead with intention.
Financially literate teams are more agile, more accountable, and more empowered. They build stronger client relationships because they understand value from both sides. They manage their workload more sustainably because they understand what ‘overservicing’ really means. And they grow faster in their careers because they’re trusted with greater responsibility.
As communications professionals, we often advocate for transparency, clarity, and empowerment externally. We owe it to ourselves and to the next generation of communicators to deliver the same internally. The future of our industry isn’t just creative. It’s commercially astute.
And the sooner we start making financial fluency part of the communications skill set, the better equipped we’ll be to lead it.
By Amel Osman, Communications & Reputation Advisor
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