Stock Prices
- Companies that grow the fastest have CEOs who prioritize communication, according to a recent report.
- 81 percent of the fastest growing companies in a list of the top 100 companies in the U.S. and Europe had communication-focused CEOs.
Financial Performance
Brand Perception
- Communications inside and outside of the company are key for its overall success. As an example, companies who communicated clearly to their employees during the initial COVID-19 outbreak minimized the opportunity for negative press to spread.
- Per David Grabert, global head of marketing and communications for GroupM: “For better or worse, how your company responds to the coronavirus may well have a lasting impact on your brand. When a company is in a position to do something extraordinary, communications can help the company stand out as a corporate citizen.”
Best Practices
- To improve communications with investors in particular, companies should focus on updating their investment stories, provides Rebecca Corbin, founder and CEO of Corbin Advisors.
- Per Corbin, 88 percent of investors see the investor presentation as the primary source of information generated by the company.
- The investor presentation should keep the company's long-term strategy intact while also providing a clear window into near and mid-term opportunities and catalysts.
Summary of Early Findings in Relation to Goals
The communication strategy of a CEO clearly plays a major role in a company's performance across the board. The research team conducted a high-level search and identified various data points that demonstrate the importance of having a proactively communicative CEO, some of which were provided above. This research can be continued as requested.
The research team also collected some best practices and can continue to do so, along with identifying case studies for brands with proactively communicative CEOs. Not all of this data falls within the 12-month period specified, however, and thus slightly older data (from within the past three years) may be included (with a preference for newer data where possible).