Global Marketing & Communications
Introduction
The ongoing pandemic ushered in drastic life and work upheavals for all of us, making 2021 a year of adaptation. It offered an opportunity to pause, reflect, and set the tone for how we want to shape the marketing function’s future. This year-end report illustrates how Global Marketing & Communications contributed to Egon Zehnder’s impact throughout the past year.
Working closely with colleagues across the Firm, we made significant strides, including the development and deployment of our narrative and messaging framework—the underlying foundation of our work and messaging; the creation of internal communications and gatherings to bring us all closer together; the development of top-of-the-house projects with a clients-first approach; and the amplification of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) messaging. We have also heightened our brand’s awareness across markets via traditional and social media, and we are continuously professionalizing our function by hiring new talent and acquiring new tools.
As we reflect on our work, we are filled with energy and gratitude for our partnerships with colleagues globally to support our growth and reputation as the world’s preeminent Leadership Advisory Firm.
A New Framework
Inspiring Leaders to Navigate Complex Questions with Human Answers
In 2021, we developed a narrative that articulates our integrated leadership advisory and executive search model that is uniquely Egon Zehnder. The Global Marketing Team, in partnership with Lippincott and Moving Brands, worked with colleagues across functions and geographies to create an aspirational narrative that is uniquely Egon Zehnder. To build this narrative, we took the following steps:
1
Took a deep dive into existing Egon Zehnder materials, an audit of the competitive landscape
2
Held global workshops with consultants to ensure the narrative would be consistent and its meaning would translate across regions
3
Tested three concepts internally
4
Convened four global virtual workshops to refine the language and definition of promises
The Global Marketing Team developed materials that make it easy to use the messaging framework in pitches, correspondence, conversations, and more. You can find language and talking points in the updated pitch decks and on Maestro.
Top-of-the-House Work
It starts with the CEO
The CEO Advisory Group developed, with support from the Global Marketing team, the global study It starts with the CEO. The study surveyed nearly 1,000 CEOs and explores the changing role and new leadership capacities it takes to be successful today.
Resources we created:
Architects of Prosperity
Egon Zehnder presented a series of six articles offering insights into leadership challenges and opportunities of special interest to current and aspiring Chief Executives and boards. These narratives draw on our extensive global work with more than 2,000 CEOs in all sectors over the past five years, as well as our services advising the Boards that appoint CEOs. We reflected on transformative work that our colleagues have been privileged to undertake with top executives, and describe their thorny challenges, their flashes of inspiration, their stumbles—in short, the milestones on their paths to creating prosperity for all their stakeholders, as well as the scope and aims of their organizations.
Resources we created:
●
●
Board Diversity
The Latino Impact Campaign
To continue highlighting the importance of diverse voices in the boardroom, the Marketing team partnered with LCDA to refresh the Latino Impact campaign, a 2019 interview series with Latinx board directors who shared their unique stories and perspectives on leadership. For this renewed set of content products, we developed a social media toolkit offering copy and visual graphics. This updated content will be shared on an evergreen basis both by Egon Zehnder and LCDA. It will also serve to raise awareness on diversity in boardrooms leading up to our 2022 Global Board Diversity Tracker.
Latin American Boards
We placed an article by Cristina Manterola about board diversity in Latin America based on the Global Board Diversity Tracker.
Nasdaq Board Diversity
SEC’s approval of a Nasdaq board diversity proposal propelled us to respond to this timely event expressing our support to the vision that diverse boards are positive and perform well. This exemplifies how we can respond to news cycle and relevant moments in a timely manner through short-form, multimedia content.
Amplifying Our Commitment to DEI
Reversing the “She-cession”: Retaining and Empowering Female Leaders
As part of our Leaders & Daughters initiative, the marketing team and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council surveyed 300 C-suite leaders from midsize and large companies to understand how leaders could help reverse the negative effects of the “She-cession” caused by the pandemic. The survey was conducted between July and August of 2021.
To tell this story and highlight the survey’s findings, we created a comprehensive set of communications products. We also encourage you to use this data as you prepare the content for upcoming events (including but not limited to Leaders & Daughters events) as part of opening remarks, presentations, panel questions, or roundtable discussions.
Resources we created:
●
●
●
Developing a Brand for our Employee Resource Groups
Our Firm is also embedding DEI in our core, developing several ERGs over the past year. The Global Marketing and Communications Team helped to design logos and advised some of the groups on their communication strategies.
Pride Communications and Planning
2021 marks the first year we had a robust plan for celebrating Pride. Our efforts included a homepage banner, social media posts, videos, and an op-ed about how being LGBTQ+ is a leadership enabler.
Resources we created:
U.S. DEI Engagement Plan
We worked with the DEI Council on communicating our current DEI Commitments both on our website and on Maestro, and partnered with an external agency to develop a plan and support to the U.S. market with DEI action plan communications, which will serve as inspiration for other pilot markets. We also supported Embracing Differences Workshops, including Maestro, supporting materials and communications.
Deepening Our Connections Through Internal Communications
We developed several projects and products focused on deepening our internal communications and consistently raise awareness on our Firm’s work internally. Our 2021 milestones include:
- Launching Within, our internal communications at Egon Zehnder
- Working with all global initiatives and groups on their internal communications to help connect the dots, simplify, streamline, and create a common thread
- Innovative design and elevated storytelling in our One Firm newsletter
- Helped develop and support our first Firmwide Global Gathering in September 2021
- Continued refining our global communications efforts through The Thread, our team’s monthly newsletter.
Staying Connected with our Alumni Community
We deepened our connections with our EZ alums through instituting regular updates to our alumni site: alumni.egonzehnder.com. We also hosted two virtual Alumni Gatherings (Spring event and Global Alumni Day in the Fall). We are also working to expand our alumni to other roles in the Firm, beginning with the Expert community.
Heightening Our Brand Awareness Globally
Media Coverage
In 2021, we kept steady progress with our PR efforts, generating an estimated 463 million views, which is estimated by adding up the total unique monthly visitors each article received. While most media hits are a result of proactive pitching and outreach, some may happen due to consultant’s own working relationships with journalists. Highlights include:
Leaders are increasingly facing the urge to adapt and evolve on a deeper human level, Egon Zehnder Chairwoman Jill Ader points out in a recent interview to Swiss media outlet Handelszeitung. The conversation sheds light on pressing topics, such as leadership identity, the importance of diversity and a value-driven purpose, and how leadership advisory can help shape better leadership.
““Technology comes up in board discussions all the time, and the pandemic accelerated that even further, giving CIOs much more exposure to the board,” said Chuck Gray, partner and head of U.S. Technology Officers Practice at management consulting firm Egon Zehnder.”
““Most senior-level executives in a company are used to having everyone under one roof or in the same country or time zones, but CIOs have been managing a globally dispersed and distributed workforce forever,” says Charles “Chuck” Gray, a partner and head of U.S. Technology Officers Practice and board practice specialist at Egon Zehnder.”
“Another smart strategy for achieving climate transition and other sustainability goals is to cultivate a broad spectrum of ideas in the non-executive board of directors. As the recent study by the global leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder and the University of Göttingen shows, this might be achieved through appointing directors from different backgrounds with diverse demographic characteristics and professional perspectives.”
“With so many employees looking elsewhere, make sure the best ones are looking at you. Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a former top headhunter with Egon Zehnder, now a lecturer at the Harvard Business School, says employers should “list three to five great players they would have liked to have hired over the past five years and then check in with those people.”“
“First things first: You’re never going to find the perfect candidate for your job opening. “The perfect candidate does not exist,” says Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a senior adviser at global executive search firm Egon Zehnder and the author of It’s Not the How or the What but the Who. Besides, “even if the candidate does exist, it’s [not a given that they would even] consider taking the job.””
““Clients do understand that the talent pool is very thin, particularly in finding candidates with a proven track-record and relevant ESG experience in both private and public sectors,” said Arthur Leung, a consultant covering financial services at leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder in Hong Kong.”
“The management consulting company Egon Zehnder conducted a study recently where 97 percent of C-suite professionals said women in their organizations benefited from working from home, but at the same time, seven in 10 executives said remote and flexible employees may be at risk of getting passed over for a promotion because of decreased visibility at work.”
“Jill Ader, Egon Zehnder's global chairwoman, said many of the CEOs she counsels are wondering "Am I enough?". Some of them have confessed they are disillusioned or burnt out. "One of your peers forecast that there will be significant turnover in the CEO ranks in the months and years ahead. Our research indicates they are likely to be proven right," she added.”
Online Marketing and Presence
This year, we were stewards of the budget, maintaining site traffic and steadily growing the audience on priority channels. We have developed frameworks and foundation to restart paid campaigns in the year ahead.
Overview: 1.3 MM sessions on EgonZehnder.com
English
14
Microsites launched (32 pages total)
German
7
Microsites launched (12 pages total)
Overall
138
New pages built on EgonZehnder.com
Legacy Channels
257k
Followers achieved in November
+50k
increase YOY in followers
Elevate
After elevate was shut down in Q2 of 2021, the Marketing team re-launched the Social Sharing Email, giving consultants a new avenue for learning about and sharing firm news.
Growth Channels
4MM+
Reach from paid, an increase in more than 1MM YoY
1.6k
Followers gained
Google SEM
98.6k
Pageviews of PG pages from SEM pilots
6
SEM pilots ran with PG
Social media overview
Our digital strategy amplifies EZ’s brand, message, and voice.
We used data to inform creative strategy and dictate where we invested resource and focused content (LinkedIn and Twitter). We maintained strong engagement and have momentum going into 2022 to focus on audience growth in the year ahead.
Priority Platform
274,255
Total Followers
4,831,823
Total Impressions
3.22%
(61% above benchmark) Avg Engagement Rate
145,570
Total Engagements
Best for Real-Time Engagement
14,103
Total Followers
301,369
Total Impressions
2.89%
(15% above benchmark) Avg Engagement Rate
4,744
Total Engagements
Biggest Growth Opportunity
2,066
Total Followers
26,933
Total Impressions
3.94%
Avg Engagement Rate
1,280
Total Engagements
On the Backburner
2,096
Total Followers
4,423
Total Impressions
1.74%
Avg Engagement Rate
109
Total Engagements
Honoring the Memory of Our Founder
Our LinkedIn followers joined us in honoring the memory and legacy of Dr. Egon Zehnder, sharing with us their condolences, memories, and tributes in the form of comments and shares to our “In memoriam” post.
The post generated 841% above average impressions and drove a 125% spike in traffic to our website.
Top performing posts
We continuously work with our agency to gather insights on what kinds of content and topics get the highest levels of engagement across Egon Zehnder’s social media platforms. On LinkedIn, polls were the highest performing content type in 2021. What follows are our top performing posts of the year:
Our Team
Content | Design | Social & Digital | Internal Communications
Our team underwent some transition in 2021, with a new Global Content Manager (Luisa Zottis) and a new Global Digital Marketing Manager (Becky Neems). We also added new roles—a Global Brand Management Assistant (Dora Tubik), Marketing Assistant (Sebestyén Adorjáni-Kovács), and Team Finance Coordinator (Katalin Domotor). We will be filling additional vacancies in 2022.
Refining our Digital Capabilities with Brandcast
Our top priority is to offer best-in-class content that elevates our Firm’s brand every single time. One of our biggest challenges is to keep pace with the ever-evolving digital trends shaping the digital world. Nowadays, having a website and social platforms is simply not enough—we need a broader realm of capabilities when it comes to creating sleek, engaging, and compelling content that is always on-brand. With that challenge in mind, the marketing team recently adopted Brandcast. This platform empowers our team to create stunning, digital-first, and user-centric content, such as this report you are currently reading (another example of Brandcast is the “From Compliance to Commitment” report below)! In other words, we will be better equipped to display content in a more dynamic and sophisticated way on our website—well beyond the experience of scrolling through a white background page.
From Compliance to Commitment
The Global Marketing Team partnered with the Mining and Metals Practice to create a highly visual, interactive experience for From Compliance to Commitment, a report that helps mining companies equip themselves with some essential principles and mechanisms for embedding sustainability at their core. It will take vision, commitment, and collaboration from leaders to put these concepts into action and define what works best for them. For this project, we used our newly-adopted web tool, Brandcast.
Resources we created:
●
●
Please visit the Global Marketing & Communications Maestro page for information about our work, areas of expertise, team members, Marketing Advisory Committee, FAQ, and more.