About Me
I work at the intersection of change, culture, and strategy.
I’m Kevin McCann. I work with leaders, organizations, and teams who are navigating moments of transition—when something important is shifting, when old assumptions no longer hold, or when clarity is needed before action. My work sits at the intersection of strategy, communications, advocacy, and leadership, often in contexts where trust, meaning, and momentum are at stake.
I’ve spent my career helping people make sense of complexity together. That means asking better questions, surfacing what’s actually going on beneath the noise, and helping groups align around what matters most—before deciding what to do next.
What I do
I’m a strategist, facilitator, and communications leader. Practically, that work includes leading the Atlantic Canadian presence of a multi-national integrated communications firm, and driving the innovation and strategy file in Canada for the same firm. I personally focus on strategy development, strategic planning, leadership and change communications, AI adoption, advocacy, narrative development, reputation management, and facilitation, and how all of these elements fit together. I work across sectors, including public affairs, marketing, technology, higher education, energy, healthcare, and not-for-profit. A large part of my work has revolved around AI in recent years, what it means for knowledge work and more importantly, how to adapt.
A consistent theme in my career has been helping organizations translate intent into action and then communicating it strategically, with clarity, whether with their people or externally with the audiences that matter most. I’m particularly interested in how language shapes behavior, how meaning is created (or lost) at work, and how technology is changing the conditions under which we lead, get information, and communicate.
How I think about the work
Someone once told me that I’m skeptical of hype and allergic to simple answers. This is probably true. I’m interested in second-order effects, unintended consequences, and the human dimensions of change that metrics miss. Data matters. Technology matters. But judgment, context, and trust also matter. As our society becomes more technical, I've embraced the human dimensions of communications as much as the technical, which is a big departure from the start of my career.
Much of my writing and thinking explores questions like:
- How do people make sense of change together?
- How does the knowledge economy operate with AI in it? What does a business do?
- What happens to work, identity, and meaning as technology accelerates?
- How do organizations earn trust in an age of skepticism?
- What does it actually take to mobilize people—not just inform them?
You can find some of that thinking in my writing here on AI, work, advocacy, and culture, or in talks and workshops I’ve led with teams across Canada and beyond.
Career path
Today I’m the Managing Partner for Atlantic Canada at NATIONAL, an integrated communications and public affairs firm, the flagship company of AVENIR GLOBAL, a true Canadian success story. As a Partner I've led or overseen multiple areas of focus within the firm, including media intelligence, data visualization, web services, AI adoption, strategic planning. I worked with our leadership at the time to expand our presence into Newfoundland and Labrador, starting in 2010. I've been with NATIONAL for 15 years, Managing Partner for Atlantic Canada for 5 years, and additionally serving as Head of Innovation and Strategy in Canada for six months. I am based in Halifax Nova Scotia, but work for clients everywhere.
I regularly work with executive teams, boards, and cross-functional groups, both in person and virtually.
Highlights while at NATIONAL are too many to count, but if pressed:
- Leading or driving significant advocacy initiatives that mattered to the region
- Bringing the firm to bear on complex, multi-stakeholder challenges that truly had impact in the region and in Canada
- Developing winning strategies for clients across sectors, whether they are recovering from a setback or pursuing transformative opportunities--health, non-profit, tourism, energy, post-secondary
Prior to NATIONAL, I spent 10 years living and working in Washington D.C., predominantly at a cutting edge advocacy firm called Grassroots Enterprise (think NationBuilder before it was NationBuilder). My role at Grassroots was largely technical, leading deployments on the product--Multiplier--as a platform; essentially, I built hundreds of advocacy websites for products, causes, and ideas touching every market in the United States. I learned a great deal about what motivates and captivates people in that era of the web, product workflows, creating an advocacy strategy.
Prior to Grassroots, I had experience with two startups in D.C. focused on the public sector--neither of them exist today, but were great experiences.
Grassroots was acquired by Edelman in 2009 and I was an integral piece of that process, charged with helping to integrate the product within Edelman post-acquisition.
