Christine DiBartolo and Brent McGoldrick are Senior Managing Directors and Elly DiLeonardi is a Strategic Communications Advisor at FTI Consulting. This post is based on a FTI Consulting memorandum by Ms. DiBartolo, Mr. McGoldrick, Ms. DiLeonardi, James Condon, Clare Marshall and Hamm Hooper. Related research from the Program on Corporate Governance includes The Illusory Promise of Stakeholder Governance (discussed on the Forum here) and Will Corporations Deliver Value to All Stakeholders? (discussed on the Forum here) both by Lucian A. Bebchuk and Roberto Tallarita; Stakeholder Capitalism in the Time of COVID (discussed on the Forum here) by Lucian Bebchuk, Kobi Kastiel, Roberto Tallarita; and Restoration: The Role Stakeholder Governance Must Play in Recreating a Fair and Sustainable American Economy—A Reply to Professor Rock (discussed on the Forum here) by Leo E. Strine, Jr.
Navigating Stakeholders’ Evolving Expectations of CEOs
As a firm that helps CEOs with their most complex, business-critical issues, FTI Consulting set out in 2021 to better understand the changing demands that a company’s critical stakeholders, including employees and investors, had of executives during a period of social and political unrest amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. We recognize that the world today looks very different from 2021, when we first conducted FTI Consulting’s CEO Leadership Redefined [1] research, so we recanvassed employees and investors to determine how their expectations have changed. This year, we also asked a bipartisan group of D.C. policy influencers for their perspectives to provide a more comprehensive view of current stakeholder perceptions of CEOs.
People have different concerns today as compared to 2021. We are in a tighter labor market with daily headlines of layoff announcements driven by economic uncertainty and inflation concerns. Employees who worked remotely during the pandemic are now navigating a new hybrid work environment. And we have entered another presidential election cycle, where news headlines are different from 2020 when we were in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout the past few years, CEOs have been more vocal on issues ranging from social justice to equality to climate change. Companies have taken significant steps to ensure their actions match their leaders’ words, placing a renewed focus on purpose and values, and using these bedrocks of their organization as the “north star” guiding strategy and decision-making.