Welcome to Changemaker Stories from LOCAL – an ongoing series of personal interviews with leaders driving change across every industry and discipline. Because leading change shouldn’t mean going it alone.
Isaac Szymanczyk calls himself “a career consultant,” and for good reason. His journey has spanned marketing agencies, internal communication teams, global technology transformations, and even founding and running an award-winning communications firm. He's currently leading a team for a global footwear brand driving digital transformation initiatives across 20+ countries. Regardless of job title, Isaac’s throughline is clear: make the complex simple, make the simple actionable, and never forget the human story behind the strategy.
Storytelling isn’t just how I communicate—it’s also how I lead. Whether I am building a deck for an executive, leading teams through operational changes, or launching a brand initiative, I am always translating something clunky into something clear: something human. I learned early on that people don’t change because of frameworks. They change because the story makes sense to them.
Simplifying complexity is my favorite form of impact. The best feedback I can get is: “Thanks, I finally get it.” If I’m able to say something in a way no one else has, and that adjustment finally makes the lightbulb go on for someone, that’s the win. And it doesn’t have to be fancy. Sometimes it’s making a one-pager with a simple “from” and “to” table. Sometimes it’s finding a metaphor for the problem in a team meeting. But the goal is always the same: turn ideas into insight into action.
Most organizations don’t invest in change until they’ve failed at it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been brought in after something's gone sideways in a major technology initiative. There is often a pattern: they focused first on the tool, second on the process, and last they remembered the people. By then, it’s an uphill climb to inspire change within your organization. The companies that get it right start with the humans at the center of the initiative. They treat employees like their first customers.
Building a practice isn’t about frameworks—it’s about trust. When I built the PMO at my current company, I didn’t come in with a binder of templates and methodologies. I came in with a consulting mindset: What do people actually need to get things done? What gets in their way? What’s confusing teams and wasting their time? It’s often a lack of focus and clarity. So I standardized our communication channels, created a few simple templates for repeatable processes, and rolled in change principles without waving the “change management” flag. And it worked. Because I’m not selling process for process’s sake—I’m solving for specific pain.
Change marketing is just good marketing—to your own people. One of the best organizational change campaigns I’ve ever seen was a major information security initiative to drive behavioral change across an entire enterprise. The goal was simple enough: protect the brand by protecting its data. It could have been like any traditional cybersecurity initiative. But what made it so successful was that it was marketed well: branded like a major product launch, complete with visual branding, and simple, human storytelling—all rolled into one crisp tagline: Keep It Tight. And it totally worked. They didn’t treat it like an IT project rollout. They positioned it like a cultural movement. That’s the bar more organizations need to aim for.
Good communication pieces should work in three contexts: 3 seconds, 30 seconds, or 3 minutes. That’s something I would ask of the team at my agency. If the reader only has 3 seconds, they should still “get it” just by scanning the page in that time. A clear title, good content structure and a sharp visual can do that. Then, if the audience has 30 seconds, guide their eye to the most important takeaways. And if they have three minutes, you can lead them through the full story with the detail that matters. That’s how you respect people’s time and still make an impact. You can’t control how much time and attention the audience will give your message, but you can control what you do with the time and attention you get.
We need more storytellers at the table during transformation. Very often, the people driving change are experts in IT, business, operations, or HR—but not necessarily experts in communication for emotional resonance. That’s where changemaking storytellers come in—not to fluff things up, but to humanize them, translate strategy into inspiration, and remind everyone why this matters and who it’s for.
“Most organizations don't invest in change until they've failed at it."
Everything I do comes back to making change make sense. Whether I'm facilitating a workshop, designing a dashboard, or mentoring the next generation of practitioners, the goal is the same: help people move forward. Because real progress happens when people are able to stop resisting and start learning and understanding.
One of my favorite ways to help organizations move forward is through workshops. Being in the room is where I come alive, personally. I love the energy created when a lot of people are thinking hard together in the same room—the sticky notes, the sidebar ideas flying around, the challenge of guiding a group toward clarity and shared ownership. It’s tightrope walking from the meeting start to reach the objective of the workshop. Often, it requires reading the room carefully, shaping the format to support that, and pulling insights from people who didn’t realize they had them. Those are days that fly by for me—every workshop I’ve ever done is memorable for different reasons.
Mentoring is a newer joy—and one that’s become deeply meaningful. Lately, I’ve found real fulfillment in sharing what I’ve learned so far on my journey. Watching younger team members take an idea and run with it. Trying to help them steer their journey, sharing the mistakes I’ve made and lessons I’ve learned. I can’t walk their journey for them: all I can do is light the way and let them evolve at their own pace. Eventually, you realize that your greatest impact isn’t just in what you accomplish yourself but also in what you pass on.
What gets me excited for the future: The business world is changing fast because of technology, but we still work in a world of humans. And humans make sense of the world through stories we tell ourselves and each other. No matter what the job is or the organization needs, I want to keep showing up for the work that moves people forward and makes their lives better. Solving complex problems across different cultures, and creating stories that click for people.
