In a world of volatile geopolitics, contested facts, activist stakeholders and always-on scrutiny, many organisations are now elevating the Chief Communications Officer to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with the CFO and GC, acting as a strategic advisor to the CEO and Board.
From storytelling to strategy: why communications now sits at the top table
But why now?
- Trust is fragile and grievance is rising. Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer finds widening distrust and hardening attitudes, exactly the environment where clear, credible corporate voice matters most.
- CEOs say volatility is up – but confidence in functional capability is low. Weber Shandwick reports only 17% of senior leaders believe their communications and corporate affairs teams are sufficiently equipped for today’s political, economic and cultural turbulence. The work is getting harder, the required skill-set more complex and there is no playbook.
- CCOs themselves report a step-change in remit, beyond storytelling to risk navigation and stakeholder orchestration. Page Society’s 2025 survey and recent research show CCOs acting as enterprise-level integrators across reputation, policy, and business.
The stakes are higher, the scrutiny is relentless, and the line between business decisions and public legitimacy has never been thinner.
Pressure on companies to respond has intensified. The work has become more exposed, more consequential, and more tightly coupled to licence to operate.
Recent events in the UK and US have demonstrated that communications now sits at the intersection of accountability, policy, public sentiment and operational risk and they reinforce the same lesson: once trust fractures, repair is capital-intensive, and culture-dependent. And it’s the quality and integrity of communications that determine whether rebuilding is even possible.
Boards are beginning to adjust. Data shows that more CCOs are formally stepping into enterprise-level roles: contributing to risk frameworks, scenario planning, and horizon scanning. In many organisations, the function is now expected to integrate employee voice, activist pressure, government relations, digital information risk, ESG credibility and financial performance into a single coherent posture. This is a very different job to the brief of a decade ago.
The direction of travel is clear: the organisations navigating volatility most effectively are those where communications is embedded early in decision-making, not consulted late for message polish. Elevation is not about visibility or optics, it is about recognising that in a today’s world, reputation is strategy in real time.
If your communications leader isn’t embedded in strategy, risk and operations, you’re effectively flying without instruments. In this environment, narrative isn’t spin – it’s how you create clarity, build resilience, protect the brand, and keep the path to growth open.
If you’re considering levelling up the function – whether by recruiting, restructuring, redefining remit, benchmarking or pressure-testing capability – happy to share thoughts and insights from our work in this space.
