How PR can prove value to the C-suite, says Footprint’s Heather Knox

When proving the value of communications to top leaders in your organization, there’s no blueprint.

There are options and opportunities, but each leadership group is going to respond differently to various kinds of evidence. It’s a lesson that Heather Knox, head of communications for Footprint, says she has learned over the course of a long career.

Knox worked at Microsoft when the software company was making its big push into cloud technology. She was at the center of some of the biggest crisis comms stories of the last 10 years, working with Renault and Nissan amid the breakup of their big partnership in 2018, and was with Amazon as the company faced the COVID-19 crisis and a union push from workers at an Alabama facility.

Now she leads comms for Footprint, a company that aims to help its customers, such as ConAgra, remove plastic from their supply chain and packaging.

The through line in each of these roles has been the need to show results to top execs.

“There is no one-size-fits-all definition and it really depends on people’s past experiences with the function, with the person who led it and what it can do for them,” she says.