Two conversations with CEOs this week highlighted a significant difference in how organisations approach executive communications.
Both leaders agreed on the objective. They wanted more visible leadership. More consistent engagement with employees. Greater executive presence externally. Clearer communication of strategy.
Where they differed was in how they intended to achieve it.
One CEO decided to establish dedicated executive communications capability and allocate incremental budget accordingly.
The other concluded that the organisation's Country PR Manager could absorb the work within their existing remit.
Neither leader questioned the importance of executive communications. One simply recognised it as a specialist discipline requiring dedicated expertise. The other viewed it as an extension of an existing communications role.
That distinction matters more than many organisations realise.
An Underdeveloped Capability in the UK Market
The United States has approximately five times the population of the United Kingdom.
Yet LinkedIn identifies around 2,500 professionals with "Executive Communications" in their title in the United States, compared with approximately 127 in the UK.
While no dataset perfectly captures a profession, the disparity is striking. It points towards a broader structural difference in how organisations view the function.
In many large American corporations, executive communications has evolved into a recognised specialism with established career paths, dedicated budgets and clear reporting structures.
In the UK, executive communications remains far more likely to be incorporated into broader corporate communications, public relations or internal communications roles.
The result is that many organisations expect strategic leadership communications outcomes without investing in the capability required to deliver them.
Executive Communications Is a Leadership Function, Not a Content Function
The misconception often stems from an incomplete understanding of the work itself.
Executive communications is frequently reduced to speechwriting, LinkedIn content or town hall preparation. These activities are visible outputs, but they represent only a fraction of the role's value.
At its best, executive communications serves as a strategic advisory function operating close to the leadership team.
The practitioner is responsible for helping senior executives articulate corporate strategy, align stakeholder narratives, anticipate reputational risks, prepare for critical moments and maintain consistency across all leadership communications channels.
The role sits at the intersection of strategy, reputation, culture and leadership.
This is precisely why the strongest executive communications professionals are often among the most trusted advisers in an organisation. Their contribution is measured not by the volume of content produced but by their ability to shape perception, build credibility and improve organisational alignment.
These responsibilities rarely fit comfortably within a role already accountable for media relations, crisis management, stakeholder engagement or market communications.
The Growing Cost of Underinvestment
The challenge is becoming more acute as stakeholder expectations continue to evolve.
Employees increasingly expect direct access to leadership perspectives. Investors place greater emphasis on executive credibility. Customers, regulators and policymakers scrutinise leadership behaviour more closely than ever before. Social media has accelerated the speed and visibility of executive communication while simultaneously increasing the consequences of getting it wrong.
Against that backdrop, treating executive communications as a secondary responsibility creates an obvious risk.
The issue is seldom a lack of effort.
More often, organisations place highly capable communications professionals in an impossible position. Existing workloads already encompass media relations, employee communications, issues management and stakeholder engagement. Executive communications is then added to the list on the assumption that it will require only a modest portion of available capacity.
In reality, support for a CEO or senior leadership team is inherently unpredictable. Business performance updates, organisational change programmes, investor events, industry conferences, media opportunities, thought leadership and emerging reputational issues all create periods of intense demand.
As leadership visibility increases, the requirement for dedicated strategic support increases alongside it.
The Organisations Getting Ahead Are Building Dedicated Capability
The most sophisticated organisations increasingly view executive communications as a distinct muscle within the broader communications function.
Some appoint dedicated Heads of Executive Communications reporting into the Chief Communications Officer.
Others build executive communications teams supporting multiple members of the executive committee.
High-growth businesses often hire experienced Executive Communications Directors at an earlier stage than they would have done a decade ago, recognising that leadership visibility has become a commercial lever rather than simply a communications activity.
The catalyst is rarely communications itself.
It is usually growth.
As organisations scale, leadership becomes harder. Messages travel further. Stakeholder groups become more diverse. Reputational exposure expands. Internal alignment becomes more difficult to maintain.
At that point, executive communications ceases to be a discretionary investment and becomes an organisational necessity.
A Talent Market Defined by Scarcity
For organisations considering investment in executive communications capability, another challenge soon emerges.
The talent pool is exceptionally small.
The most effective practitioners combine strategic judgement, exceptional writing ability, political awareness, commercial understanding and the confidence to influence senior leaders. They must be capable of operating within highly sensitive environments while maintaining credibility at the executive level.
These attributes are difficult to develop and even harder to assess through conventional recruitment processes.
Many of the strongest executive communications professionals are not actively seeking new opportunities. They occupy trusted positions alongside CEOs, founders and executive committees, making them largely invisible to organisations relying solely on inbound applications.
Successful hiring therefore depends less on recruitment volume and more on market access, role design and the ability to identify candidates with genuine executive-level advisory experience.
A Question of Organisational Priorities
Every leadership team understands the importance of communication.
Far fewer have considered whether the way they resource executive communications reflects that belief.
The organisations creating dedicated capability are making a strategic choice. They recognise that leadership communication influences employee engagement, investor confidence, corporate reputation and organisational performance.
Those outcomes are increasingly too important to be managed as an additional responsibility within an already stretched communications function.
The question facing CEOs, Chief Communications Officers and Chief People Officers is not whether executive communications matters.
It is whether their organisation has invested in the capability required to do it well.
Considering an Executive Communications Hire?
Comms Search & Selection advises organisations across the UK and US on executive communications team design, salary benchmarking and the recruitment of Executive Communications Directors, Heads of Executive Communications, Chiefs of Staff and leadership communications specialists. Our dedicated Executive Communications practice focuses exclusively on identifying and securing the small number of professionals capable of operating effectively at the highest levels of corporate leadership.
For organisations assessing their executive communications capability, the first question is often not who to hire, but whether the current structure is fit for purpose. That conversation is usually where the most valuable insights emerge.
Book a confidential strategy conversation to discuss your executive communications requirements, benchmark your current structure and understand how the market is evolving.
