One audience. One goal. Two stories.
An interview with Sue Todd, CEO of NABS, the media and advertising industry's mental wellness charity.
“We’ve landed on a few words that feel right: to advance the mental wellness of our industry.”
Sue Todd, CEO of NABS
If you’ve spent any time in UK advertising, at some point you will have encountered NABS, the 111-year-old charity that exists to look after the many people who drive the industry. Since 2021 its chief executive has been Sue Todd, a former marketer, publisher and culture-change lead whose “squiggly” career makes her unusually fluent in both commercial pressures and human emotion.
Sue’s mandate is to work with the industry to keep its talent mentally well, so they can drive the innovation in the business. In practice, that means steering a charity that last year fielded 5,200 calls and delivered support 14,000 times, up 20% on 2023.
Leading NABS is tough, for all kinds of reasons.
The advertising industry is always right at the front of change, and while it is full of brilliant, resilient people, it is frequently chaotic and drawn to the short term.
And, as we’ve been exploring all month, life for charities is tough. We live in a world where problems are in rich supply, and money is tight. Ways of working are changing rapidly in a way that creates complexity, and sometimes conflict.
Amidst all of that, NABS is making great progress. It’s a fantastic team - smart and creative, open-minded and tough. At LookUP we’ve done some of our best work over the last couple of years with them, and it’s been a joy.
And at the heart of that is Sue, who is absolutely one of our favourite people!
She’s a great example of a leader who understands the power of storytelling as a way of bringing together all kinds of stakeholders together. And also of someone who knows they don’t have all the answers. You’ll get a strong flavour of that in our interview, below.
Before you dive in, here are three things that we’d love to call to your attention that come up during the interview.
1. Vision & Purpose: One Story, Two Hats
We’ve spoken to a lot of charities recently, like Alzheimer’s Society, who have found a lot of success in smartly segmenting their audiences. The situation for NABS, as a charity at the heart of an industry, is the exact opposite. As Sue Todd described here, telling the NABS story is complex “because our customers are also our consumers.”
In other words, the very people who donate to NABS are also the people who may one day phone its advice line, or who join their workshops to unblock moments of change in their careers. That duality forces the charity to segment by moment rather than by audience:
When I need help: show me anonymity, expertise and a peer network that “moves me forward faster.”
When I can help: prove the industry-wide value of investing in collective resilience and of a sense of community.
It’s a subtle shift that keeps the vision intact, while letting the narrative flex to context.
2. Culture & Collaboration: Building One Team
Sue has been working in the workplace culture space for a long time, and describes the current state as “the eye of the storm… a steep learning curve” as hybrid models, cost pressures and new talent expectations collide.
One implication of this is that NABS is more and more focused on community. In a market where 71% say the industry must prioritise mental wellness, yet 35% still don’t feel able to talk openly about it, NABS is able to bring people together from across the industry to learn, problem-solve, and feel a sense of togetherness.
The NABS story isn’t just a story about what the charity does - it’s a story about what the industry wants to achieve together.
Behind the scenes, Sue encourages her team to work on an 80/20 rule: 80% focus on your core remit, 20% walk in a colleague’s shoes to “create some cultural glue.” It’s not perfect, she concedes, but it helps to break down siloes, and more fully use the skills of all of her team to create, serve, and sell.
3. Selling: Making the Future Immediate.
In 2025, the noise around fundraising, and around industry budget, is deafening. But NABS is cutting through more and more.
Sue’s approach is defined by curiosity, and by jeopardy.
“The best thing to do is ask people what’s on their mind this week.”
This single question lets NABS pivot between immediate pain-points (a lost account, an urgent wellbeing crisis) and longer-term value (talent retention, positive brand equity).
But in all of these questions, NABS never stops asking the most fundamental question of all: What would happen if we weren’t here? It’s only by constantly reflecting on this that you can really put your finger on the jeopardy that makes your story compelling, today and for the long term.
This was a great conversation, that covered the importance of good jeopardy, audience mindset segmentation, and what makes the advertising industry special.
It’s also a good reminder of the importance of consistency of purpose, and determination, if you want to make progress.
“If you can move thousands of individuals forward, you nudge a whole industry forward.”
At LookUP, we’ve been working with NABS a lot recently, and together we’ve done some work we are really proud of.
Helping to define the charity’s vision, in a way that engages and flexes
Helping NABS to define a Cultural Contract that guides collaboration
Expanding the team of amazing NABS StoryTellers, from across the teams!
If this is the kind of work you need to do, we’d love to help you. Please get in touch via matthew@wearelookup.com or caroline@wearelookup.com.
And if you’d like to ensure the mental wellness of the advertising agency keeps moving forwards, donate to NABS today. We’ve made a donation as a thank you to Sue for her time, and look forward to many years of seeing NABS advance mental wellness in an industry that means a lot to us.