Working with a Head of Communications

What this role actually does

The Head of Communications owns the company's external and internal narrative. The seat reports to the CMO, the CBO, or the CEO depending on how much of the seat is press, how much is analyst relations, and how much is internal communications. In a public company the seat also carries investor relations coordination. In a growth stage company the seat is the person who briefs the press, manages the crisis playbook, and drafts the CEO's speeches.

A working Head of Comms spends real hours with the CEO on the story, real hours with product marketing on launch messaging, real hours with the general counsel on public statements and crisis response, and real hours with the People team on internal messaging. The seat carries a PR manager, a content or speechwriting lead, and sometimes an analyst relations manager. Team size ranges from two in a mid market company to eight in a large enterprise.

The Head owns the messaging architecture in operational form, the press strategy, the crisis playbook, the executive positioning for the CEO and other execs, and the internal newsroom. They are the person who decides what the company says publicly and how it says it.

What a functioning Head of Comms does not do: draft every press release personally, book every press call, or run every internal town hall. They do not own the brand strategy and they do not own the product launch narrative in isolation. They own the narrative delivery. Product marketing owns the launch story. The Head shapes how it lands publicly.

The Head also owns the discipline of what does not get said. Almost every quarter a well meaning executive proposes a comment on a competitor's earnings, a policy debate, or an industry controversy. The Head is the person who decides when engagement compounds the brand and when silence is the better bet. A Head who does not maintain a written point of view on silence loses the discipline to competitors who are quieter.

How to brief them well

You brief a Head of Comms on the story you want the market and the team to believe and the news the company is going to make in the next twelve months. Here is the narrative arc. Here is the calendar of announcements. Here is the CEO's public schedule. Here is the constraint on legal or IR sensitive information. The Head comes back inside three weeks with a comms plan, a press strategy, and a crisis readiness assessment.

Bad briefs look like a press release request. Please announce this partnership. Please get us in the trade press. Please write a thought leadership article. Every press ask without a narrative rationale produces coverage that is off strategy and hard to compound.

Context the Head needs on arrival includes the current press relationships, the last three years of coverage sentiment, the state of the crisis playbook, the CEO's public track record, and the relationship with investor relations if the company is public. A Head who does not know which journalist wrote the last unfavorable piece is going to be surprised by the next one.

The strongest brief pairs a narrative arc with a hard no. Own the executive thought leadership on a defined topic. Do not chase every product press cycle. Do not put the CEO on stage at every industry conference. Named nos protect the CEO's calendar from the every request that lands from PR agencies and event organizers.

The strong brief also names the beat and the reporter roster the Head will invest in. Every trade press ecosystem has a small group of reporters who move the conversation. The Head who does not name the roster in month one spreads investment across a hundred journalists and lands nowhere. Naming the top thirty is what compounds the relationship over years.

Review cadence + operating rhythm

Weekly rhythm

Weekly at the Head of Comms level is a news pace review and a leader standup. A Monday of about an hour with the comms team covering active press conversations, upcoming announcements, and any social or press moment that needs an escalation. A Wednesday sync with product marketing on launch messaging. A Friday one on one with the CEO or CMO.

Monthly and quarterly reviews

Monthly is the operating review. Press coverage by publication tier, sentiment analysis, share of voice, and the state of the announcement calendar. The Head also reviews executive visibility plans and the crisis playbook. Monthly is when the Head reallocates effort across earned media, analyst relations, and internal comms.

Quarterly is where the honest conversation happens. The Head presents narrative arc progress, coverage sentiment, competitive share of voice, and the plan for the next quarter. The CEO signs off on the executive positioning plan. If the QBR does not surface at least one narrative bet the Head is killing, the plan is padding.

Annual planning

Annual planning at the Head level is a narrative document, a calendar of announcements, and an executive visibility plan. A Head who arrives at January without a written narrative is going to be running reactive PR by mid February.

Between the standing cadences the Head also runs a monthly analyst review where the analyst relations lead reconciles which analyst reports are landing on the CEO's desk and which ones matter for the next raise or earnings call. Analyst work compounds on a lag and the monthly cadence keeps the roster fresh.

Measurement (real KPIs, not vanity)

Four numbers matter at the Head of Comms level.

First, share of voice against the top three competitors. Media coverage volume weighted by publication tier and sentiment. This is the metric that tells the truth about whether the category conversation is shifting toward the company.

Second, sentiment on earned media and social. Positive, neutral, and negative coverage tracked monthly. Sentiment is what tells the board whether the brand is trusted, not just visible.

Third, executive visibility yield. Coverage volume and sentiment tied to CEO or exec appearances. When the CEO does a keynote, the yield in press coverage and analyst mentions tells the Head whether the appearance was worth the time.

Fourth, crisis response time. When something breaks publicly, how fast the company issues a statement, how consistent the messaging is, and how quickly the news cycle turns. A crisis playbook that has never been tested is not a playbook. The Head measures readiness on a quarterly drill.

Vanity metrics that mislead include gross press clip count, impression volume on social, and follower count on the corporate account. A Head who reports clip count without sentiment or share of voice is padding.

The diagnostic layer under share of voice is the qualitative signal from analyst calls and press one on ones. When journalists start using the company's language unprompted, the narrative is landing. When they use the competitor's language, the tracker will pick up the shift eventually. The Head who reads analyst notes weekly catches the shift early.

Compensation + career path (honest ranges)

Head of Comms comp splits into three market bands.

Compensation bands by market

Mid market. Series B to C, ten to fifty million ARR. Base 165 to 220 thousand. Bonus 10 to 20 percent. Equity 0.05 to 0.20 percent. Total cash 185 to 265 thousand. Team size two to four. Often the seat carries analyst relations double duty.

Tech metro. Series C onward, fifty to two hundred million ARR. Base 210 to 285 thousand. Bonus 15 to 25 percent. Equity 0.04 to 0.15 percent. Total cash 245 to 355 thousand. Team size three to seven.

Coastal enterprise. Public or late private. Base 265 to 360 thousand. Bonus 20 to 35 percent. Equity or RSUs 200 thousand to 700 thousand a year. Total comp 500 thousand to 1.1 million. Team size five to twelve. This band expects prior public company experience and comfort briefing analysts and financial press.

The typical next step is VP of Communications or Chief Communications Officer at a larger company, CBO at a category building company, or head of PR at a large agency. Some Heads move into IR when the company is public.

Common departures. The two year exit when a crisis is mishandled. The eighteen month exit when the CEO changes and the new CEO brings their own comms lead. The clean four year run when the Head builds a compounding narrative and hands the seat to a strong PR manager. A healthy tenure is three to five years.

The negotiation moment for a Head of Communications is whether the seat reports to the CEO or to the CMO. Reporting to the CEO gives independence and access. Reporting to the CMO ties comms to marketing outcomes. The offer that leaves the line ambiguous produces a Head who spends the year negotiating for scope.

Common ways this seat fails

The Head who cannot manage a crisis. Something breaks. The statement takes seventy two hours. The messaging is inconsistent across the CEO's tweet and the corporate blog. Legal writes something the press does not understand. Two crises in a year and the seat is on the block. A Head who does not run a crisis drill in the first ninety days is not prepared for the crisis they will actually face.

The Head who chases every press cycle. Every product launch gets a press push. Every hire gets a press release. Every partnership gets a wire. The trade press stops opening the emails. The Head who does not select the moments that matter loses the relationship with the tier one journalists inside a year.

The Head who cannot align with legal. The general counsel red lines every statement to the point where the messaging is watered down and off strategy. The Head who does not build a working process with legal for expedited review is going to be late to every news cycle that matters.

The Head who over relies on agencies. The PR agency is running the media list, drafting the pitches, and taking the coverage credit. The Head who does not own the top thirty press relationships personally has no room to negotiate when the agency contract ends or the agency underperforms.

The Head who cannot manage the CEO. The CEO tweets before the Head sees the tweet. The CEO does a podcast without briefing. The CEO takes a controversial position without a plan for the fallout. The Head who does not build a working relationship with the CEO that includes a review protocol is going to spend the year cleaning up moments they could have prevented.

The seat also fails when the Head cannot rebuild trust after a crisis lands badly. Every comms tenure eventually has a moment. The Head who takes accountability and ships a written after action report earns back the room. The Head who blames legal or agencies or timing loses the room and eventually the seat.