Welcome to Brilliance@Work, a series of profiles about stellar collaboration professionals and their best practices at work.

Michele Wolpe is Director of Employee Communications at Autodesk, a global software design company headquartered in San Francisco, California. She has over 20 years of experience in leading employee communications at Fortune 500 companies including The Walt Disney Company, Barclays Global Investors, Charles Schwab, DHL Worldwide Express and Silicon Graphics.

Michele is fluent in French and Spanish and is a certified Executive Coach. She loves employee communications because it helps employees understand and engage with the company they work for and supports leaders in inspiring employees.

Join Michele at the Advanced Learning Institute’s Strategic Internal Branding Conference, April 19-21 in Scottsdale, Arizona as she presents “Engage and Inform a Global Workforce by Strategically Aligning Your Brand through Video Communications.”

In the meantime, read on to learn more about Michele and her insights on engaging employees through video and webcasting.

Peggy L. Bieniek, ABC: What are you most interested in and speak most enthusiastically about?
Michele Wolpe: I am most interested in talking about ways to creatively deliver business news and information to employees as well as the importance and value of leaders communicating face to face with employees.

PB: What are some of your past and current projects that you are most proud of?
MW: I’m proud of leading the webcasting project at Autodesk and taking it from zero to a fully integrated company-wide solution that is used regularly at the company by all of the business organizations.

I’m also proud of the Vision Project I ran at Autodesk, which resulted in a vision statement for the company, as well as the Vision Map project I ran that involved creating a visual map of the company’s business model transition and plans to accomplish its strategy.

PB: How does video communication support internal brand strategy?
MW: Video (and webcasting) can bring a brand strategy to life just by the nature of the medium. The storytelling power of video, via images and people, is much stronger than other media.

PB: What will people gain from attending the Strategic Internal Branding Conference?
MW: It’s always great to hear from colleagues in the field about what they are doing that is new and exciting and making a difference. For me, conferences like these are ideal ways to get new ideas and to meet people who become part of your professional network.

PB: What is most important for people to understand from your conference presentation?
MW: That implementing a webcasting solution for a company can be a very effective, powerful and cost-effective way to strengthen employee communication, leadership visibility, and to build engagement, especially in global companies and those with widely distributed offices and/or operations.

PB: What is your contact information for questions, comments, ideas?
MW: Michele.wolpe@autodesk.com