The case for CCOs and PR pros to have seats on corporate boards advances

A "seat at the table" should be more than with the C-suite--it needs to be on the board

It is a cliche among PR professionals that they need to have a “seat at the table.” By “table” we usually mean the conference table around which the management team sits. The top PR person or Chief Communication Officer (CCO) should be leading and making organizational decisions alongside their counterparts in marketing, finance, operations and others.

I have been interested in this “seat” being even better than the management table: the corporate board. I have recently published my own research on this, and now there is a report from a global consulting firm showing that CCOs are finally starting to be seen as having more value than outbound communication.   

The research I recently published,  “PR capacity on corporate boards: claiming the CSR and ESG responsibility?” is online now and will be published soon in the Journal of Communication Management.

The premise for my research is that if corporations, and their boards, have shown more concern for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ESG (environment, social, governance) metrics, then PR professionals or CCOs who focus on these things should be invited to give perspective and leadership on these subjects at the board level.

I looked at 25 companies on a list that ranked them high on ESG and CSR—the Fortune Modern Board 25—to see if they had board members with education or job titles in PR or communications. When I found few, I also looked to see if PR and communications pros were on the senior management team and advised the board or produced ESG, CSR, sustainability or diversity reports. Here I also found little management of these areas by PR and communication professionals. What I did find as a trend is more staff with degrees and titles specifically  in sustainability or diversity who manage these issues, potentially with collaboration of the CCO.

My sample was purposefully limited to companies who were ranked high on DEI, CSR, and ESG. So it is limited. So I was happy to read a report from global consulting firm Korn Ferry called “Chief Communications Officers: A New Face on the Board.”

Korn Ferry looked not at specific issues like ESG but more broadly at reputation management. They found that more boards are leaning on CCOs to navigate business and cultural transformation, opening the path to the corporate boards that has been closed.

With corporate reputation accounting for as much as  25% of a company’s market value, more CCOs have risen to be trusted advisors to CEOs. Now these CCOs are advising and in some cases invited to join corporate boards.

The five areas where CCOs are being asked to advise boards include: talent development, change management, social impact, geopolitics, and risk management. All of these subjects come up in my undergraduate PR courses and my graduate course in communications management. Related terms like internal/employee relations, crisis communications, community relations and other terms associated with public relations and communication would indicate that this is the profession that is well suited to steer companies from the top—the board.

It’s early, but I am happy about this trend. I like a key quote from the KornFerry report that emphasizes that people in communications careers think differently than those in legal, finance or risk management. Exactly, and the different thinking is about balancing value for multiple stakeholders and ensuring transparent and two-way communication.

I and other educators and professionals in PR have been saying these for years. It’s heartening to see that some companies, all the way up to their boards, are hearing it now.