Corporate Affairs and communications leaders have spent years turning expertise in reputation and storytelling into a larger role in business decisions. Many have gotten there. What was once a function brought in to communicate decisions after they were made is now helping shape them, with a stronger voice in business strategy. Corporate Affairs leaders now hold more senior roles and sit closer to CEOs and executive committees, where they advise on pressures that start outside the company.
But access only matters if Corporate Affairs changes what the business does.
The CEO's job has turned outward as political, cultural and reputational considerations shape commercial ones. Business leaders must navigate competing expectations from employees, investors, policymakers and other stakeholders, often without a clear path to satisfying them all. Edelman’s latest Future of Corporate Affairs research finds that 64% of respondents say their CEO is expected to act as a corporate diplomat, advancing business priorities while balancing competing interests. Over the past two years, I’ve seen CEOs and boards turn to Chief Communications Officers (CCOs) and Chief Corporate Affairs Officers more often for counsel on consequential decisions, sometimes giving them only hours to gather outside intelligence before leaders have to act. Sixty-two percent of our respondents say they regularly advise leadership on weighing political, cultural and business considerations.
That gives Corporate Affairs an opportunity to influence decisions while they’re still being made, before the consequences land.
Influence has also outrun capability. Sixty-six percent say emerging issues often require expertise beyond traditional communications, and 49% say skills gaps hinder their response. Corporate Affairs leaders need to understand a decision’s commercial, political and operational consequences as well as its reputational ones. AI can widen what teams see and how quickly, yet only 21% rate their function’s AI fluency as advanced or leading. Commercial understanding, stakeholder knowledge and judgment determine which signals matter.
Measurement hasn't caught up either. Most scorecards still count coverage, reach, engagement and sentiment. Those measures matter, but they don’t capture the full value of Corporate Affairs’ expanding role. That value often appears before anything is public: a leader changes a decision, a team challenges an assumption, a conflict never escalates. Our research finds that 73% say their measurement approach misses the full value Corporate Affairs delivers, and 51% find it hard to link Corporate Affairs activity to business performance. A better measure is how the function influences decisions, reduces exposure and preserves opportunities, while recognizing that enterprise results remain shared outcomes. CEOs and CCOs can start with four questions:
- Which outside intelligence led leaders to change a decision?
- Which assumptions did Corporate Affairs challenge?
- Where did early Corporate Affairs involvement reduce risk or preserve an opportunity?
- Which critical relationships did Corporate Affairs help protect?
Delivering on this broader mandate also requires a different way of operating. Fifty-five percent say organizational silos limit their ability to respond, even as 67% say they frequently connect the C-suite and external stakeholders. CEOs should give the function a clearer mandate to bring outside intelligence into consequential decisions. Legal, Government Affairs, HR and Finance should work with Corporate Affairs, not around it. The line should stay clear: Corporate Affairs influences the decision; the business leader owns the outcome.
Access creates obligations on both sides. CEOs have to give the function the mandate, access and expertise that serious counsel requires. CCOs must prove the value of that influence. They have to show what the business does differently because they were there.
Explore Edelman’s Future of Corporate Affairs: The Age of Corporate Diplomacy for the six shifts changing how the function works.
Jonathan Jordan, U.S. Head of Corporate Reputation.