While the outcome of this unusual election cycle is uncertain, one thing is clear: CCOs will be treading carefully between two political minefields. At our recent Annual Conference, Bruce Mehlman, a renowned expert on the intersection of business, politics and technology, delivered a compelling session on the key drivers of today’s political climate and its implications for business leaders. We’re excited to bring you this highly-rated talk.

When it came out, Barbie dominated the box office, grossing nearly $1.5 billion at the box office. But what many don't realize is the movie was part of a larger strategy, to reposition the iconic doll in the minds of consumers. The Grand Prize Winners of the 2024 Page and IPR Case Study Competition focused on how Mattel managed this effort, and what risks they encountered along the way. For this episode, we brought in the four winning authors, Rebecca Wolff, Mariela Dothe Marcial, Katrina White, and Chloe Oakes, from University of Florida, to dive deeper into their research.

In this 3-episode mini-series, we sit down with three CommTech experts, discussing what generative AI technologies currently exist, how they are developing, and the implications for the communication profession. In the final episode of the series, we look at what current systems and guardrails are in place for this technology, identify areas of concern, and prognosticate what may happen if these concerns aren’t addressed.

Recently in the United States, Indigenous People's Day was observed, a holiday that, until fairly recently, was known most commonly as Columbus Day. We are bringing you one of the many powerful voices from our recent Annual Conference Panel on On Racism, Inclusion and Reconciliation: Breaking Barriers through Partnerships, Michael Jacobs, the CEO, and Chairman of Cambium Indigenous Professional Services. He shared his personal experiences with us and revealed how communicators should be speaking with this oft-overlooked stakeholder group.

In this 3-episode mini-series, we sit down with three CommTech experts, discussing what generative AI technologies currently exist, how they are developing, and the implications for the communication profession. In the second episode, we analyze the current state of disruption caused by AI technologies, and look at similar points of technological transformation in the past to see how they unfurled.

In this 3-episode mini-series, we sit down with three CommTech experts, discussing what generative AI technologies currently exist, how they are developing, and the implications for the communication profession. In the first episode, we attempt to level-set the existing AI landscape, analyzing how people are currently using (and misusing) these tools.

After a Florida law prohibiting the discussion and instruction of sexual orientation or gender expression in classrooms was passed, the Walt Disney Company publicly opposed the law, despite the repercussions that it would have on its special district status. This year’s winning student case study examined how Disney navigated through discrepant expectations related to its stance on the bill from different stakeholders, along with the impact it had on the company's reputation and financial standing. For this episode, we brought in three of the winning authors, Ayesha Djibo, Mya Estrada, and Breahn Fisher, from Texas Christian University, to dive deeper into their research.

Howard Pyle has worked for more than two decades integrating design, technology, and creativity — from leading startups to running global design at Fortune 100 companies. At the 2023 Page Spring Seminar, Howard shared how emerging technologies and methods can scale influence to serve stakeholders — and stand out in a sea of dark patterns, digital haves-and-have-nots, and experiential siloes rife with friction.

Emily Goodson is a writer, entrepreneur and workplace culture consultant. She joined us at our 2023 Spring Seminar and shared how her disability helped her uncover bias and deficiencies in many aspects of day-to-day life and led to her finding her own voice, sharing important ways you can help design inclusive journeys for all your stakeholders.

In this episode, we’re featuring a highly rated session from our 2023 Spring Seminar featuring futurist Mark Schaefer, author of "Marketing Rebellion" and "Belonging to the Brand." He dives deep into the new ways branding is shaping our relationships with companies and their products. You can learn more about Mark at www.businessesGROW.com

In this episode, Ethan McCarty, CEO at Integral and the chair of our upcoming Spring Seminar, discusses the event’s theme of Influence at Work, and explains how communicators can leverage influence to drive results.

If most organizations found themselves as the punchline of a late-night comedy joke, their CEO or head of communications might consider it a crisis. But Carnival Cruise Line is different. Hear from their president, Christine Duffy, and CCO, Chris Chiames, about how the organization’s loyalty and good humor serve as a shield for the brand. 

In this episode, we’re joined by Stacey Tank, former CCO, Page member and the founder of this podcast, about her new role as CEO of a rising beauty brand. She recounts the path she took to become a CEO, and what skills were essential as she moved from CCO to Chief Transformation Officer, among other roles. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we enjoyed recording it!

The CCO role is one of the most dynamic in the C-suite, requiring a swiss army knife of skillsets. Because of that, there are many different paths to the top of the communications function and we find that fascinating. In this episode, we sat down with Brian Lott, Page Chair and CCO at Mubadala about how his unlikely start in midwestern U.S. politics uniquely prepared him to lead comms in the UAE.

At a time when reality and satire are becoming increasingly indistinguishable, it is easy to see why disinformation can be so hard to detect. To dissect the various types of disinformation and identify the role business plays in helping tell the truth, we sat down with journalist Vivian Schiller, Executive Director of Aspen Digital, who is focused on the intersection of media and technology.

In the world of executive coaching, there is perhaps no one more well-known, more respected, or more sought-after than Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. At the 2022 Page Spring Seminar, Marshall sat down with Charlene Wheeless, former Page Chair and CEO of Charlene Wheeless LLC.  Along with invaluable life and family advice, Marshall shared wisdom for leaders as they take the top spot, and explained the behaviors - and misbehaviors - that can make or break a team.

After the passage of Texas Senate Bill 8, which severely limited women’s access to abortion care, Lyft sprung into action to protect its stakeholders. This episode, including behind-the-scenes perspective from Dominic Carr, VP of Comms at Lyft, features the 2022 winners of the student case study competition that Page holds every year together with the Institute for Public Relations. Both the case study and the recording took place before the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson was decided, but the key themes and takeaways remain relevant.

Carmella Glover, president of the Diversity Action Alliance and director of DE&I at Page stopped by the podcast for a conversation on what Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday means for all Americans and how business leaders can use this opportunity to help build an equitable future.

Throughout his tenure at Merck, Ken Frazier made it a point to stand up for his principles. Unlike most CEOs, Ken was once his company’s CCO. That experience prepared him to think multi-stakeholder and pass decisions through the lens of the company’s character and values. At the 2022 Page Spring Seminar, Ken sat down with industry icon and longtime Page member Bill Nielsen, in what would go on to be the highest-rated conference session in Page history. They discussed Ken's leadership philosophy, his love for the communications function, and the role business can play in bettering society.

Aaron Bernstein, Walmart's senior director of insights and advocacy, explains how the retail behemoth flipped the script on their brand narrative, using CommTech to uncover actionable insights. He shares how his eclectic experiences - from liberal arts to politics - prepared him to see the power that a CommTech capable function could bring to Walmart's comms efforts. 

In this episode, Dr. Candace Steele Flippin, CCO at Acuity Brands and the chair of our upcoming Spring Seminar, discusses the event’s theme of radical relevance and what it means for CCOs whose leadership has proven to be vital in a period of persistent disruption and transformation.

Ofield Dukes was a brilliant communications strategist and one of the most influential racial justice leaders of the 20th century. Last September, he was posthumously inducted into the Page Hall of Fame. As we celebrate Black History Month, we hear from those who knew and loved Mr. Dukes about his storied life and career and how he changed the industry and the world for the better.

In a world of ever-increasing uncertainty, the importance of the communications function is only growing. In this episode, we are reviewing Edelman’s new report, The Future of Corporate Communications, to see what trends might persist into 2022 and beyond. Our guests are Edelman’s Jim O’Leary, U.S Chief Operating Officer and Dave Samson, Vice Chairman of Corporate Affairs.

Award-winning author and journalist Simon Kuper joined Brian Lott, CCO of Mubadala Investment Company, on stage at our spring seminar conference in Paris last spring. He described a new point of view on Paris, one of a dynamic city amid a huge transformation, beyond the role as an Olympic host city. In this episode, we’re bringing you this highly-rated session titled, Paris, the impossible city in an impossible world.

Jim Hackett, former President and CEO of Ford, wants you to think outside of the (glove)box and look at the world in a new way. In this conversation from our Annual Conference, Jim speaks with Margery Kraus, founder and executive chairman of APCO Worldwide, about how design thinking helped Ford pivot to the future, using new frameworks to upend the status quo.

Every year, Page teams up with the Institute for Public Relations to hold a student case study competition. The winners are chosen by a panel of some of the most prolific communicators in the world. This year’s winning case examined Delta Air Lines' early decision to require masks on flights, the ways they used communications to effectuate that policy, and its step to use the "no fly list" as a tool to enforce compliance.

Heineken’s Chief Transformation & Corporate Affairs Officer, Stacey Tank, recently rejoined the company to spearhead its “Evergreen” growth strategy. What’s on tap in this episode is an in-depth look at how the company is transforming its operations and Stacey’s role in building its sustainable future, giving new meaning to “drink responsibly.”

Carmella Glover, president of the Diversity Action Alliance and director of DE&I at Page stopped by the podcast for a conversation on what Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday means for all Americans and how business leaders can use this opportunity to help build an equitable future. 

As the world grappled with the hardships of COVID-19, Mark Hoplamazian, President and CEO of Hyatt, struggled balancing his personal grief with the harsh business realities of the pandemic. Leaning into his empathy, Hoplamazian transformed Hyatt’s culture, implementing new policies and technology to support employee mental health and well-being.

Roger Ferguson’s departure from TIAA in March of this year leaves the number of Black CEOs on the Fortune 500 list at four - less than 1%. At last year’s Page Annual Conference, we were fortunate to speak with Ron Williams, the former CEO of Aetna, and now CEO and Chairman of RW2 Enterprises. Ron shared some of the lessons from his experience as a Black CEO and what companies should be doing to ensure enterprise leadership is more diverse.

We pull the thread on a story about a group of leaders and socially-conscious shareholders that waged a proxy battle against legacy powerbrokers of a Japanese megacorporation, challenging traditional notions of where power lies. Jin Montesano takes us through this fascinating story from her company.

Every year, Page teams up with the Institute for Public Relations to hold a student case study competition and the winners are chosen by a panel of some of the most prolific communicators in the world. This year’s winning case study examined the controversial decision by Dick’s Sporting Goods to discontinue the sale of guns in many of their stores, and the outcomes that followed. 

Authentic Purpose goes beyond products, policies and public advocacy - it is the ethos that companies like Patagonia use to guide their business decisions, and as it turns out activism is good for business. In this episode, we speak with Corley Kenna, the Director of Global Communications and Public Relations at Patagonia, analyzing how the CCO role is well-positioned to connect different functions to align a company behind a cause.

In this episode, we bring you a conversation between Alan Murray, CEO of Fortune, and Page President Roger Bolton. Having known each other for decades, the two discuss the economic outlook in a pandemic crisis, the progress of stakeholder capitalism, employee mental health and the future of journalism. The discussion took place during our 2020 Page Spring Seminar.

Earlier this year, Page Up Chair Umayma Abubakar had the opportunity to interview Étienne Thobois, the Paris 2024 CEO, about the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games at our Spring Seminar. For this episode, we bring you their conversation, which covered topics ranging from stakeholder engagement, project management and cross-cultural collaboration. Their tête-à-tête was rife with insights for leaders and communicators, Olympic or otherwise. 

Page Chair Charlene Wheeless has been convening conversations among our members recently to share ideas about the concrete steps that they can take to address systemic racism within their organizations and across business and society, an issue on which she has been a fierce advocate throughout her career. In this podcast she speaks about what's happening, what needs to be done about it and how CCOs can lead the charge.

Carrying on our series on COVID-19 and its implications, in this episode we speak with Whitney Eichinger, Managing Director Culture & Engagement at Southwest Airlines. We explore how an essential business with a strong culture of employee inclusion can leverage that to support the company through this crisis.

Continuing our series on the COVID-19 crisis and its implications, many companies are now looking to the future, including when and how employees will return to workplaces. Bob Feldman, Vice Chair of ICF Next, explores the question of how we get back to work, from implementing policies and guidelines that ensure workplace safety to the broader, potentially lasting impact on corporate culture.

Continuing our focus on organizations’ response to this pandemic, Pablo Jimenez, Global Vice President, Reputation & Communications at AB InBev, shares the challenges and opportunities that come with a global business whose operations are deeply connected to local communities. Pablo reminds us that Comms is a two-way function that needs to balance speed, accuracy and responsiveness, be sensitive to local context while maintaining a global coherence, and help the organization marshal its resources to help where the world needs it.

Given the enormous impact of Coronavirus on companies, we are shifting gears for the next few episodes. Page has been convening its members to share knowledge and best practices in these uncharted territories. We will be bringing you insights from a few of our members with a first-hand look at how they are helping their organizations grapple with these circumstances. 

In our first episode in this series, Kati Everett, the CCO at Novant Health, shares with us how her team is helping the people at the front lines of this battle, at a time when their business priorities have shifted entirely. The role of the communications team has never been more central to the organization when having the latest information saves lives. She ends by sharing advice for CCOs navigating this crisis, keeping in mind that there will be a time when we are post-crisis.

History may not always repeat itself but it sure can rhyme. As the world grapples with populism, income inequality and a revolt by a disenfranchised working class, we can see now how the 1920s, with similar circumstances, brought about a progressive movement and spawned the field of public relations. On this episode, Rob Flaherty, chairman of Ketchum, shares his thoughts on how the world we live in today must heed important lessons from a century ago. His big two calls for today’s CCOs – step up to the evolving role of business in society, and commit to CommTech as a central aspect of the future of our profession.

Last week, Harold Burson passed away at age 98. Harold was a larger-than-life icon of public relations - he’s the Founding Chairman of Burson-Marsteller, a predecessor firm to Burson Cohn & Wolfe, he covered the Nuremberg Trials as a cub reporter after serving during WWII and he’s the author of one of the PR industry’s most seminal works, The Business of Persuasion. 

To commemorate him, we are republishing a past podcast featuring Harold’s conversation with Becky Edwards, now CCO of Schneider Electric, at the 2018 Page Spring Seminar. Harold explains why he was bullish on the future of the communications, his roundabout path into the profession, and how the digital era has and will continue to reshape it. 

We've also published a handful of retrospectives on Harold to the PageTurner blog. Former colleagues and friends such as Roger Bolton (Page), Bill Nielsen (Johnson & Johnson), Carol Cone (On Purpose), Bob Feldman (ICF Next), Bill Wohl (United Rentals) and Herbert Heitmann (Karaktero) have contributed. 

Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Special thanks go to Rivet Smart Audio for making this season of The New CCO possible.

As The New CCO wraps up 2019, we sit down with Mike Wing, the lead writer of Page’s most seminal research reports, to discuss the common threads of the CCO role from our first publication in 2007 to the present. 

Mike’s been helping define Page’s perspective on the transformation of the CCO for over a decade. Most recently, he penned The CCO as Pacesetter, our report on the state of the CCO role and its way forward. Having surveyed a broad swath of Page membership and their teams, along with his years working alongside Jon Iwata at the head of IBM’s communications organization, Mike has a distinct, hyper-aware perspective on the state of the function and how it must evolve. 

Special thanks to Morning Consult and Rivet Smart Audio for their support throughout this past year.

Deepfakes are media that take a person in an existing image, video or audio and replace them with someone else's likeness using artificial neural networks. The nefarious application of this technology is wide-ranging, and worse, it’s spreading. More than ever, we must equip our enterprises with safeguards against malicious actors who seek to damage corporate reputation and tarnish trust among stakeholders. 

Professor Danielle Citron from the Boston University School of Law spoke at the Page Annual Conference to educate us about deepfakes, and we’re bringing you her lecture on this episode of The New CCO. Professor Citron is the vice president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and an expert in online privacy. She discusses deepfakes’ rise to prominence, their proliferation, the ongoing battle to regulate them through legislation and the best ways for us to steel our organizations against attacks. 

Special thanks to our podcast partners Morning Consult and Rivet Smart Audio for their support.

Purpose and values are often derided as corporate buzzwords or feel-good messaging. But for Franz Paasche, SVP of Corporate Affairs at PayPal, these foundational elements of corporate character are the lifeblood of the enterprise. They are what differentiates this financial disruptor from its peers. 

On this episode of The New CCO, Paasche discusses PayPal’s purpose to democratize financial services. From remittances for small businesses to cash advances for furloughed government workers during the shutdown earlier this year, PayPal lives by its purpose and makes it real through action. 

The company’s mission and values similarly inform its policy positions, some of which have played out on the national stage: as in the case of PayPal’s responses to North Carolina’s controversial “bathroom bill” and the Charlottesville episode. As Paasche notes, “If you have a clear sense of your mission and you have a clear sense of your values, then these are not political decisions, these are values-driven decisions.”

Special thanks to our podcast partners Morning Consult and Rivet Smart Audio for their support.

In this episode, we explore the findings from IRG’s new research, which Page participated in, and their implications for Chief Communications Officers. We also hear Dana Holmes's practical experience at Blue Cross Blue Shield and Marc de Swaan Arons's insights from the Institute for Real Growth.

How do you build an entirely new global customer base for a business that has remained domestic throughout its entire existence? That’s the challenge that faced Mitsubishi Heavy Industries CCO Dan Lochmann when he was tasked with burnishing the company’s brand globally by CEO Seiji Izumisawa.

MHI is a $40 billion B2B business that builds all kinds of large-scale heavy machinery from wind turbines to jets to rockets. In order to identify prospects and target them as core brand stakeholders, Lochmann and his team use CommTech, the emerging field within communications that takes inspiration from MarTech. Leveraging an array of paid social, targeted placements, earned media, and thought leadership, all unified via data dashboards, Lochmann’s team opened the doors for MHI to build a global brand, generate leads and earn its longstanding domestic reputation as an engineering innovator abroad.

On this edition of The New CCO, we feature Lochmann as he presents the MHI case on CommTech at the 2019 Page Annual Conference in Boston.

Special thanks to Morning Consult and Rivet Smart Audio for making this season of The New CCO possible!

KPN is looking to the future of mobile networks and the digital infrastructure on which they will run. Recent CEO Maximo Ibarra discusses how the company is preparing for what he calls a new world of “immersive connectivity.” 

Ibarra discusses the future of interpersonal communication, starting with the next era of screens and the new features they will provide. He also dives into the emerging field of neurotechnology and brain-machine interfaces, such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Ultimately, Ibarra describes how the company itself is transforming to meet the needs of a rapidly changing and perpetually disrupted industry. 

This podcast is adapted from a session led by Becky Edwards, CCO at Schneider Electric, at the Page International Exchange held this summer. 

Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Special thanks go to Morning Consult and Rivet Smart Audio for making this season of The New CCO possible.

On this episode, we take you inside our new research report, The CCO as Pacesetter, with the research leaders: Roger Bolton, Aedhmar Hynes and Jon Iwata. 

Together they visited nearly 30 countries, speaking to over 200 senior communications leaders. Those conversations shaped a new perspective on how and why the role of the CCO is at a pivotal moment. Above all, the CCO is a crucial leader in enterprise transformation, which is in many cases an existential proposition for their companies. 

Through our research, we introduce a new wrinkle to traditional stakeholder engagement models through CommTech. We also focus on three key dimensions of Corporate Character the CCO can use as a lever within the C-Suite: corporate brand stewardship, corporate culture and societal value creation. 

We also explain how we will translate the new research into digestible, easy-to-learn formats, starting with Progression Paths. 

Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Special thanks go to Morning Consult and Rivet Smart Audio for making this season of The New CCO possible.

On this edition of The New CCO, we invite Bill Heyman, Founder & CEO of Heyman Associates, and Jennifer Doidge, Executive Search & Assessment Consultant with Russell Reynolds, to discuss hiring for the CCO role and how it is evolving. 

The two leaders of premier executive search firms give us a window into the search process: what CEOs are looking for in a CCO and how the relationship differs from other C-suite functions. 

Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Special thanks go to Morning Consult and Rivet Smart Audio for making this season of The New CCO possible.