‘It’s important to not only analyse board strategy, but also board micro-culture’

At the e4m PR and Corp Comm Women Achievers Summit and Awards 2022, Farzana Baduel

CEO, Curzon PR, delivered the keynote address on the topic “Board rooms | The final frontier for PR professionals. How to land a non-executive director role and what to do when you get there”.

Baduel opened her session by talking about how historically PR professionals have been put in a kind of a box of gatekeepers but now that they can talk directly to the target audience, it brings a new set of opportunities and threats for organizations. She said, “To strategise and identify where the opportunities and threats are and also how to build a reputation of resilience and how damaging a crisis is, it is mandatory to have PR people on the board.”

Said Baudel, “Essentially, you need to be good at two areas to be getting on the board as well as add value - one is emotional intelligence and the other is self-awareness. They are the twin drivers of success. What I used to do is understand the organisation's composition and tried to identify gaps between organization strategies and its vision, mission and values. This exercise helps you become much more informed and they add more value to your proposition.” According to Baduel, it is important to not only analyse the board strategy and composition, but also the board micro-culture and the board dynamics.

Talking about how understanding the threats is also extremely important, Buaudel adds “Identifying and being prepared for threats and risks is important; like threats in the industry, the potential technological risks, geopolitical risks and even the generational shifts that are happening. Additionally, stay-in-your-lane strategy is very crucial for someone who is on the board - don’t get involved in the operations.”

Concluding the session with the skill sets required to be on boards today, she said “We actually hold the skills to identify risks, risk mitigation, making sure there is no real gap between the perception and the reality and there is no greewashing happening within the organization, we understand sentiment, stakeholder management, we understand risk, crisis management - all these skills are intuitively in PR professionals. Now, communication is not only about the consumer, but it is also about employee and stakeholder management.”