Halloran
Reputation Management
Enterprise Technology
A new CEO needed public credibility before a contested board vote.
How a new CEO earned public credibility before a contested board vote.
Client
Listed enterprise software company, ~1,800 employees
Engagement
Project
Duration
10 weeks
The situation
A new CEO was named days before a contested board vote, with activist investors already briefing press against the appointment.
The activists’ story was simple and already running: an outsider with no public track record, appointed in a hurry. The CEO had a strong operating record at two previous companies, but almost none of it was public. She had never written for a business audience, and the company’s own communications team was stretched across an earnings cycle.
The board’s concern was specific: if the vote went against the appointment, the company would lose its second CEO in eighteen months and face a year of instability. The window to change the story was about ten weeks, and the activists had a head start.
Our response
Four bylines were placed across trade and business press ahead of the vote, framing the CEO’s track record on her own terms before opposition talking points could set the narrative. Executive coaching was completed within 72 hours of engagement.
Elena Halloran interviewed the CEO, two former colleagues and the chair to find the three proof points that answered the “no track record” story directly. We drafted each byline in her voice, around a specific operating lesson rather than a defence. We briefed investor relations and legal on every piece before pitching, and prepared the CEO for the two interviews we expected the activists to prompt.
We deliberately never responded to the activists by name. Each piece stood on its own as useful reading for an operator, which is why editors took them. By the fourth byline, reporters covering the dispute were quoting the CEO’s published arguments back to the activists and asking for a response.
How it unfolded
Week 1: engagement starts; interviews with the CEO, the chair and two former colleagues
Week 1: executive coaching completed within 72 hours
Week 2: narrative and three proof points agreed with investor relations and legal
Weeks 3–8: four bylines placed, roughly one every ten days
Week 6: activist claims resurface; the CEO answers by pointing to her published record
Week 10: vote held; appointment confirmed
After the vote: the first-100-days visibility plan begins
What we delivered
Executive narrative and three proof points
Four ghost-written bylines, each placed with a target outlet
Media training and a practice interview on hostile questions
Q&A for investor relations and the board
Daily issues monitoring through the vote
Post-vote visibility plan for the first 100 days
Results
All four bylines ran before the vote. When the activists’ claims resurfaced in coverage, three of the four follow-up stories quoted the CEO’s own published record in response. The appointment was confirmed. The client retained us for the CEO’s first-year visibility programme, which is now in its second year.
The chair later told us the bylines did something the board’s own letters couldn’t: they let investors hear from the CEO directly, in her own words, before being asked to vote on her.
The takeaway
A new leader’s public record should exist before anyone needs to check it. If a leadership change is coming, start the visibility work on day one: two or three published pieces in the leader’s own voice will do more in a contested moment than any statement written after the fact.
“By the time the vote happened, the story wasn’t about the fight anymore. It was about her record.”
— VP Communications, Arcfield Systems
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