Senior communications counsel for CEOs, CCOs, CMOs, CHROs, and transformation leaders

When the company changes, the story has to move with it.

I help B2B technology leadership teams bring narrative, executive voice, employee communications, and reputation into alignment. When the company changes, people inside and outside need to understand what changed, why it matters, and what happens next.

Complex change needs a story people can carry, inside the company and out in the world.

Start with the situation → See the audience map
Inside the companyWorkforce change, employee engagement, leadership alignment, and the programs that help people move with the business. Outside the companyMarket narrative, executive voice, customers, analysts, media, and reputation.
25+ yearsin technology communications Inside + outsideemployee and market communications B2B technology communicationsfrom Adobe to OpenText
The plates in motion
From leadership intent to audience action.
Employees & leaders Customers Prospects Partners Media Analysts
Sound familiar

Six moments we hear from leadership.

Each one is a sign that the company has changed faster than the story around it. That's the work: find what is out of sync, identify the plate that is out of alignment, and bring the story back together.

01
Outside

"Our story isn't landing the way it used to."

02
Outside

"Our CEO's voice isn't cutting through."

03
Outside

"We just acquired a company and the brand feels fractured."

04
Outside

"Something happened, and we need to protect the story."

05
Inside

"We need to bring the employees along with us."

06
Inside

"A workforce change is coming. How do we keep people engaged?"

One story, many audiences

The story has to travel.

A corporate story does not live in one press release, one keynote, or one LinkedIn post. It has to move through every audience that decides whether the company is credible, relevant, and worth following.

01EmployeesUnderstand it. Believe it. Repeat it.
02CustomersSee why the change matters to them.
03ProspectsRecognize a reason to move.
04SalesTurn the message into a customer conversation.
05PartnersKnow how to extend the signal.
06MediaFind the story worth carrying.
07Analysts & investorsUnderstand the strategic arc.
08BoardSee the story behind the decision.
The Framework

The Full Press.

Modern communications is not one discipline. It brings together strategy, executive voice, internal communications, earned media, analyst credibility, brand, and reputation. When the plates fall out of alignment, the company starts telling different versions of itself.

NARRATIVE what you stand for VOICE how leaders sound PRESENCE where the story lives REPUTATION what holds it together one story TOLD WELL
Narrativewhat you stand for
Voicehow leaders sound
Presencewhere the story lives
Reputationwhat holds it together
one storyTold well
01  ·  The spine

Narrative

What the company actually stands for. Positioning, corporate story, and messaging architecture form the spine everything else hangs off.

02  ·  The signal

Voice

How leaders sound in the market. CEO thought leadership, executive positioning, spokesperson development, high-stakes moments.

03  ·  The reach

Presence

Where the story lives. Employee channels, manager cascades, earned media, analyst relations, events, social, and digital cover every place people meet the message.

04  ·  The equity

Reputation

What holds it together. Brand equity, employee alignment, and crisis readiness protect what you've built.

Diagnostic before prescriptive. First conversation, we find which plate is out of alignment. Then we work on that one.
Ways to work together

Name the shape. Then we scope the work.

Four engagement modes. Each starts with a 30-minute conversation to decide whether Abandoned Press is the right fit, and whether the work is primarily internal, external, or both.

Every engagement is scoped before the work begins.
Selected Work

What the work looks like.

The value is not a job title or a single channel. It is seeing the whole system, finding the story that matters, and giving every audience something they can use.

Featured case study · Enterprise transformation

One company.Nine business units.One story people could carry.

OpenText’s acquisition of Micro Focus was the company’s largest acquisition to date. It changed the portfolio, the brand, the employee experience, the sales motion, and the company’s place in the market while the business was still moving.

The work translated one enterprise transformation into the materials, narratives, and decisions each audience needed to move forward.

The situation

OpenText was expanding beyond content management to become an information-management company, and later an information-management company for AI. Micro Focus brought new products, audiences, employees, systems, and expectations into the story overnight.

The risk

Customers and employees were attached to Micro Focus. Product teams were operating in silos. Sales had more to learn and sell. The market was watching the integration, the earnings, and the company’s ability to make the parts feel like one whole.

The work

Built business-unit playbooks, quarterly product-launch activation, employee programs, sales narratives, executive platforms, influencer work, and audience-specific communications. Later led the communications workstream for the hardware divestiture across both companies.

The proof

Employee engagement reached historic levels; sales gained reusable plays from OpenText World; and earnings media evolved from proactive pitching to Bloomberg and TheStreet calling each quarter. Even in difficult quarters, leadership owned the narrative and earned neutral to positive coverage.

Launch · Cybersecurity

Nile Secure: from stealth to category presence

Led launch communications for Nile's exit from stealth mode. Coordinated corporate narrative, analyst introductions, tier-one media outreach, and investor storytelling into a single 30-day launch arc.

All within 30 days: 300+ leads · 20+ investors · 250+ reseller partners
CNBC coverage of Nile launching from stealth CRN coverage of Nile emerging from stealth FOX Business coverage of Nile backed by John Chambers
Coverage was part of the launch architecture: market validation arrived alongside the announcement.
Repositioning · Data Management

Commvault: from incumbent to market force

Repositioned Commvault from #5 to #3 in the data management category over two years through an integrated program of corporate narrative, analyst repositioning, and executive thought leadership.

From #5 in the market to #3 in ranking · 2 years
Commvault CEO interview on Bloomberg Deals Report Commvault CEO featured on Bloomberg Daybreak Asia Behind the scenes of the Commvault Bloomberg interview
Market-facing leadership, captured on Bloomberg during Commvault’s return-to-growth story.
Internal change · Divestiture communications

OpenText to Rocket Software: guiding people through the transition

Led the communications workstream for the hardware divestiture across both companies. The goal was to help more than 700 employees feel handed forward into a strong future opportunity, not simply passed from one company to another.

Inside the transition

Employee handbooks, offer letters, manager communications, IT guidance, and clear answers about what was changing, what people needed to do, and where they could get help.

Outside the transition

Sales and customer communications that carried the same story into the market, so employees, customers, and commercial teams understood the change as one coordinated handoff.

700+ employees · OpenText → Rocket Software · one connected transition story
Selected mainstage work · Event strategy and experience

Make the mainstage matter. Make people care.

Across OpenText World, Commvault, and other enterprise technology events, the job was bigger than filling a room or booking a recognizable name. It was to turn complex business and technology stories into moments customers, employees, and the market could actually feel.

At OpenText World Nashville, the mainstage panel became the clearest expression of the idea: creativity is human at the core, and trusted information gives innovation somewhere to begin.
OpenText World 2025 mainstage panel with Sandy Ono, Jessi Alexander, Natalie Hemby, and Katie Linendoll Behind the scenes of the OpenText World mainstage production OpenText World 2025 neon OpenText sign and live stage Commvault event installation with illuminated GO sign
Mainstage is a system of moments: a strong panel, a confident host, a recognizable brand world, and the production work that makes it all land.

The brief

Build excitement and momentum around what OpenText was delivering now and what it was creating for the future: new solutions, customer stories, product announcements, and a stronger reason for the market to pay attention.

The creative move

Owned the mainstage panel, “The Data-Driven Art of Songwriting,” with CMO Sandy Ono, singer-songwriters Jessi Alexander and Natalie Hemby, and Katie Linendoll, an Emmy-winning technology expert, media personality, and experienced emcee. The conversation connected human imagination, AI, secure information, authenticity, privacy, and intellectual property without turning the moment into a product pitch.

The experience system

Shaped the emcee role and engagement, pre-event and onsite communications, mainstage interstitials, employee participation, AI-created Nashville-themed T-shirts, sales VIP communications, product announcements, media, influencers, and PR materials. Advised the brand team on the AI-character and country-song concepts without taking ownership of their creation.

The repeatable idea

The same principle carried across clients. For Commvault, HP Software, and Qlik, mainstage work included guests such as Captain Sullenberger, Adam Savage, Savannah Bananas founder Jesse Cole, and influential voices such as Ray Wang. The names changed, but the work stayed consistent: find the human tension inside the business story, then build a stage moment people will remember.

Erin McCabe
About

Abandoned Press’ mission is new.
I have led this work for more than 25 years.

For more than 25 years, I have led communications for B2B technology companies through acquisitions, CEO transitions, category creation, launches, employee programs, executive voice, events, and reputation work.

My role is to help leadership teams make one complicated change usable for every audience it touches.

80%+
Growth in OpenText's corporate LinkedIn audience over two years
197%
Year-over-year ARR growth at NetApp, alongside 85% cloud-message pull-through across 300+ Tier-1 outlets
300+ / 30 days
Qualified leads generated at Nile Secure's launch from stealth, plus investors and reseller partners
150%
Increase in Dell Software messaging penetration and media coverage
70% → 86%
HR Benchmark survey participation year over year, while the reachable employee audience grew from 7K to 18K+ during a 12K → 24K workforce expansion
50 → 300+
Media participants and global articles from HP Software's first focused press conference
Representative companies I have led or advised communications strategies for. This is not an exhaustive list.
OpenText·Commvault·NetApp·HP·Adobe·Business Objects·Dell Software·Nile Secure·LogicMonitor·BMC Software·DataStax·Informatica·Nuance
Executive Board, PRSA Silicon Valley  ·  Nominated Member, Arthur W. Page Society  ·  B.S. Applied Arts & Sciences (Graphic Design), San Diego State University
Start with a conversation

Which plate is out of alignment?

Bring the situation. We’ll identify where the story is breaking down and whether Abandoned Press is the right fit.

Email Erin Book a 30-minute call
Letterpress tools, ink, paper, and registration marks in a printmaking studio
The press
Artist Bob Nugent in his studio
Bob Nugent
Erin and her father, Bob Nugent
Erin + Bob
A human note

Why Abandoned Press.

Abandoned Press began as a printmaking imprint in 2007. Today it names the communications practice I built from that same belief in making things that hold together.

My father, the artist Bob Nugent, taught me that the best work is rarely made by one person alone. It takes a group of people who know how to bring their part of the picture, and someone who can see how those pieces belong together.

He didn't own a press, so he hired the best printmakers he could find by the hour. Every year he hired the best students. Every year they graduated and left, abandoning him and the press. So he hired the next round. Then the next. Eventually, he named it after the joke: Abandoned Press.

The people changed. The making continued.

That idea still guides me. Modern communications is assembled from the right people, the right pieces, and the right story, inside the company as much as outside it. My job is to make sure those pieces hold together as one experience.

The original press lives on through my father's art →  bobnugentstudio.com