CEO reputation greatly impacts the image of a company. If you ever doubted it, here’s the evidence…

A recent Weber Shandwick Survey found that 66% of consumer opinion relating to a company is directly related to the reputation of the CEO.  This is especially important when it is estimated that  60 percent of a company’s market value is attributed to its reputation.  Why do so many companies then fail to invest in recruiting the right high level advisors and communications specialists?  This detailed research shows that executive leadership is on consumers’ radar screens worldwide with nearly three in 10 consumers (28 percent) reporting that they regularly or frequently talk about company leaders with others. What and how top leaders communicate to consumers is becoming more business critical.  Technologies are advancing at pace, messages are global and live on longer after they have been released and language barriers are being wiped away with the ability to choose the language and translate at the click of a button.

Those CEOs looking forward and wanting to take advantage of this growing phenomenon and manage their own reputation need to invest in leading advisors and not, I would suggest, via the usual channels.  Employing former journalists has not always provided the golden bullet as they too can sometimes come with a reputation!  From my experience these people are specialists and are few and far between.  They are usually unknown except in their field, unheard of except by those that employ them and generally do not actively court attention.  They focus on building the reputation of others, using their skills to position and develop messages and provide an honest voice at the boardroom.  Trust between the CEO and advisor is critical; my experience working with large companies has taught be that the more successful you become, the more general feedback can be based on what people think you want to hear as opposed to what you really do need to hear!