This Is Who Comms Pros Think Communications Should Report To

The CEO is best, but it’s the why that’s interesting.

All right, we probably should have seen this one coming.

We asked on LinkedIn who communications should report to: directly to the CEO? Maybe marketing? Another C-suite title? More than 100 people responded, and the answer was overwhelmingly that communications should report directly to the CEO. But if you scratch the surface, the answers are more nuanced and reveal deeper insights about the role of communications in organizations today.

Responses have been lightly edited for style and brevity.

Communications should report directly to the CEO

I’ve reported to HR, legal, marketing and the CEO. The answer is the CEO. You can only counsel decisions you’re in the room for, and the reporting line is what gets you the room. Park comms under another function, and it inherits that function’s agenda. Comms serves the whole enterprise. The structure should say so.

Erin Abbey, senior communications adviser and consultant at Abbey Communications Group

Communications should report directly to the CEO and operate as a peer to the other executive functions.

To be truly strategic, the communications leader needs direct access to the CEO and firsthand understanding of the conversations and decisions happening in the business. When communications reports through another function, you create a proxy, or someone else trying to represent a discipline, perspective and expertise that isn’t their own.

That distance ultimately limits how effective communications can be.

Stephanie Roberts, Americas, Hitachi

Comms shouldn’t just report to the CEO. It should have the same seat, budget and title that every other C-suite function gets.

I said something similar a while back that got more traction than I expected — marketing should report to communications, not the reverse. The response from other comms leaders was strong and a lot more supportive than I expected! But that’s not actually the point. When it comes to the org chart debate, it comes down to the fact that comms is in the room first and the last one out. We know the audience better than anyone else because we have to. We write for the brands and executives we represent every single day, internal and external.

What also matters is the title. I know comms leaders with double my years of experience carrying full C-level responsibility without the CCO title or the budget authority that comes with it. We should give them that first, and the reporting structure will sort itself out as the function will be treated like the driver it already is.

Nikki Festa O’Brien, CEO at Greenough Communications

Communications and PR should definitely report to the CEO, as it’s not a marketing function but a business and reputation function. The CCO is helping a company shape how employees, investors, customers, media and policymakers understand the company. Communications spans the enterprise, and reporting through another function can unintentionally narrow communications to that function’s priorities, which could have a damaging effect. Reporting to the CEO also ensures direct and rapid response, especially during a crisis. I was, however, lucky while leading comms at Dolby to report to the CMO, who valued and understood comms and prioritized direct and frequent access to the CEO and Dolby family. That is an exception to the rule, when great leaders don’t add barriers.

Jennifer Bowcock, senior vice president, communications & creative, RealPage

Communications should report directly to the CEO and should be a part of every strategy session from the earliest stage of conversation. Business decisions should be made through the lens of anticipated response and perception by employees, the public and all stakeholders, not simply given to the comms team to push out after all the key decisions have already been made. When comms is involved too late in the process, reputation inevitably tanks.

Ashley Dennison, founder of CommsConsultants.com

Communications should report directly to the CEO because communications is a strategic management function. If comms only enters after decisions are made, it can shape the message, but it can’t help shape the decision, anticipate risk or identify where strategy and stakeholder reality are diverging. This is the mistake most organizations make: treating communications as the place where decisions get packaged rather than a function that should help inform those decisions. By the time comms is brought in, the strategic, stakeholder or reputational risk may already be too late to change.

Carolyn Moncel, head of strategic communications and donor engagement & governance, WHO Foundation

Comms should report directly to the CEO. We need full visibility into the business to be a strategic adviser, not just an execution arm. Reporting into marketing or other functions ties comms KPIs to that function’s goals. In the case of marketing, leads, engagement and growth aren’t always aligned with protecting the company’s reputation. And what works for marketing doesn’t necessarily work for organic storytelling (cue product information that isn’t newsy).

The real value of comms is the ability to say no: to flag risk, push back on a launch or tell leadership something they don’t want to hear before it becomes an issue. That only works with a seat at the table.

Loren Yaskin, founder & managing partner, The Flip Side Communications

Directly to the CEO; folding comms into another section of an organization, like marketing or legal, means it must align with that silo’s goals, sacrificing efficacy and the ability to be creative. Like many of the comments on this post, I have answered to the COO, the VP of marketing, the legal department chief and startup founders. The only time the authority and access to do the job well exist is when there is skip-level access to the larger vision and goals (and potential crisis issues) at the leadership level and the ability to plug in at all product genesis areas of an organization.

Megan Thorpe, communications director, The Digital Chamber

To the chief executive, and not for reasons of status. Under marketing, communications gets measured by what it sells. Under the chief executive, it gets measured by what the organization risks. I have watched that reporting line decide who is in the room in the first hour of a crisis, and that decides everything after.

Tim Sutton is a crisis manager

CEO access matters more than the formal reporting line

I think the org chart matters less than access. Communications can report into marketing, but they need direct access to the CEO or president when it matters. If everything is filtered through marketing, communications can’t really do its job.

Some organizations can create that access without a direct reporting line. If they can’t, then yes, comms should report directly to leadership.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano, founder of Lexington PR

There is no one-person solution. Rather than be married to a title — CEO, CMO, etc. — the emphasis should be on process and procedure. Ask yourself what access you need to meet and exceed the expectations of an account, and who is the best person or people to facilitate it, given the realities of that specific client. A CEO could be great for high-level vision but terrible for day-to-day access and information. A CMO could be more responsive but less helpful if they consider PR competition for the budget they want. Work with a mission-first perspective; titles don’t mean anything if they can’t get you what you need. In some scenarios, you need to be that person and insert yourself into the client’s internal comms procedures, especially if there are no internal comms procedures. The moment you say, “This is the only title I will speak with,” is the moment you are starting to build excuses about why the client dropped you.

Joshua Kail is a strategic communications consultant

I am naturally in the CEO camp. That said, if we’re being honest, it probably depends. What matters most is reporting to a leader who can give regular and predictable access to what the company is contemplating and grappling with … and absorb counsel from a comms leader — ideally the CEO. If the CEO doesn’t appreciate the value of the comms leader — and if the CEO can’t be convinced otherwise — then I’ll take the leader or leaders who get it.

Matt Burns, managing partner, Acumen Strategies

Communications needs two things: senior-level authority and communications expertise. The CEO should champion the function, providing the access, organizational support and mandate it needs. But day-to-day leadership should ideally sit with a senior communications professional who has the expertise and judgment to advise the CEO directly.

So the ideal isn’t simply communications reporting to the CEO. It’s a senior communications leader with direct CEO access, backed by a CEO who sees communications as a strategic function.

Kevin Foo, communications consultant

The right structure depends on the organization

I have worked under a CMO, CFO and CEO/president, and I think it really depends on the business and how large your comms team is. Comms is always cross-functional, so it will touch each part of the business, but who is accountable for whether the message and messenger are keeping the company on track (stock price, funding, grants)? Usually, that’s the CEO. Reporting to a CMO is definitely an old-school reporting structure that I just don’t think is a necessary layer in our modern times.

Jessica Piha, senior communications director at USAFacts

I think comms people should report to the CCO (ideally, there is one, depending on the company’s growth stage), who then reports to the CEO. If there’s no CCO, we’re stuck with marketing/CMO. I’ve also seen comms reporting to chief brand people, and that works pretty well, actually. There’s no one right or wrong way. Every organization is unique and requires the setup that works for it.

Anya Nelson, SVP and public relations practice lead at Scratch Marketing + Media

This isn’t one-size-fits-all, and it depends on the company type and size, but my overarching opinion is that communications should report directly to the CEO. I’ve seen it work under marketing as well as policy and legal, and I’ve seen it work as its own function. But when comms is part of marketing in particular, it starts focusing on brand and demand gen instead of reputation and trust, and those are very different responsibilities. During my time at big tech companies, I saw comms teams get pulled into marketing and lose the ability to tell leadership tough truths about how things would look outside the company.

Andrew Noyes, communications consultant

In my experience, the reporting structure depends on the business model. In B2B, communications tends to be a C-suite advisory role because the function exists to protect the company’s license to operate. In consumer industries, marketing leads because they’re generating sales through paid channels. In CPG, the company’s considered a brand first, then a reputation only when things go sideways. Regardless of the reporting structures I’ve worked in, one thing has remained consistent: Most marketers treat communications professionals solely as media relations or internal communications tacticians, and many comms people earn that framing every day.

Matt Kelly, founder and principal of GCYM Group

Communications should sit under another senior function

For effective communications within any business, it is essential that both the internal and external communications teams report directly to the chief communications officer (CCO), who is part of the C-suite and reports to the CEO. This structure ensures that communications remains a distinct entity that is always involved in strategy and key business discussions. This structure leads to valuable input from communications and positive outcomes for the teams, company brand and reputation and bottom line.

Julianna Jacobson, partner &SVP, marketing communications, Hot Paper Lantern

The best fit is for comms to report to marketing because the two functions are both focused on shaping how a company presents itself and tells its story externally. There’s a natural alignment around building the brand and the company’s reputation. When both functions are on the same page, it leads to a much more consistent story across every external touchpoint and a stronger connection between what the company says, what it stands for and how it shows up in the market.

But at the end of the day, comms is an all-organization function. To succeed, you need access to engineering, legal, PeopleOps, sales, the executive team and everything in between. Decisions across all of those teams shape the same company reputation and external presence.

Keenan Emery, communications professional at Doppel

I’ve reported to a president and CEO, communications SVP, CMO and CFO. Reporting to the CFO proved to be a particularly productive partnership. Communications brought the reputation and stakeholder lens; finance brought a deep understanding of the business and, increasingly, responsibility for strategy.

There’s also natural overlap between communications and investor relations, particularly around earnings and other financial announcements.

And it certainly didn’t hurt to have the people overseeing the enterprise budget understand firsthand the value communications was delivering.

Andrea Greenan, global communications leader

Communications should report to the head of communications, whether that’s a director, VP, CCO or CEO. Marketing should report to the head of marketing.

I always like to keep this pretty simple: A pediatrician and a cardiologist are both doctors, but they’re different specialties with different expertise. Communications and marketing are similar. They work closely together, but they are distinct disciplines that require different knowledge, strategies and skill sets.

Edyna Miguez, growth consultant, Harlow

Leadership support and influence matter more than structure

From an internal comms perspective, I’ve always argued for reporting to the leader with the biggest agenda, the loosest purse strings and the most urgent objectives.

Reporting to the CEO is often optimal, but it’s not a universal cure — CEOs who don’t “get comms” can be problematic, and a lot of what even senior communication leaders do is fairly granular at a certain level — especially when it comes to #IC.

Reporting to a leader who sees you as an asset, ally and force multiplier is never a bad place to be.

Michael Harry Klein, editor-in-chief, Strategic Magazine

Asking “Who should communications report to and why?” will stir up a lot of opinions, but I’m not sure it’s the right question to ask. To me, the real question is what communications leaders can do to make themselves so strategically valuable that CEOs wouldn’t dare have them report to anyone else but them. I think communications can become a company’s greatest competitive advantage, but only if the company is willing to think differently and do more than what is typical.

Pam Nemec, founder of Cascade Communications Group

Communications should live wherever it makes sense in a given organization as long as it’s a central function of executive planning and decision-making. Comms brings value when it demonstrates value, and once demonstrated, it’s best placed at the table making decisions. Show value from wherever you are, and you will be pulled in without needing to fight your way in.

Yelena Tebcherani, senior director and head of corporate communications at Qualcomm

In my experience, this comes down to individual leaders more than structure — provided the structure is clearly defined.

Strong leaders give comms a seat at the table. Their knowledge, advocacy and partnership let them set direction and articulate comms’ value to the organization. Without that, reputation risk grows, and leaders default to judging comms by tactical output — press release counts, deck size, media pickup — rather than strategic impact.

Structure still matters, especially at the middle-management level, for clear roles, escalation paths and decision rights. Operational leaders sometimes assume they can manage comms talent because they see it as a soft skill without strategic weight.

To prevent that, an expert leader or leader-advocate needs to sit in the reporting line — otherwise, comms talent hits a dead end.

Luke Thomas, director of communications strategy, supply chain, business services, environmental sustainability, Advent Health

It doesn’t matter. A comms officer’s success lies in building relationships and delivering wise counsel regardless of the org chart. Who they report to will ebb and flow with the business. What they deliver for the business should be consistent regardless.

Gab Ferree, founder, Off the Record

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