How to navigate the jump from executive communications to thought leadership

When the world changed two years ago, the business needs did, too. Internal communicators, long considered the most undervalued comms practitioners, suddenly saw their work validated by business leaders in unprecedented ways.

Transparency became crucial for businesses trying to show external audiences that they were upholding cultural values, taking care of employees, and generally conducting themselves internally the way that they presented externally. As such, the trend of mixternal communications—the industry-wide merging of internal and external comms functions—took off.

Kari Wethington, executive communications director at Proctor and Gamble, spoke at Ragan’s Employee Communications and Culture conference this past February about how artful mixternal communications require a nuanced understanding of the differences, and similarities, between executive communications and thought leadership.

Wethington began with a charge for comms to define what these terms mean within each organization and where they sit.