Recent CEO Shuffles Highlight Rising Costs, Opportunities and Risks of Change at Top

 

 

 

 

New York, Sept. 22, 2009 – The changing of the CEO guard at Morgan Stanley, the latest in a series of high-profile leadership changes at major corporations, demonstrates the escalating demands placed on new CEOs and the increased reputational risks organizations face in their corner offices. To help corporations position a new CEO for success, thus protecting the financial and reputational investment they place in a new leader, the global public relations firm Ketchum has created CEO Accelerator, a launch program for new corporate leaders.

 

"There are few investments an organization makes today that are as expensive or present as much upside opportunity or downside risk as the one it makes in a new CEO," says Raymond L. Kotcher, senior partner and CEO, Ketchum. “With stakeholders demanding greater transparency, CEOs today live in a ‘no excuses’ world where near flawless performance – including how they communicate -- is expected from day one.”

 

Based on 12 leadership communication principles and delivered by some of the agency’s most experienced corporate counselors, the program prepares a new leader to effectively communicate the organization’s goals and help set a strong foundation for the future. The principles include creating leadership behaviors matched to the organization’s communication culture, avoiding “corporate-speak” and using early actions to signal the CEO’s strategy or leadership style, among others.

 

“CEO Accelerator enables organizations to maximize the effectiveness of a new CEO from day one,” said John Weckenmann, partner, international client development, at Ketchum. “What we’re hearing is that boards, senior management teams, and new CEOs themselves want to take every appropriate step to ensure the success of a new leader because the cost of a misstep is simply too great. Understanding the communication issues and being prepared to address them immediately is now, more than ever, an essential requirement of a CEO.”

 

Ketchum developed CEO Accelerator because effective communication is fundamental to CEO success. A specialist team of senior Ketchum counselors with extensive experience working with CEOs delivers the leadership launch program, with an emphasis on introducing communication analysis and preparation at the very beginning of the CEO onboarding process. Services include analyzing the CEO’s communication style, identification, prioritization and engagement of stakeholders and risk assessment and mitigation.

 

A communications innovator, Ketchum ranks among the largest global communications consultancies and leads the industry in the U.K. and continental Europe as Ketchum Pleon. With five global practices – Brand Marketing, Corporate, Healthcare, Food and Nutrition, and Technology – and specialty capabilities that include Access Communications (high- and consumer-tech PR), Concentric Communications (experiential marketing, events and meetings), MMG (clinical trial recruitment), Ketchum Global Research Network, Ketchum Sports and Entertainment, and Stromberg Consulting (change management and workplace communications), Ketchum leverages its marketing and corporate communication expertise to build brands and reputations for clients. In 2009, Advertising Age named Ketchum to its annual “Ones to Watch” Agency A-List, noting the agency’s long-standing client partnerships, digital and disruptive media expertise, and CSR and sustainability programming. For more information on Ketchum, a unit of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC), visit www.ketchum.com.