Build the skills, confidence and authority that win contracts, shape policy, raise profile and open doors throughout your career.
What's at stake
In defence and security, the person who knows the work best is usually the person who has to explain it. The founder pitching to investors. The technical lead briefing a customer. The CEO making the case to government. The scientist asked to speak to the media. The BD director sharpening a bid. The communications team supporting all of them.
Get the communication right and contracts close, investment lands, and the programmes get the political support they need. Innovation reaches the user faster. Your team becomes the trusted voice in the room. Your career steps up.
Get it wrong and brilliant capability stays invisible. The contract goes to the company that briefed better. The investor backs the founder who told the cleaner story. The programme stalls because the wrong message reached the wrong stakeholder. Targets slip. Growth slows. Innovation cycles miss the window. Talented technical leaders watch their careers level out short of the influence they could have had.
This is the gap our training closes.
How we help
Most communications training was built for consumer brands and adapted, badly, for everything else. The frameworks assume audiences you don't have. The case studies come from worlds you don't sell into. The trainers have rarely sat where you sit.
We've spent more than a decade inside this sector. Working with CEOs, founders, scientists, engineers, BD directors, programme managers and the communications teams supporting them. Across MOD, the primes, defence SMEs, and the agencies and government teams that work alongside them. Every session is designed inside the security, commercial and political constraints you work with every day, by senior consultants who do this work for the sector every week.
Whatever you're trying to land, investment, a contract, public support, a policy shift, or the next stage of your career, we help you land it.
Five routes in
You don't always need the same thing. We've structured our training to match the moment and the level of commitment.
Reputation Masterclass
The whole sector in one room, once a year.
A CIPR-accredited annual conference for everyone communicating in defence and security. Headline sessions from MOD, the primes, defence media and the agencies that support them. Senior-level networking. Practical tools to take back to your desk. The community event that sets the agenda for the year.
Best for setting strategy, benchmarking your organisation, and building the relationships that move work forward.
Reputation Labs
Focused, hands-on training on a single capability, throughout the year.
Small-group sessions, CIPR accredited. You bring a real challenge from your organisation, work on it with sector experts, and leave with something tangible you've built: an action plan, a framework, a draft strategy, a sharper pitch.
Topics include technical storytelling, thought leadership and profile building, media and reputation readiness, the pitch, navigating UK Defence, digital presence and content, measuring communications impact, and crisis and issues prep.
Best for developing a specific capability your team needs, fast
She's the Expert and Be the Expert
One day. Heard and respected by the end of it.
A practical, one-day workshop for anyone who needs to communicate with authority in front of senior stakeholders, customers, panels or the press. Calm the nerves. Articulate your expertise. Hold the ground when challenged. Project the confidence you've already earned.
She's the Expert runs in-house or as an open ticketed session for women in male-dominated environments, including STEM, defence, security and government teams. Built to address the specific dynamics women navigate when they're often the only one in the room. Worth noting that we offer a FREE, strimed down session of She's the Expert to ADS Group members.
Be the Expert runs the same workshop for mixed-gender cohorts, in-house at your site or as an open session you can book individual tickets onto.
Best for senior individuals about to step into more public-facing work, leadership teams who want everyone fluent in the same way, and HR or L&D programmes investing in spokespeople and emerging leaders.
From £650 + VAT per person. Minimum four participants. Two senior Canny consultants per session.
Canny Experts
Become the recognised voice in your field.
A six-to-twelve month programme for technical experts, founders and senior leaders who want to become the trusted commentator their sector turns to. The Brian Cox of your topic, ready for the media and the prominent stage, with a credible profile online, in the workplace and beyond.
Each month: a training session on storytelling, messaging, media skills, presentation craft or profile building. A coaching session with a senior Canny consultant to apply the skills in real situations. A mentoring session to navigate the opportunities and career-shaping moments as they come. Curated content and guides between sessions. Profile building across LinkedIn, internal comms and earned media. Optional support securing actual media features and speaking opportunities to apply what you've learned.
Three modes of learning, working together. Training builds the toolkit. Coaching turns toolkit into habit. Mentoring opens doors.
Best for individuals or small leadership groups committing to a step-change in how they are heard, remembered and asked back. Builds on She's the Expert or Be the Expert.
From £2,000 + VAT per person per month. Cohort pricing available. Typically six or twelve months.
Bespoke training
Built around your people, your programmes and your risks.
Some training needs to be designed from scratch. A leadership team preparing for a public launch. A bid team rehearsing the narrative for a multi-million-pound competition. A scientific group learning to present to ministers. A communications function building consistency across multiple sites. A founder preparing for the broadcast circuit ahead of a funding round.
We design and deliver bespoke training programmes across the full range of communications and marketing disciplines in defence and security:
- Media training and spokesperson development
- Lines-to-take and message architecture for sensitive programmes
- Crisis communications and issues management rehearsal
- Presentation and public speaking, including panel and stage craft
- Pitch and bid storytelling for investors, customers and primes
- Stakeholder engagement, briefing and Parliamentary preparation
- Marketing fundamentals for technical and engineering teams
- LinkedIn, personal branding and digital profile development
- Internal communications, change and leadership messaging
Delivered around your operational realities. Inside the security, commercial and political constraints you work with every day. Built by senior consultants who do this work for the sector every week.
Best for senior spokespeople preparing for a specific moment, technical experts moving into public-facing roles, leadership teams managing reputation through a major programme, and organisations who want a tailored programme that doesn't fit a standard format.
Choosing your path
How others have picked the best route:
- I'm planning the year and want the sector view → Reputation Masterclass
- We have a capability gap to close on a specific topic → Reputation Labs
- I have an individual or small team about to step into the spotlight → She's the Expert or Be the Expert
- I want to become the voice in my field over the next twelve months → Canny Experts
- I have a specific moment, programme, team or topic that needs a tailored programme → Bespoke training
Not sure?
If you're still unsure, book a discovery call and we'll point you at the right route.
Case study: Modular training
From best kept secret to global media voice.
A global intelligence firm with brilliant analysts and a spokesperson pool of two. We built a tiered, scalable modular training programme delivered through Sibylline's own systems, expanding the spokesperson pool from a handful to dozens. The result: coverage across BBC Radio 4, The Times, The Telegraph, Reuters and The New York Times, and a joint CIPR PRide Award for media relations.
Why Canny?
We work only in defence and security. A decade inside the constraints, the classifications, the procurement cycles and the political weather. Our trainers are practising consultants, not full-time educators. They sat where you sit yesterday, and they will sit there again tomorrow.
CIPR PRide Award winner. Member of the Make UK Defence Advisory Board and the ADS Defence SME Committee. Founding partner of She's the Expert with ADS Group. Trusted by Dstl, Sibylline, Callen-Lenz, RUK Advanced Systems, MBDA, and a roster of defence primes, SMEs and government teams.
Ready to talk?
Book a discovery call to find out which training fits.
