How should I structure my marcomms team?
With the rise of GEO, ideal team structure is *the* question weighing on leaders’ minds this year. Many are wondering who-owns-what, who-reports-where, and, crucially who is ultimately responsible for reputation in an AI-mediated world. Is it Marketing? IT? Comms? To absolutely no one’s surprise, I have thoughts.
First, some background.
Last week, Gab Feree polled her community about who-owns-what in Comms. She cited “Lots of discussion (from Parry Headrick, Greg Swan, and Scott Dobroski to name a few) lately about who owns what” and asked for input.
Then, Jen George’s piece included an analysis of how AMD and Roblox recently went about finding (and placing) their head(s) of communications within their respective organizations. She remarked, “If comms reports to your CMO today, you probably can't redraw the org chart yourself but you can walk into your next 1:1 with the CEO or CHRO with these two hires in hand and ask one question out loud: are we keeping comms under marketing because we decided that's the right structure for us, or because nobody's looked at it since the last reorg? Roblox and AMD both looked, under the same AI pressure you're operating in, and both pulled comms out.”
While I’m not as internet famous as either of those women, I commented on this back in February, as I too saw the signs for a new team set-up.
Now, the “answer.”
Naturally, each organization is different and there will be certain situations in which the following won’t make sense, but broadly:
The function needs to report to the CEO. Reputation is too important to report through another channel (like HR, legal, or marketing).
Marketing needs to be re-branded. So does communications. Nary a few understand what either does, and many assume that the work of each just “happens.” Misconceptions abound. Respect for the extremely intricate, deeply integrated, highly logistical, and deeply thoughtful work is rarely respected.
Smaller teams of generalists will win. I cannot tell you how many people have told me over the years to “specialize” in something or my career would suffer. They were all wrong. Not only have I benefited from diverse experiences, I continuously see professionals with an ability to pivot thrive. The way we’re working today won’t be the way we’re working a year from now – and if your team is big, lumbering, and lacking in their ability to “skate to the puck,” the ramifications will be steep.
When you consider the team of the future, what are your guideposts?
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Abby Lovett, Founder & AI Visibility Advisor, CTP Visibility Advisors. Author of "Super Human: 8 'SMALL' Ways to Be Super at What You Do…and Human While You Do It."
