Michael MacLennan
I bring together two things that rarely sit in the same person: senior communications leadership, and the ability to actually build with AI.
Winner · AI Communications Leader of the Year, AI Comms Awards 2026
Most comms leaders talk about AI. I build with it.
In June 2026 I won AI Communications Leader of the Year and my platform Comms With AI won Gold for Best Innovation at the inaugural AI Comms Awards. I help communications teams adopt AI in a way they can stand behind: tested, accountable, and honest about the limits.
In October 2025 I completed Imperial College London's Professional Certificate in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, hands-on postgraduate training in Python, statistics, model design and deployment, and earned an Exemplary Award for my final technical project. I have since added Anthropic's Claude Code in Action certification, the agentic-coding tooling I use daily to build products and deliver for clients.
Technical capability means little without strategic context. That comes from two decades leading digital transformation for global brands and purpose-driven organisations: five years as Director of Digital and Communications at Brunswick, global content strategy at Red Bull reaching more than 100 million fans, and a digital operating model at Barclaycard that reshaped how millions of customers engaged with the brand.
Four ways this usually starts
Board and non-executive
Non-executive, advisory and trustee roles where digital, communications and AI capability is the gap on the board. I am open to approaches rather than actively seeking, and I would rather have the conversation early than see a role list.
Email me →Consultancy, through Faur
Communications strategy, digital audits and content workshops for organisations that need the work to account for what AI can now do. Delivered by a senior team assembled for the brief rather than a fixed agency roster.
faur.site →Senior freelance and fractional
Director-level communications leadership on a contract basis, usually where an agency or an in-house team needs seniority on a sensitive account without adding a permanent head.
Email me →Speaking and teaching
Keynotes, panels and practical sessions on applying AI to communications: what it accelerates, where it quietly introduces risk, and what has to stay human.
Topics and past platforms →Board and trustee record
Governance responsibility for marketing and communications, and involvement in the chief executive transition and recruitment.
Worked closely with the board through a period of severe financial pressure.
Founded and led alongside the Brunswick role. Closed deliberately once the acute need had passed.
Water and sanitation charity working across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Three things I have built, and what each is for
Faur
The senior strategic communications practice I founded in November 2023. Rather than a fixed agency, Faur assembles the right specialists for each challenge: strategy, digital audits and content workshops that account for what AI can now do.
faur.site →Comms With AI
A free operating system of practitioner-built AI templates for communications professionals. Winner of Gold for Best Innovation in AI Tools at the inaugural 2026 AI Comms Awards. Every template is tested in real consulting and built to deploy in 15–30 minutes.
commswith.ai →Applied / Comms With AI
Where the experimentation gets documented in the open: articles, interviews and hands-on tool testing on what actually works when you apply AI to communications. Practical over theoretical, honest over promotional.
appliedcomms.ai →Where the work is happening now
Freelance Digital & Social Director
Since May 2025
Brought in following a national restructure to provide senior strategic leadership across the agency's most reputationally sensitive accounts: multi-billion-pound regeneration developments, executive communications for a global financial-services leader, and digital strategy around major moments for a senior minister in a G20 country. I have secured six-figure retained work and delivered campaigns sustaining LinkedIn engagement above 40%.
Founder & principal consultant
Since November 2023
Clients have ranged from ParalympicsGB (digital platform evaluation for their Athlete Community) to lottery operator Allwyn (corporate content strategy) and national membership bodies such as ACOSVO (communications for a five-year strategy launch). The work others struggle to deliver: strategies built for AI capability, audits that map transformation, workshops that drive implementation.
Working in the open, at Applied Comms AI
I document the experiments rather than only the conclusions, in my publication Applied / Comms With AI. Recent pieces:
How to Give AI a Memory: a practical guide for comms teams
Lessons from OpenAI's Hugging Face break-in: why orchestration is your next must-have comms AI skill
Five layers of AI tooling, and the comms job each one is for
The 20 roadblocks between comms and useful AI, and what to do about them
Proven executive delivery
I walk into complex situations, diagnose the core issues and deliver measurable improvement under pressure: the strategic oversight a board needs, with the willingness to roll up my sleeves.
Restructured operations under severe financial pressure and delivered more than 50% of annual projected income within the first quarter.
Data-driven business cases and workflow improvements that cut administrative burden on frontline staff.
An online community that supported 385,000+ people and raised over £250,000, with partners including the NHS, Scottish Government and Marie Curie. Closed deliberately once the acute need had passed.
Governance responsibility for marketing and communications and a seat on the oversight group for a pivotal CEO transition.
Trained for this, not retrofitted to it
Start something, see it through, know when it's done
Based in South Queensferry, near Edinburgh. I've written and directed short films and music videos, play bagpipes, guitar, bass and keys, run more than twenty marathons and climbed more than twenty Munros. The same instinct runs through all of it.
Let's talk
Whether you are looking for an advisor who understands AI implementation, a consultancy partner through Faur, practical tools through Comms With AI, or you just want to compare notes on where this is heading, I would welcome the conversation.