Chief communications officers are staying in their roles longer due to the stagnant job market, economic uncertainty and a slowdown in CEO turnover.

Why it matters: It's creating a bottleneck for up-and-coming communications talent.

By the numbers: In 2021 and 2022, turnover among CCOs was two times the rate of that in 2023, representing a five-year low, according to a new report from executive search firm Patino Associates.

Zoom in: This goes for CEOs too. Typically, chief executives average about seven years in their roles, but turnover has slowed, which has created a ripple effect across the C-suite.

• CCOs are typically linked to the CEO, and when there's a CEO transition, communications and finance leadership are often the first to go, the report states.

The big picture: Americans are staying in the workforce longer. The number of people who work past the age of 65 has quadrupled since the 1980s, according to a Pew study.

• Meanwhile, job openings are at their lowest level in three years as Gen Z enters the workforce at higher rates.

Between the lines: The lack of turnover is limiting the opportunities for up-and-coming talent, as well as former CCOs who are currently on the sidelines.

• Demand for outstanding communications and corporate affairs is not waning in the C-suite but competition is steep, says Patino Associates CEO Michael Patino.
• Many senior- and mid-level communicators are having difficulty making the jump given the lack of opportunities. In response, in flux comms leaders are serving in fractional roles, launching their own firms or consulting full time.

What they're saying: Communication leaders have been more risk averse over the past year, given the economic uncertainty and reduced executive-level job inventory, says Jessica Bayer, DHR Global's managing partner for corporate affairs and communications.

• "As the economy gets better and IPO and merger and acquisition activity increases, we expect to see a rise in newly created opportunities for communication talent. When this happens, senior leaders tend to move around more freely, which in turn provides more opportunities for rising talent."

💭 Our thought bubble: Staying in a role longer isn't necessarily bad. The trick is not to let longevity be misconstrued as complacency — which is the enemy of comms given the current AI transformation, evolving media landscape and ever-changing stakeholder demands.

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It feels fitting to reshare one of my favorite Axios visuals tracking the career paths of Fortune 100 chief communications officers.

Zoom in: Of the Fortune 100 CCOs, roughly 62% were promoted from within and 10% are lifers who have been with the company throughout their entire career.

• 43% of CCOs started in the corporate world, followed by politics and government (24%), PR agencies (17%) and journalism (8%).

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Women hold the majority of chief communication roles within the Fortune 500, according to industry research.

Why it matters: This is a demographic diversity not seen in other C-suite positions.

By the numbers: 66% of CCOs at Fortune 500 companies are women, compared to 10.4% of CEOs and 18.5% of chief financial officers.

Zoom in: Women are most likely to hold the top communications role in the health care industry (83%) and least likely in the energy sector (52%).

• Women also dominate in tech (70%), industrial (69%), financial services (65%) and consumer (63%) roles.

The big picture: 3 in 4 women are currently employed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is a record high.

• Yes, but: Women still earn around 16% less than men and women continually report being less satisfied in their jobs than men.
• This is due in part to a lack of upward mobility, company bonus structure and health benefits, according to research from the Conference Board.

Reality check: While it's promising to see women holding the most prominent communication roles within corporate America, these roles do not always have the same influence as others in the C-suite.

• The recent slew of geopolitical and economic issues, cultural landmines and corporate crises have elevated the role of communications, but in some instances it is still classified as a "soft skill" or viewed as an "administrative" function.

What they're saying: "More and more women are entering the C-suite as CCOs because in larger measure they inherently excel with the required "social skills" [like] the ability to listen, communicate and convene diverse groups of people toward achieving shared goals," Zeno Group Global CEO Barby Siegel told Axios.

• It's also due to their ability to multitask, manage diverse stakeholders and navigate complexities with compassion, says Shelley Zalis, founder and CEO of The Female Quotient.
• "Yet, the disparity in other C-suite roles underscores the need for continued advocacy and opportunity, ensuring diverse leadership that reflects the richness of talent and perspective women bring to the table," she added.

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Zoom is still in, but workers are zoning out in meetings.

• They're increasingly staying on mute through the whole ordeal and turning the camera off, Axios' Emily Peck writes from new research published in Harvard Business Review.

Driving the news: Turning the camera off in a virtual meeting is correlated with employee attrition, per the research, from an analytics firm called Vyopta, which looked at data from 2022 and 2023 covering more than 40 million meetings at 11 large companies.

• Workers who wound up leaving their company within a year had their cameras on just 18.4% of the time in small group meetings; those who remained at the company longer were on camera 32.5% of the time.

State of play: The researchers also found the number of meetings have increased while participation has dropped.

• In 2023, workers attended 10.1 virtual meetings a week, down slightly from 10.3 in 2022 — but higher than in 2021 when the number was 8.3 and more employees were working from home.
• 7.2% of workers stay muted for the entirety of a meeting, up from 4.8% in 2022. Camera enablement rates fell slightly too.

Now, some large employers are starting to use data gleaned from virtual meetings to make improvements — with an eye toward employer productivity and retention.

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The Wall Street Journal's veteran deals editor, Dana Cimilluca, is leaving the paper for a communications role at banking boutique Centerview Partners, Axios has learned.

• Why it matters: The reporting field that covers M&A, IPOs, activist shareholders, and related areas is losing a respected and highly experienced journalist to the comms side.

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As chief communications officer for iHeartMedia, Wendy Goldberg manages the narrative of the media company behind some of your favorite radio stations, podcasts and personalities.

• Why it matters: Audio is undergoing a major transformation and Goldberg's team is tasked with explaining how iHeart fits into the new media landscape.

📍How she got here: Goldberg started her career in politics before taking on business and communication roles at AOL, Six Flags and Hearst.

• In 2011, she joined iHeartMedia (then Clear Channel Radio) and since then has helped launch the iHeartRadio digital site, app and music festival.

🏗️ How it's structured: Goldberg reports to Chairman and CEO Bob Pittman and oversees all corporate communications, including strategic, internal and crisis communications, public relations for all the company brands (including iHeartRadio and iHeartPodcast), community engagement, and environmental, social and governance (ESG).

📻 Biggest challenge: "No other medium has the consumer reach of broadcast radio," which is often overlooked, says Goldberg. "iHeart broadcasts reach 90% of Americans every month."

• "If you don't drive to work or drive kids to school every day, you might not understand the role that broadcast radio plays. That, I think, is one of the biggest challenges we face [which is] helping people understand the role of broadcast radio in the lives of real American consumers."

📈 Trend spot: How AI will deepen the need for human connection, especially in the audio space.

• "One of the reasons that people bond with radio is because it's a connection. It's a human voice. It's somebody in your neighborhood, someone you think you know — like Ryan Seacrest, Elvis Duran or Bobby Bones. They are part of communities and you cannot replace that with AI. People don't bond with voices. They bond with other humans."

🧠 Her best advice comes from Pittman: Don't overplan.

• "If you think you need to be that organized and you have a plan, you're going to miss out on different opportunities that present themselves."

Keep reading the entire spotlight.

"I think the biggest risk [of using AI] — and it applies to both communicators and journalists — is breaking trust and harming the relationships that you've worked hard to build. So that means communicators must be really careful and disclose the use of AI, proofread and make sure the information they are sharing is accurate."

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