Dana Salloum on Building an Inspiring, Organic Brand One Story at a Time
At #PRAXIS12, Dana Salloum, Chief Communications Officer at Alstom, took the audience on a candid and insightful ride into the world of brand storytelling. Her keynote, “The Impact of Storytelling in Building Powerful Business Brands,” wasn’t just about theory – it was a practical look at what it takes to shape a brand that connects with people.
She began by reflecting on Alstom’s 10-year journey in India, a decade-long effort to create a world leader in mobility solutions. “Every metro in India has something of Alstom in it,” she shared proudly. But then came the honesty: “We are disseminating tons of messages, but only 10% gets covered. There are so many opinions, time challenges, and it’s always tempting to play it safe with generic messaging.”
“We are connecting less in communication and it’s a sheer challenge and we had to go back to the basics for storytelling matters”, she admitted. Their intense 10-year journey showed they need to do better with less, organically connect with our different audiences. But their coverage was mostly transactional.
They are not outsourcing their stories to AI. “We have to think of organic ways to improve our storytelling,” she shared. And what did they do? Started with better storytelling.
Her team realised that in the rush of communication, they were connecting less, not more. Coverage was transactional. “We had to go back to the basics. Storytelling matters,” Dana emphasised.
Instead of outsourcing their stories to AI, the team committed to finding organic ways to connect with audiences. And it worked. She shared the story of Volkan and Sabine, two employees who helped launch a “Journey’s Page” on the company website. Their very first story racked up over 400,000 LinkedIn newsletter followers in just the first week -completely organically!
The momentum didn’t stop there. Alstom also organised a record-breaking event – the largest-ever railway festival, recognised by the World Record Academy – and it became their top-performing campaign of the year.
India became a centerpiece for this transformation. The company focused on refreshing its brand, creating local resonance, and empowering its 80,000+ employees with toolkits and training to tell their own stories confidently. “Storytelling is now a core competency,” Dana explained and added – “We’re not just talking about a global context anymore – we are creating stories of experiences for every market we touch.”
She closed with a powerful reminder: storytelling isn’t about volume, it’s about connection. “Do better with less. Create meaning. Build brands that people want to engage with.”
At a time when technology threatens to automate everything, Dana’s message was clear – the human touch still wins.
In a conversation with Tarun Deo, Progressive Communications he questioned – why do still use Press Releases? Pat came her answer – “It’s not the only way to get to media and until a change happens, we need to shift”. And if she any advice to give to ensure consistency in storytelling across markets and cultures, it was that it’s country-specific and you should pick and choose how and why you communicate.
Whether any lessons were learnt, she was quick on the uptake – “Now we have to keep educating ourselves. The onus is on leadership to steer the company – to walk the talk!” And to go the extra lime her tip for the consultancy partner was – focus on where you want to go and that’s a big part of the solution”.
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