Communicator spotlight: Cristal Downing, Merck's chief communications and public affairs officer
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Cristal Downing is the chief communications and public affairs officer for the pharmaceutical company Merck.
Why it matters: Her title doesn't fully encompass her role, she told Axios.
🗣️ What she's saying: "We are not only helping companies amplify and build narratives, identify audiences and oversee stakeholder management, but we have a seat at the table. I often say, we are moving — rightfully so — from being scribes to strategists."
🔍 Zoom in: When I asked Downing to explain her job in the simplest terms — as if she was talking to my 5-year-old — she laid out five key responsibilities:
- Reputation protector: "I am responsible, along with my team, for protecting, defending and elevating the company's brand, its reputation and its profile."
- Culture shaper: "We are responsible for helping to shape and create a more favorable operating environment for the company."
- Truth teller: "We serve as the conscience of the company and that means that [we] bring to the table all of the expertise across corporate affairs, but within limits from an objective perspective. So we have the responsibility and the opportunity to be the truth tellers and ensuring that we are always aligned with our values, our principles and our moral compass."
- Mitigator: "There is an element of risk and we also are expected to help the company identify, mitigate or eliminate it where possible and certainly navigate it effectively and more successfully."
- Narrative builder: "We have the pleasure, the privilege, the responsibility to share news about this company ... and we do that through really powerful and profound storytelling."
🏗️ How it's structured: Downing reports to Rob Davis, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Merck, and oversees a team of approximately 285 who are responsible for communications, public affairs and environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts.
💡 Every CEO should know that communication is a strategic asset to the company.
- "We have a strategic framework and identified business objectives as a company, so my directive to the team is that anything and everything that we're doing must ladder up to them. If it does not, then you should not be doing it," says Downing.
- "There has be be a strategy, and within each strategy, we must have a business case. ... We must understand what the investment is, how we're going to measure that investment, what the return is going to be."
📈 Trend spot: The balance of artificial intelligence and human intelligence in communications.
- "I never want to lose that human connection, because I actually don't believe that could or should be replaced," she said.
📺 Most recent content binge: "Bridgerton" and "Your Honor."
🧠 Best advice comes in the form of three ABCs: Always be curious; always be courageous; and always be contributing.
