For decades, the Communications Manager has occupied an uncomfortable position in the corporate hierarchy close enough to the Managing Director’s office to be useful in a crisis, but rarely close enough to the boardroom to prevent one. Ejike Ndiulo, PhD, Strategic Marketing expert and Chief Thinker at Henryjvaleens, says this arrangement is not merely outdated. It is dangerous.
“Many organisations treat the Comms Manager like a high-end fire extinguisher,” Ndiulo observes. “Kept in a red box near the MD’s office, only to be smashed open when a crisis breaks or a press release needs a professional polish.” The problem, he argues, is that by the time the fire extinguisher comes out, the fire has already started often because no one with a communications lens was in the room when the decision that lit the spark was made.
An Echo Chamber Flying Without a Radar
Ndiulo is direct about what organisations lose when they confine the Communications function to a reactive, errand-running role. The MD’s office, he contends, is structurally prone to becoming an echo chamber insulated from the external world of media, customers, regulators, and public sentiment that the Comms Manager navigates daily.
“Corporations that see Comms Managers as appendages of the MD are effectively flying a plane without a radar,” he says. “They may think they are moving forward, but they have no idea what storms they are heading into.” In his view, the Comms Manager is uniquely positioned to bring the outside-in perspective that boardrooms chronically lack translating how a strategic pivot will land with staff, how a product decision will read in the press, and how a governance choice will be interpreted by regulators before any of those audiences are ever engaged.
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From Cost Centre to Strategic Architect
The most persistent barrier to elevating Communications, Ndiulo acknowledges, is the cost-centre label a perception he traces directly to the way the function has historically been deployed. When Comms is relegated to reactive work, it appears to add no measurable value. But that, he argues, is a self-fulfilling condition created by the very structures that confine it.
“Proactive communication is a force multiplier,” he says.
“Reputation is a strategic asset, not a task. Brand equity, stakeholder trust, and public perception can swing a stock price or sink a product launch faster than a balance sheet update.” Modern business value, Ndiulo points out, is increasingly tied to intangibles and the executive best positioned to protect and grow those intangibles is the one currently sitting at the PR desk waiting for instructions.
The Boardroom Is Where the Narrative Begins
Ndiulo’s central argument is that the era of polycrisis where social upheaval, geopolitical shifts, reputational risks, and environmental pressures collide simultaneously has permanently changed what boards need around the table. Decisions can no longer be made in a vacuum and handed to a communications team to package. The communications lens must be present at the moment of decision, not summoned after the fact to manage the fallout.
“A Comms Manager provides the ethical and social lens required to navigate these waters,” he says. “They don’t just ask ‘Can we do this?’ they ask ‘How will this be perceived, and can we defend it?'” By integrating Communications into the governance structure, Ndiulo concludes, organisations stop telling stories reactively and start doing them strategically. The boardroom, he insists, is where the narrative begins not where it goes to be fixed.
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