Year in Review
2022
Global Marketing & Communications
Introduction
As 2022 comes to a close, we reflect on what has had impact for our Firm. Each individual may have a unique perspective, but perhaps a common thread is our regained sense of connection.
Many of us have met with clients and candidates, hosted gatherings, and even come together as colleagues…in person. This gives us energy and excitement as we look toward the new year and our role helping colleagues connect with more leaders to build relationships and grow our beautiful Firm.
As you read on, we hope you continue to feel inspired to co-create with the Global Marketing Team in the year ahead. Together, we aspire to elevate the Egon Zehnder brand even further and deliver on our purpose of leadership for a better world.
By the Numbers
60+
Insights articles
23
REPORTs
70+
Interviews with leaders for external IP
17,754
LinkedIn reactions from MyCompany
50,300
New LinkedIn followers
These numbers are a reflection of our work to position Egon Zehnder as the world’s preeminent leadership advisory firm and to create demand for our offerings.
Portfolio Architecture
Creating a compelling Portfolio Architecture for Egon Zehnder
Triggered by the work on ONG, the Global Marketing Team saw the opportunity to reframe how we go to market, focusing on how our services address every situation, present or future; expected or unexpected. Together with our LAS, Distinctiveness, and Digital-IT teams, we created a new, more intuitive framework that brings clarity to the breadth of expertise we offer our clients. The rationale of this framework:
1. The portfolio architecture boldly manifests our purpose and narrative.
2. It is easily understandable by our colleagues and allows them to explain and cross-sell our services.
3. It is easily understandable by clients and allows them to find what they are looking for.
4. It ensures consistency and clarity across hierarchical levels, names, services, and tools.
5. It supports future innovations and services.
6. It encapsulates what our Firm offers and is inspired by how colleagues verbally communicate what they do.
This project is currently underway to activate this integrated services portfolio both internally and externally, including the development of updated pitch materials and revising the information architecture of our corporate website.
ONG
Creating a digital brand experience which complements and elevates our Egon Zehnder brand
Together with Digital-IT we initiated a process to establish – for the first time ever – a digital design library for Egon Zehnder. The following objectives had to be achieved:
- Creating a unified digital platform experience for various end users of our future platform
- Extending our brand language to feel more appropriate for ONG but connected to our Masterbrand
- Designing a scalable, future-proof component library beyond the MVP
After a series of workshops and working sessions run by our agency partner MovingBrands, we launched the new Egon Zehnder design library with more than 30 unique components, more than 100 predefined variants, and more than 200 reusable web elements to the ONG team and their partners. Take a look at the introduction here:
Content Highlights
RELEASED IN January
More of Myself
Learn more
After a CEO conference we hosted in Denmark left a big impression on us, we created “More of Myself,” a report compiling the insightful lessons we learnt as well as video testimonials with our former chair Jill Ader, consultant Martin Knudsen, Erica A. Fox, Marshall Goldsmith, and Allan Lindhard Jørgensen, CEO of Dovista A/S.
From publication to date, this publication received more than 1,916 pageviews.
RELEASED IN FEBRUARY
Sustainability Survey
Learn more
In February, after surveying over 300 executives and conducting interviews with selected chairs, CEOs, Chief Sustainability Officers and investors in 53 countries across multiple industries, we published “Creating a Sustainable World: Are Leaders Doing Enough?,” exploring the role that boards, CEOs and senior leadership can play in delivering a sustainable agenda that accelerates progress. The publication features a web native narrative, a report PDF, and 14 video interview interviews with global leaders.
From publication to date, this study received more than 664,500 pageviews.
Video interview highlights include Rich Lesser (global chair of BCG), Michael Kobori (CSO of Starbucks), Noel Kinder (CSO of Nike)
RELEASED IN February
LEGO Interview
Learn more
In February, as one of the first in-person opportunities after lockdown, consultants Elaine Yew and Morten Tveit sat down with Niels Christiansen and Loren Shuster, CEO and Chief People Officer of the LEGO Group about leadership. The marketing team managed the production and creative process, resulting in a report with the written interview, video highlights and photography produced in-house. This conversation offers a rare glimpse of the inner dynamics of a high-performing top-team—and shows that it takes a lot of “small pieces” to get there.
From publication to date, this article received more than 4,594 pageviews.
RELEASED IN JUNE
Pride Month 2022
Learn more
Together, our Egon Zehnder community is shaping a better world where every individual can proudly be their true self. We embodied that sentiment by co-creating external and internal content with our consultants to celebrate Pride Month this past June.
External
We created “Celebrating Pride,” a report featuring client-facing multimedia, written, and social media content. Highlights include:
- Video interviews: Consultant Charlie Beasley sat down with London Stock Exchange CEO Julia Hoggett and Director of SparkLive Pippa Dale to discuss how coming out has impacted their careers, how LGBTQ+ leaders can become powerful role models, and how organizations should approach DEI.
- OutQuorum Insights: Consultants Jill Ader, Lisa Blais, Charlie Beasley, and Satyajeet Thakur participated in the OutQuorum Summit, hosted by Out Leadership with support from Egon Zehnder. We extracted the main highlights and takeaways in a series of short videos published to the report.
- Written IP: We supported consultant Charlie Beasley in the publication of “Embracing Your Voice as an LGBTQ+ Leader,” in which he reflects about the power of fully embracing his identity. This article (published both to the website and on Charlie’s LinkedIn) went viral on LinkedIn, generating over 585 reactions and dozens of comments to Charlie’s post.
Internal
Internally, the Global Marketing Team partnered with Mark Stuart-Smith and KCI Creative Solutions colleagues to compile and create a video series where colleagues talk about why celebrating pride matters to them and to our community.
RELEASED IN June
CEO Succession in CPI
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In June, we collaborated with the Chemicals and Process Industries PG on a study analyzing data for 150 companies with at least € 1 billion in revenue over a 10-year period to find out how CEO succession is evolving in the industry across Europe. This joint effort resulted on a report and report PDF highlighting the findings and answering frequently asked CEO succession questions on internal versus external hiring, sitting versus step-up CEOs, tenure and diversity of these leaders.
RELEASED IN July
Tignum Interview
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What roles do our energy balance and our bodies play when it comes to leadership at the highest level? To unpack the answer to that question, we hosted Tignum CEO Jogi Rippel and Chief Performance Officer Scott Peltin for a video conversation on the topic alongside consultant Clemens Fahrbach.
From publication to date, this study received more than 950 pageviews.
RELEASED IN September
Generational Study
Learn more
In September, we released the study “Different Generations, Same Ideals: What Workers of All Ages Value in their Jobs.” The findings, based on a survey with more than 8,000 respondents worldwide, debunks the myth that there is a generational divide in the workplace among Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers—revealing important insights for leaders navigating complex challenges in a multi-generational workforce. This publication, in partnership with Kearney, features a native website and report PDF. It also featured in Newsweek, Worklife, among other news outlets.
From publication to date, this study received more than 15,710 pageviews.
RELEASED IN OCTOBER
Stewards of Sustainability
Learn more
Further diving into ESG in the boardroom, Egon Zehnder released “Boards: Stepping Up as Stewards of Sustainability” in October in collaboration with The Sustainability Board Report. This report sheds light on how directors can advance ESG commitments to create real, scalable impact, outlining four recommendations to help directors step up as Stewards of Sustainability. These include moving ESG to the core of board activities; embracing ESG board education and self-reflection; ensuring diversity of age and gender to challenge mindsets; and shaking up culture and board dynamics. This publication features a full website and PDF report with interviews with several of our consultants.
From publication to date, this study received more than 1,650 pageviews.
RELEASED IN November
Directors Development Program
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Egon Zehnder, Harvard Business Publishing, and the Banks Board Bureau established the Director Development Program (DDP), a nine-month course for public banking sector corporate directors in India, with online and in-person sessions. To share the insights from this program, the Global Marketing Team created a compilation book with summaries from every session and a website that will be shared with these top public bank board directors in November.
RELEASED IN October
TikTok Culture Duets
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When you think of Egon Zehnder and TikTok, there are probably no two brands that could be further apart. But in Dubai, where the youngest workforce in the world lives, the story is different. Our local consultants hosted CEOs and Gen Zers for an inspiring dialogue. We also shot a 30-second promotional video that TikTok “liked” on our social channels.
From publication to date, this report received more than 2,185 pageviews.
RELEASED IN NOVEMBER
Global Board Diversity Tracker
Learn more
Released in November, the 2022/23 Global Board Diversity Tracker shows progress in representation on boards globally and highlights the need to heighten inclusion as a next step. This biennial signature board diversity study is the Firm’s #1 driver of media coverage since its creation in 2004. This edition includes data from 1,776 companies across 44 countries and additional sources, a web native narrative and report PDF, 13 video interviews with global CEOs, directors, and chairs on representation and inclusion, four regional spotlights (Germany, India, Japan, and Latin America), tools for board chairs, and more. This report was also featured in several prominent news outlets, including Fortune, Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance.
Within a week of its release, the Tracker homepage and its different tabs had more than 1,430 pageviews.
Video interview highlights include Robin Washington (Board member, Alphabet Inc., Salesforce Inc., and Honeywell International Inc.), Maria Loreto Silva (Independent Director, Barrick Gold), Anand Mahindra (chair of Mahindra Group)
Website
The website is our front door. Clients, candidates and others who already know us, visit the site to stay up-to-date with our activities, consume our content, and learn more. And it's often the first source for people who are meeting us for the first time to get a glimpse of who we are. That’s why we continuously work to improve our website.
We think about several components in every decision we make regarding our website: navigation, site speed, SEO, content, imagery, and branding, all with the goal of an optimal user experience and a compelling, engaging digital story on egonzehnder.com for all who visit the site.
At a Glance
3MM
visits to egonzehnder.com in 2022 (+7% from 2021)
23
reports created (+9 since 2021)
Visitors came from:
Google Ads
53%
Organic Search
24%
Direct
30%
3%
Other
7%
Devices used include:
Mobile
70%
Desktop
29%
Tablet
1%
Social Media
In 2022, we significantly increased our visibility on LinkedIn and amassed 50,300 new followers on the platform—with a total of over 330,000 followers and counting. We also made important strides on engagement, employee advocacy, and consultant trainings.
Thanks to the commitment of our own team engaging and sharing firm content, we have the highest percentage of our following seeing our posts among the competitive set, 87% more than the next competitor, Korn Ferry.
Engagement growth
331,000+
LinkedIn followers (+50,300 from 2021)
37,781
reactions (+52.5% from 2021)
668
comments (+138.6%)
1,803
reposts (+215.2%)
3,304,874
organic impressions
The Power of Our People
We are tapping into our collective power to advance the Firm’s brand. Employee advocacy highlights include:
- We hosted 41 Proactive LinkedIn Profile Trainings—both with individual consultants and group sessions including colleagues across all roles. We are now expanding this offering to train offices and practice groups.
- The 184 LinkedIn MyCompany templates we created this year were shared 1,313 times by our colleagues and generated 17,754 reactions. These posts were seen by people who work at McKinsey & Company, EY, Deloitte, Amazon, BCG, Google, Accenture, and HSBC, among many, many others.
Game on for Culture
Game on for Culture is a new report highlighting our new offering focused on the gaming industry. The page was designed in a completely new way using gaming elements and interactive graphics. This body of work aims to position us for gaming clients not only with search, but also with broader LAS topics.
We also reinvented the concept of pitch decks for this project to communicate our insights to potential clients in a more compelling way, considering how dynamic the gaming and digital sector is. For the first time, pitching happens through a password-protected website that conveys the holistic CD character of our brand and is designed interactively at the same time.
In addition, we link to current thought leadership pieces and can flexibly and directly adapt the content on demand, without clients having to actively send new material (contact persons, insights, etc.). This is also a new opportunity, especially in the field of gaming, to link the topics of culture and leadership advisory with our “pure” search offering.
Media Coverage Highlights
This year, the Firm earned significant visibility in top-tier media publications around the world. Our PR efforts generated roughly 1.5B impressions globally (sum of total unique monthly visitors to each article). This coverage is a mix of proactive pitching, ongoing media engagement by our team, and the strong relationships some consultants have built with individual journalists.
Click on each theme below to see a sample of media coverage by topic.
New Chair
C-Suite Leadership Coverage
GBDT
Generational Survey
Sustainability
CEO Survey
CFOs May Have the Toughest Job in the C-Suite
“The job just keeps getting harder,” says James Stark, a consultant at executive search firm Egon Zehnder’s CFO practice. “The role of the chief operating officer has been disappearing in recent years, so we’re seeing a lot of the responsibilities getting tacked onto the CFO’s job.”
Read More →
The CIO Brief Gets Bigger—This Time to Focus on Customers
“A lot of CIOs are being pushed to broaden their remit,” said Chuck Gray, partner and head of the U.S. technology officers practice at management-advisory firm Egon Zehnder. “It may have started in consumer-facing industries, but you can now see the trend everywhere.”
Read More →
Demand Soars for CIOs for Hire
“The pandemic supercharged the market as companies raced ahead with plans to digitize more business processes, driving demand for skilled tech strategists. Also contributing to the market was a surge of job movement among IT leaders, according to Sven Petersen, partner and global head of the Technology Officer Practice Group at leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder.”
Read More →
The rise of the revenue-generating CIO
“The expectation for CIOs to contribute in delivering business revenue has been building over recent years, according to multiple sources, who note that retail CIOs paved the path, creating omnichannel experiences and tech-enabled features such as virtual try-on type capabilities, as did CIOs at companies whose business models were built completely on IT.“ IT was largely doing that work, and that’s clearly aligned with generating revenue,” says Karena Man, a technology consultant who leads the data practice and the West Coast Tech Officers practice at management consulting firm Egon Zehnder.”
Read More →
Succession planning: heirs seek a course for personal development; see how it works
“The challenges facing family businesses are huge all over the world, points out Luis Giolo, responsible for the Practice of Boards and Succession of CEOs at Egon Zehnder in Brazil. He has been helping family businesses in this process. “Unlike corporations, which focus primarily on increasing shareholder value, family businesses typically act on behalf of stakeholders with multiple and potentially conflicting interests,” he says.”
Read More →
At the top of Europe's banks, it's still a man's world
“Some of the industry figures interviewed cited the predominant focus on board diversity as one reason for the lack of progress in the C-Suite. "With that push for more women at the board level, I think there was an opportunity for women," said Simone Stebler, head of executive search firm Egon Zehnder's financial services and legal practices in Switzerland.”
Read More →
Corporate boards seeing increases in women and minorities: Analyst
Cynthia Soledad: “I think the exciting thing about the progress that we're seeing-- what you named is at the board level, there's been incredible progress in diversity of representation. So we are seeing increases in representation of women. We are seeing increases in underrepresented ethnic and racial minorities. So we know that boards are engaged in this topic. And our hope would be that because boards are engaged in this topic, that the DEI agenda at the corporate level continues to be a key priority.”
Read More →
Gender and ethnic diversity on boards improving globally, report finds
““We continue to see positive progress in diversifying boards, but we must recognize the hard work has only just begun and an increased focus on inclusion will ultimately drive meaningful progress,” Egon Zehnder spokesperson Pam Warren said.”
Read More →
Brazilian women occupy 18.2% of board seats
"Brazil is progressing at a similar speed as other markets," Luis Giolo says. "The progress signals that diversity initiatives are not only limited to lower positions, but that companies recognize the need to change who is in charge of decision making.”
Read More →
Global Board Diversity Tracker
Egon Zehnder published its comprehensive Global Board Diversity Tracker. The authors spotlight the marginal progress made in Germany, India, Japan, and Latin America but urge boards to prioritize inclusion.
Read More →
Directors overboard: How many seats is too many?
"The responsibility of boards is enormous. So thinking about how much capacity can one take on and satisfy all of those requirements on the individual boards is important,” says Cynthia Soledad, co-leader of the diversity and inclusion practice with Egon Zehnder.
Read More →
Millennials Most Confident Generation When Facing Challenges at Work
"Millennials are a key generation to examine, with many of them moving into leadership positions. It is this generation that will drive the next wave of change within organizations," Egon Zehnder consultant Karena Man told Newsweek.”
Read More →
Why Gen Xers are struggling with remote work
““Even though our generation is seen as iconoclasts, we joined fairly traditional workforces,” said Gen Xer Karena Man, a consultant leading the data practice at Egon Zehnder and contributor to the study Different Generations, Same Ideals: What Workers of All Ages Value in their Jobs. “Our formative years were shaped by those seminal experiences of us adapting to corporate norms.””
Read More →
Chief sustainability officers prosper as ESG risks mount
“While the ability to manage climate risks and to navigate an ever tougher regulatory landscape is vital, so too is expertise at handling corporate matters at the highest level. Rachael De Renzy Channer, who leads the sustainability practice at executive search firm Egon Zehnder, says “the requirement for deep climate expertise” is less important than it used to be. “It is actually the ability to operate at the C-suite [level], to have those conversations with the CFO [chief financial officer] about reporting,” she says.”
Read More →
How can you tell a company is serious about its sustainability goals?
“Sustainability cannot be a one-person show, although a recent global study conducted by Egon Zehnder found that is the case in nearly seven out of 10 companies. While the CSO (Chief Sustainability Officer) may lead the sustainability journey within the organization, responsibility must be shared across the executive team and integrated in each executive domain.”
Read More →
A Day in the Life of a CSO
Rachel De Renzy Channer: “The board and the CEO must be aligned to advance the sustainability agenda and set the tone from the top. When they embrace sustainability, this mindset quickly ripples throughout the organization. This means they will empower the CSO with the tools and resources to advance the agenda, signaling that sustainability will be incorporated into strategic thinking, decision-making, and the business model.”
Read More →
The CEO's Role Is Changing. What It Takes To Get The Top Job Now
“What many CEOs increasingly realize is that the change has to start from within. Dick Patton, who co-leads the global CEO practice for recruitment firm Egon Zehnder, detected a mood of deep reflection among the 972 global CEOs they surveyed in a study last year. Nearly 80% of CEO participants said they needed to transform themselves as well as their organizations, and be more adaptive and self-aware.”
Read More →
Why we’re actually witnessing ‘The Great Aspiration’
“What’s happened during the pandemic is that people have been thrown off their pre-pandemic growth curves, and are wanting a new, reset growth stage. Recent research by Egon Zehnder shows that 80% of CEOs strongly agree that they need to transform ‘themselves’ as well as their organisations – up from just 26% pre-pandemic.”
Read More →
Internal Marketing Activities
Marketing Toolbox
Many colleagues may have marketing-related questions from time to time. To empower them with the answers they need, we created the Marketing Toolbox (username + password: toolbox2022), a go-to resource for all things marketing. Of course, you can still contact us directly or find everything else regarding Marketing and Communications on Maestro.
The Thread newsletter goes to every Egon Zehnder employee with an overview of our Firm’s external-facing marketing initiatives (projects, thought leadership, campaigns) and a glimpse of our expertise within the Firm on who is doing what, current and future projects, and how we can collaborate.
Marketing Champions Communication
Our 18 Global Marketing Champions are consultants from across the globe who serve as our touchpoints on every major initiative. In 2022, we strengthened our engagement with this group with kick-off calls and a Teams channel for more direct communications about our campaigns. In the new year, we hope to expand this group of allies and offer regular global calls for exchange as well as more tailored support for our Firm’s various markets.
Institutional
The 19th Global Egon Zehnder Firm Conference
The Berlin Firm Conference was the first in-person meeting of all consultants after the pandemic hit following the 100th Partners Meeting in Geneva – which was held in conjunction with the Future Partners Meeting in Montreux in early 2020. It was a time to reconnect and hear from colleagues and experts on their leadership insights. The Global Marketing Team was actively involved on both the branding creation and as part of the organizing committee of the event (developing the program and on-ground support). For the first time, we also initiated a live broadcast of the Firm Conference Day to colleagues globally as well as offered Wellbeing and Apprenticeship sessions to all non-consultants during the week.
Chair election:
As part of the Firm Conference, our team leaders supported the communications preparation for the chair candidates and also developed the communication plan to announce the result. It involved speech writing, media training, announcement strategies, and overall supporting them in how to effectively convey their message to the partners.