What’s a “chief company affairs officer” anyway?
There’s little doubt that after the Covid pandemic, communications executives have extra stakeholders and points to handle than ever earlier than, and lots of are getting a brand new title to replicate that change. There’s no clear-cut definition for a chief company affairs officer, however the job can embody every part from inner and exterior communications to authorities affairs and public coverage to social impression and company giving.
PepsiCo chief company affairs officer Stephen Kehoe says the emergence of the position displays the advanced enterprise panorama that corporations face, having to navigate geopolitics, social points and growing regulatory stress. Company affairs, he says, can “join all these dots” and provides context to completely different audiences, in addition to clarify to the C-suite the way it “helps ship the corporate’s technique.”
“Something you say has a knock-on impact into how the corporate exhibits as much as a spread of various stakeholders,” Kehoe says, including that, as companies come beneath hearth, speaking constantly with completely different audiences turns into much more essential. “Gone are the times when you might divorce communications from, say, authorities affairs.”
Tara DiJulio, who was lately elevated from chief communications officer to chief company affairs officer at GE’s future aviation spinoff enterprise, GE Aerospace, says the rise of company affairs exemplifies how communications has developed over time. She says it’s moved from a siloed division to a strategic precedence.
“At the present time, stakeholder communication must be so in sync and constant. The corporate needs to be talking with one voice,” DiJulio says. “By having alignment with the company affairs operate, you’re capable of be sure to’re proactively telling your story to all these [audiences.]”
Instacart chief company affairs officer Dani Dudeck says tying comms to divisions like authorities affairs and coverage improves effectivity, particularly in an business that strikes as quickly as expertise.
“Typically these features are disparate and tucked into completely different pockets all through the organisation. [When that happens] you lose velocity, you lose readability, you lose consistency and also you lose prioritisation,” says Dudeck, who was CCO at gaming firm Zynga earlier than Instacart. “[By] placing them beneath one roof, you get this distinctive aggressive edge.”
At PepsiCo, head of worldwide comms, Chris Manzini, stories to Kehoe. However like DiJulio, Kehoe refutes the notion that company affairs have absorbed communications. He says Manzini’s position because the meals and beverage big’s prime communicator, the place he advises CEO Ramon Laguarta and the manager committee, is “no much less important” as a result of he stories to a distinct division.
“The position of the chief communications officer is as essential because it’s ever been; it’s simply that it now suits inside a extra related operate than perhaps it will have up to now if it was, say, put beneath advertising and marketing,” Kehoe says.
Since February 2023, corporations together with Walgreens Boots Alliance, Starbucks and Papa John’s have additionally moved communications staffers into the chief company affairs officer position.
Businesses are noticing a shift in purchasers’ considering. Weber Shandwick chief company affairs officer Chris Deri says his agency is more and more working with purchasers’ company affairs divisions versus solely comms.
He says corporations are searching for PR businesses to behave extra as technique consultants and provide context about matters like generative AI, power and mis- and disinformation. Meaning tapping companies for knowledge and insights on every part from capital markets to policy-making, in addition to analyses on stakeholders corresponding to staff, prospects and traders.
“Completely different enterprise dynamics are all converging. The response from corporations is to both formalize a company affairs operate or to have communications [act] as extra of a company affairs operate,” says Deri, who additionally serves as president of The Weber Shandwick Collective’s C-suite advisory enterprise. “From an company standpoint, that requires an actual understanding of a number of stakeholders in a singular, whole-cloth approach.”
The uptick in different varieties of work doesn’t imply purchasers are searching for much less communications assist, however it does necessitate a extra calculated method to how businesses deploy their groups, Deri says.
“We nonetheless have senior folks engaged on comms, however a portion of a marketing campaign, [for example], is executional. Mid-level colleagues might do plenty of the execution…The company advisory work is extra purely senior-led,” he says, including that entry to company executives means larger billings.
Instacart handles plenty of its communications internally, however the firm has labored with Bully Pulpit Worldwide for a few years, partly as a result of it understands that, when comms and coverage are working collectively, “we are able to create an even bigger impression,” Dudeck says.
Kehoe says PepsiCo has positioned a higher emphasis on PR businesses to analysis its model and recognise the elements that might have an effect on the corporate’s license to function.
“Our expectation now could be that an company is ready to put PR and company communications into the broader context of the world in the present day,” he says, including that it’s essential for companies to have a various mixture of expertise.
“We want folks which can be nice storytellers and implementers of fine PR applications, however then we additionally must know we are able to name on higher-level experience to return in a heartbeat and speak to senior folks about technique and geopolitics … There’s an actual onus on that proper now.”
Deri says it’s incumbent on company affairs and communications to higher perceive how the C-suite is considering, pointing to a February TWSC report that discovered solely 6% of executives imagine mis- and disinformation could have a major impression on their enterprise in 2024.
“As a communications particular person witnessing the true impression of mis- and disinformation, that, to me, says, collectively, businesses and in-house company affairs leaders want to coach our executives about what is actually taking place,” he explains.