Strategic Employee Resource Groups Start with Strategy: A Conversation with Natalia Zurowski
Natalia Zurowski brings a combination of strategic marketing expertise, financial services insight and deep commitment to diversity and inclusion. An accomplished speaker who has taken to stages at the Dive In Festival and the Women in Insurance Summit (UK), Natalia is also a previous winner of the Top Women in Insurance category at the We Are The City Rising Star Awards and was named one of the Top 100 Female Future Leaders in the UK by the Women in Finance Awards.
Alongside her professional role, she serves as an iCAN Advisory Member, helping shape conversations around influence, impact and inclusion across financial services.
We spoke to Natalia about how Employee Resource Groups can strengthen their narrative, unlock sponsorship and move from activity to measurable impact.
What makes a message credible enough to influence senior leaders and unlock sponsorship?
The most credible narratives are built from the inside out. Before you can influence senior stakeholders, you need to genuinely understand the employees you represent, including their experiences, ambitions and barriers.
Embedding that voice of the employee into your messaging means your narrative isn't just compelling, it's defensible. Evidence-backed, people-centred and outcome-driven is what earns the room.
What storytelling shift helps ERGs move from activity-based to value-based narratives?
Start with a messaging house. This is your north star, your mission, the pillars that drive your work. That architecture is what shifts you from activity-based execution like one-off events twice a year, to a network with a coherent identity and purpose-driven outcomes. It's the difference between a network that reacts and one that leads.
When everything you do traces back to a clear mission, you stop being tactical and start being strategic.
What lessons from marketing can ERGs borrow to scale their voice and impact?
Think omnichannel. Just as we do in marketing, a single email rarely moves the needle.
Combining internal digital channels like MS Teams, digital assistants and signage with physical touchpoints like events and pop-up banners multiplies your reach and meets people where they are. Partner with your internal comms team, experiment with formats, and explore how generative AI tools can help you scale content when your team's bandwidth is stretched.
Used responsibly, it's a real force multiplier for bringing your campaigns to life across every channel but should never be used to replace authentic community voices.
What differentiates ERGs seen as strategic partners from those viewed as “nice to have”?
Alignment to business objectives, full stop.
ERGs that stand out can articulate how their outcomes ladder up to the organisation's broader goals. A firm-wide graduate recruitment push, as an example, is an opportunity to build pipelines from non-target universities in underrepresented regions.
Position your ERG as an extension of the business that can partner on these efforts, and you unlock not just impact but the funding and sponsorship to fuel bigger ambitions.
How can ERGs use data without losing the human element?
Data gives you the mandate, but human stories give you the impact.
Behind every data point is a real person with a real story and the most compelling ERG narratives hold both in tension.
Use your data to shine a spotlight on where attention is needed, then let the lived experiences of those you represent create the emotional resonance that drives change.
What’s one piece of advice for sharpening an ERG’s USP?
Co-creation is the differentiator.
Rather than designing your network's proposition in a committee room and pushing it outward, involve your members in building it. Their input is what makes your USP real and relevant. When people feel ownership over something, they advocate for it.
That same principle underpins successful change management, and it applies just as powerfully to ERGs.
Closing Thoughts
As an iCAN Advisory Member, Natalia’s perspective reinforces a powerful truth: influence doesn’t come from activity alone, it comes from clarity, alignment and evidence-backed storytelling.
For ERGs looking to move beyond being “nice to have” and towards becoming strategic partners within their organisations, her message is clear, build from within, align to business outcomes, amplify through multiple channels and never lose sight of the human story behind the data.
Strategic, credible and people-centred; that’s what earns the room.
Be in the Room Where the Future of ERGs Is Being Shaped
The ERG landscape is changing fast. Expectations are higher, scrutiny is sharper, and the margin for impact without strategy is shrinking.
If you lead, sponsor, support, or influence ERGs, this is not a conversation you can afford to observe from the sidelines.
Join us at the ERG Blueprint Conference this April where the people shaping the next chapter of ERGs will be sharing what works, challenging outdated models, and raising the bar for impact.
Get in the room with ERG leaders, executive sponsors, culture strategists, and practitioners who are serious about moving ERGs from passion projects to strategic powerhouses.