by Montieth Illingworth, CEO of Montieth & Company, was featured in Ragan Communications’ article on employee communications during Comcast’s media and technology split, published July 9, 2026. Read the full piece on Ragan →
A corporate split announcement lasts one press release. The employees living through it need a story that holds up for a year or more. That’s the challenge facing Comcast as it separates its media and technology businesses into two public companies, and it’s the subject of a recent Ragan Communications feature exploring how internal teams manage employee trust through a prolonged transition.
At Montieth & Company, we work with organizations navigating exactly this kind of extended uncertainty, where the business decision is made quickly, but the human transition unfolds over months.
Running Two Communications Programs at Once
Splitting a company means running two employee narratives in parallel: one for the legacy organization staying intact, and one for the new entity being built from scratch.
The two stories need to stay tied together. Employees moving in different directions require different specifics, but the core explanation, why the split is happening, what changes now, what stays the same, has to remain identical across both audiences. Inconsistency between the two breaks trust fast.
Where Managers Get Stuck
Managers face the hardest version of this problem: fielding team-level questions before the answers exist. A simple framework helps here, splitting what’s confirmed, what’s still unknown, what shouldn’t be speculated on (benefits, reporting lines, job specifics), and where employees can go for updates. Managers who say “we don’t know yet” without guessing preserve more credibility than those who improvise a comforting answer.
What Leaders Owe Their Teams
Montieth Illingworth, weighing in for the Ragan feature, framed the leadership responsibility in direct terms: employees want proof that leaders have thought through what the split means at the team level, not just the balance sheet. As he put it, the moment calls for leaders to “level with” employees about why the split was necessary, paired with confidence in the path forward.
That candor matters beyond the walls of the company. Employees who understand the split accurately become informal ambassadors for the brand, whether they’re talking to customers or neighbors. Employees left guessing become a liability in those same conversations.
The Strategic Takeaway
A corporate split is a communications marathon, not a single announcement. Repetition of the core message across town halls, FAQs, and intranet updates isn’t a sign the strategy has stalled; it’s what makes the story land. Organizations that treat the months between announcement and completion as an extended crisis communications exercise, rather than a one-time disclosure, protect trust with both departing and remaining employees.
Learn more about how Montieth & Company approaches high-stakes organizational change: Crisis & Issues Management