The following article was originally published on Strategic, the platform for communication leadership globally, and is being republished with permission.
Every profession eventually reaches a point where it must decide whether it is still fighting for relevance — or preparing itself for enterprise leadership.
Communications may be approaching that moment.
For decades, Communications was positioned as a supporting function — important in execution, but peripheral in enterprise decision-making. It was brought in to shape narratives, manage reputation and respond to external scrutiny, often after strategic decisions had already been made. The strategic conversations happened elsewhere.
The Structural Evolution
That construct is now fundamentally changing.
The Korn Ferry Chief Communications Officer Survey 2025, conducted amongst CCOs of 78 Fortune 500 companies across verticals, provides a useful signal of this shift. Nearly half of chief communications officers now report directly to the CEO, up from 40% in 2023, and more than half sit on executive committees or equivalent leadership bodies. This number is growing. The report further characterises the role as increasingly embedded within enterprise leadership rather than operating as a downstream communications function.
This is not a cosmetic reporting change. It reflects a deeper structural evolution. Because the environment in which organisations operate has changed irreversibly.
Geopolitical fragmentation, stakeholder activism, regulatory expansion, AI-driven information velocity, workforce decentralisation and permanent public scrutiny have collectively elevated trust from a communications concern to a core enterprise variable.
Reputation is now capital-relevant.
Culture is now externally exposed.
Brand trust increasingly influences customer preference and commercial outcomes.
Stakeholder sentiment behaves more and more like a market signal.
And customer engagement, brand positioning, and corporate reputation are increasingly converging into a single enterprise narrative.
In this context, communications has moved closer to the centre of enterprise decision-making than at any point in its history.
The modern communications teams are no longer defined primarily by messaging capability. The function increasingly requires fluency across stakeholder intelligence, organisational transformation, brand strategy, customer engagement, cultural stewardship, leadership advisory and enterprise risk navigation.
In many organisations, the boundaries between corporate communications, brand, marketing communications and reputation management are becoming increasingly fluid.
The common thread across all of them is trust. And trust has become one of the most valuable strategic assets an organisation can possess. Viewed objectively, the function has never been more strategically positioned.
The Paradox
And yet, a paradox remains worth examining.
Despite this structural elevation, parts of the profession continue to place significant emphasis on external validation mechanisms — industry awards, rankings, speaking circuits, visibility platforms, and peer recognition ecosystems, sometimes commercial.
These instruments are not inherently misplaced. External credibility, when grounded in substance, plays a legitimate role in reinforcing both individual and organisational reputation.
But many of these markers were constructed during an earlier phase of the profession’s evolution — when communications needed to continuously justify its strategic relevance within organisations.
The question, therefore, is not whether these mechanisms have value. It is whether the profession has fully adapted its definition of success to its new reality.
The most interesting question facing communications today is no longer whether it belongs at the strategic table. That legitimacy is increasingly being granted by organisations themselves. The more interesting question is what communications chooses to do with that legitimacy. Because every profession evolves through stages.
The first stage is relevance.
A profession spends years proving its value, fighting for legitimacy, influence, resources and access.
The second stage is integration.
The profession becomes embedded within decision-making structures and gains proximity to leadership.
Communications is clearly operating in this space today.
But there is a third stage.
Maturity.
The point at which the profession begins to ask a different set of questions.
Not: “Do we matter?”
But: “What kind of leaders are we developing?”
Not: “Do we have influence?”
But: “How are we exercising it?”
Not: “Have we earned a seat at the table?”
But: “What are we contributing once we are there?”
The Maturity Curve
This is where the appointment of Leena Nair as CEO of Chanel offers an interesting reflection. I do not see it primarily as a story about career progression. What made that moment significant was not simply that an HR leader became the CEO of a global luxury brand. It represented a shift in perception — both inside and outside the profession — about what capabilities HR leaders could develop and how those capabilities could translate into enterprise leadership. In many ways, it became a symbolic maturity moment for the profession itself.
This raises a natural question for communications: what would be the equivalent moment for our profession? Not necessarily in terms of role outcomes or a CEO appointment, but in terms of professional maturity.
What would it look like for communications to be recognised not merely as a function that influences leadership, but as a function that consistently develops enterprise leaders in its own right?
Leaders who happen to come from communications. Leaders who can navigate complexity, build trust, influence decisions, steward culture, shape brands, strengthen customer relationships, manage risk, and help organisations create long-term value. Leaders whose impact extends far beyond the boundaries of the function itself.
Because if communications truly sees itself as a strategic leadership function — and increasingly, organisations seem to agree — then perhaps our highest aspiration should not be larger teams, bigger budgets, more awards, or greater industry visibility. Perhaps the profession’s next ambition should be developing enterprise leaders.
The capability to understand not only how organisations communicate, but how they create tangible value, win customers, build brands, earn trust, allocate resources, manage cost curves, navigate uncertainty, and ultimately, how they lead.
The Next Generation Challenge
This is where I believe the conversation becomes most important for the next generation entering the profession. The challenge facing young communicators today is fundamentally different from the challenge faced by previous generations.
Earlier generations fought for access. The next generation must learn how to exercise influence responsibly once access has been granted.
Earlier generations focused on communicating the business. The next generation must learn how to understand the business.
Earlier generations sought a seat at the table. The next generation must prove they can contribute to shaping the agenda at that table.
That, in my view, is the real maturity curve ahead for communications. Not a quest for more recognition, but a shift toward deeper enterprise integration. Not a greater emphasis on visibility, but a greater emphasis on leadership.
The next chapter of communications may be about demonstrating that the capabilities developed within communications are fundamentally leadership capabilities.
And if that is indeed the next frontier, then the profession may need to evolve its definition of success.
Less obsession with being recognised as communicators. More focus on being valued as leaders who happen to come from communications.
The Leena Nair Moment
Which brings me back to the question that started this reflection.
What would be the Leena Nair moment for communications?
Perhaps it is not a personal elevation at all, but a moment when the profession no longer needs to ask for validation because its value is already embedded in how enterprises think, decide, and lead.
A moment when trust, judgment, influence, brand stewardship, and strategic counsel are recognised not merely as communications capabilities, but as leadership capabilities. When that moment arrives, the true measure of the profession’s maturity will not be the influence it claims. It will be the leadership capability that it develops. Ultimately, professions are not defined by the functions they perform, but by the leaders they produce.