Global reach through local voices
How a local nonprofit scaled across 135 countries by handing the mic to young changemakers
A Boston-based youth leadership organization needed to become a global digital platform without losing what made it work. The pandemic accelerated the timeline. The challenge: scale across 135 countries while keeping the brand both globally coherent and locally authentic. I was brought in as the organization's first communications director to build the function from scratch.
Most organizations scaling globally centralize, control the message, standardize the voice, broadcast from headquarters. I went the opposite direction. Flipped the protagonist. Instead of positioning the organization as the hero of young people's stories, I built a brand where youth told their own stories in their own voices. Regional fellows and ambassadors owned their markets. Changemakers became the protagonists. The organization became the platform, not the savior. Scale came from authenticity, not volume.
What I built
Developed brand playbooks with a strong global core and democratized regional execution, localized to how stories get told in Nairobi versus Manila versus Mexico City.
Launched weekly IG Lives where regional fellows hosted changemakers, driving 700% engagement growth through content created with community, not about them.
Pioneered and produced a multi-region changemaker docuseries across South Asia, MENA, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Led communications execution for brand partnerships: spokesperson for TOMS x KROST (quotes in Flaunt, KROST blog, TOMS.com, and industry press), campaign strategy for Bezos Family Foundation competition mobilizing 975 teams across 57 countries.
Built the content engine that let the brand scale across regions without losing its identity.
Selected assets
Diagnosis before design. The audit that shaped the scaling strategy.
Handed the mic to the changemakers themselves. Regional voices became the engine of brand growth.
Partnerships that put youth-led stories on global platforms and funded 200 grants in the process.
A youth-led docuseries that replaced top-down storytelling with locally rooted narratives, building trust, visibility, and reach across regions.
"Having secured funding for 200 grants not only enables us to work directly with young people on the challenges they want to address, but also ensures that we have the capacity to think about how we can best support them in finding solutions to those challenges."— Dalia Ezzat, Senior Director of Global Communications and Digital Strategy, quoted in KROST blog
Featured in
Results
Social media engagement grew 700%. Audience expanded 465%. Facebook went from 11K to 100K+, Instagram from 500 to 10K — all accounts verified through earned engagement, not paid promotion. The brand scaled to 135 countries across five continents. Partnerships with TOMS, Bezos Family Foundation, and Funko put youth-led stories on global platforms and funded 200 grants through TOMS x KROST. Coverage in Forbes, Global Citizen, Teen Vogue.
Social media engagement growth
Audience expansion
Scaled across five continents
Global reach doesn't come from louder messaging. It comes from knowing your audience, centering the right voices, building story that travels without fracturing.