This Amsterdam readout of The Impact Study looks at one role in particular: the chief communications officer. Its starting point is that the role has expanded. Eighty percent of the CCOs studied report into the CEO, and 67 percent sit on the executive committee.
The rest of the deck sets that expanded role against the Humanized Growth model and its five moves: ground, reimagine, focus, organize, and unleash. Each move is illustrated by a named practitioner.
Key findings
- The CCO now sits close to the top of the company. Eighty percent report into the CEO and 67 percent are executive committee members.
- The study records a shift from a risk orientation to an opportunity orientation in the role.
- The CCO sees stakeholders differently from the rest of the executive committee. On a combined qualitative and quantitative stakeholder understanding score, the rest of the ExCo reaches 3.5 while the CCO reaches 4.7. The deck calls this a disconnected view.
- Stakeholders are defined broadly. The deck names colleagues, customers, community, and capital markets as the full set.
- Organizing the role is framed as systemic interdependence, with the CCO working across marketing, HR, and investor relations rather than owning communications alone.
Ground: human first
The first move is to ground the business in a human first view. Under it the deck places stakeholder understanding, stakeholder engagement, and stakeholder representation, with Douwe Bergsma of Piedmont and Kees Boeff of Schiphol attached as examples.
Employee focus is treated as part of the same move, illustrated by Bill Hughes and Katherine Raymond at Pitney Bowes.
Reimagine and focus
Reimagining is described as working future backward. It covers developing a utopian vision, shown through Travis Parman at AppHarvest, and aligning corporate purpose, shown through Dana Holmes at Health Care Service Corporation.
Focus is about transformative change. The components are holistic strategy communication, credited to Valerie Bazzi at Mercado Libre, a set of new KPIs credited to Joe Carberry, and integrated reporting.
Organize: the go-to function
Organizing the role is framed as systemic interdependence. Driving systemic change is credited to Roberto Deamborgio at Enel, and the collaborations named are marketing on purpose, HR on employer brand, and investor relations.
The ambition attached to that work is for communications to become the go-to function, illustrated by Craig Hodges at VF Corporation, and to co-create with new ecosystem partners, illustrated by Jonathan Adashek at IBM.
Unleash: the CCO as pacesetter
The last move is to unleash the organization through role modelling, using the Da Vinci leadership profile as the reference. Driving the culture is credited to Jin Song Montesano.
The deck closes on the CCO as pacesetter for the drivers of Humanized Growth, with Dan Bartlett at Walmart as the example.
Source
This page summarises The Impact Study: Impact on the role of the CCO, by Institute for Real Growth, Said Business School, Oxford Future of Marketing Initiative, VIM Group, Team Farner, March 28th 2024.