The corporate storytelling format “SPEAK” has been led and continuously developed since 2020 under the responsibility of Johanna Walser, Ringier’s Chief Communications Officer, in close collaboration with Marc Walder (CEO), Georg Sturm (Sturmzentrale Advertising), Hannes Sigrist-Thompson (FS Parker), and Thomas Goebbels (Film Advertising Brands, FAB).
The European Excellence Awards are among the most prestigious communications awards in Europe. They recognise outstanding strategic, creative and effective communication across organisations, industries and markets. Each year, several hundred projects from across Europe are evaluated by an independent international jury. Awarded work spans fields such as corporate and executive communications, brand storytelling, digital innovation, internal communication and sustainability. The awards are widely regarded as a benchmark for professional communications excellence at European level.
Marc Walder, Ringier CEO: “The excellent team led by Johanna Walser, supported by Hannes Sigrist-Thompson and Georg Sturm has been conceiving and producing Ringier Group’s SPEAK format for several years. Thanks to this outstanding work, SPEAK has become Ringier’s most important event for information, orientation, and inspiration.”
The category «Executive Communications & Positioning» honours communication concepts that sustainably strengthen the role and credibility of corporate leadership, both internally and externally. From hundreds of submissions, the jury selected Ringier’s “SPEAK 2025” for its clear narrative, strategic coherence and tangible impact in framing key future challenges and the strategic direction of the Ringier Group.
With the «SPEAK» format, Ringier fundamentally reimagined its annual reporting, moving away from a traditional top-down update to a hybrid storytelling format. In the 2025 edition, Group CFO Dr Annabella Bassler presented the 2024 financial results, while CEO Marc Walder positioned transformation as a core element of Ringier’s DNA, with a clear focus on artificial intelligence and AI agents.
Beyond content, the project’s particular strength lay in its communicative and visual architecture. Data and interpretation, strategy and leadership perspective, as well as information and dialogue, were deliberately integrated and visually translated. More than 6,000 employees participated live at Kino Corso in Zurich and via live stream worldwide. “SPEAK” thus became a shared experience rather than a one-way information format, positioning Corporate Communications as a strategic bridge between leadership and the organisation.
Winning the European Excellence Award 2025 in the newly created category “Executive Communications & Positioning” underlines Corporate Communications at Ringier as a strategic leadership function and as an important contributor to the company’s long-term value creation.