Golin’s semiannual study finds that Fortune 250 CEOs retreated in the first half of 2025 amid regulatory uncertainty and mounting geopolitical risks, suggesting an intentional recalibration of communication strategies
CHICAGO (October 30, 2025) – The fourth edition of Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG) agency Golin’s CEO Impact Index has revealed major industry recalibrations and a “Great Rethink” of CEO communications. Fortune 250 CEOs dramatically scaled back public engagement in the first half of 2025, signaling a critical rethink of strategic priorities, leadership expectations, workforce implications and overall public presence.
The CEO Impact Index, a proprietary study that analyzes and ranks public engagement performance of the Fortune 500’s top 250 CEOs across eight quantifiable dimensions of executive visibility, documented a striking “cone of retreat” pattern in H1 2025: CEO earned media exposure plummeted 30% with a loss of over 1 trillion impressions, with 50% of total CEO media coverage occurring in just two volatile months – January and April.
CEO Impact Index Deck Graph Cone Of Retreat
This readjustment coincided with the arrival of President Trump’s second administration, which had a “profound and universal cooling effect” on CEO public presence, according to the study.
Data also highlights a rise of CEO focus on agentic AI adoption in this period. The study shows that the highest-ranked CEOs paired their narrative on AI investments with emphasis on workforce training, career support, and human-AI collaboration models, while lower-ranked CEOs announced reactive layoffs without deliberate transformation plans.
“The first half of 2025 proved to be a real testing ground for CEO communications,” said Brian Besanceney, Senior Advisor, Golin and former communications executive at Boeing, Walmart and the White House. “The data show a rapid and intentional shift in CEO behavior with leaders pulling back from public engagement at the same time as policy complexity and technological transformation intensify. The CEO role is increasingly a high-wire act that requires a new level of strategic thinking and precision, because less communication is not necessarily more effective for business results right now.”
Despite overall retreat, CEOs demonstrated remarkable intention, especially in more controlled forums. Event-related engagement surged 23%, while LinkedIn posts increased by an average of two per CEO in the 6-month period.
“With over 32,000 data points analyzed across multiple channels and platforms, the data show us not just what CEOs are saying and doing, but exactly when behavioral patterns shifted and which specific engagement strategies correlate with higher overall ranking,” said Jonny Bentwood, Global President, Data & Analytics, Golin.
Implications for Corporate Affairs
With the dramatic shifts documented in H1 2025, the role of corporate affairs has become more vital than ever for navigating today’s complex leadership landscape.
“Corporate Affairs is experiencing its most pivotal moment in decades,” said Sarah Vellozzi, U.S. Corporate Affairs Managing Director, Golin. “The role has evolved from managing communications to orchestrating strategic responses across political landscapes and workforce transformations. Corporate Affairs practitioners are operating in a new era of risk where always-on, cross-enterprise collaboration is more important than ever before.”
Based on the findings, Golin recommends five critical actions for CEOs and their Corporate Affairs teams:
- Engage with Awareness & Caution: Evaluate all public, private and shared mechanisms for policy engagement with heightened risk analysis and mitigation strategies.
- Keep Policy at the Center: Conduct ongoing monitoring of the government/policy landscape and ensure that both government affairs and corporate affairs teams are highly involved in strategic decision making.
- Emphasize AI-Human Collaboration: Pair AI vision with employee training, transparent communication, and investments in workforce transformation.
- Show Vision + Impact from Day One: Develop accelerated external engagement platforms and rapid-deployment communication frameworks for new/incoming CEOs.
- Intention Over Ubiquity: Prioritize platform control, message authenticity, and quality interactions over vanity metrics.
About the CEO Impact Index
The CEO Impact Index analyzes the top 250 companies of the 2025 Fortune 500, evaluating each CEO across eight quantifiable visibility criteria: earned media coverage, LinkedIn presence, business awards & rankings, employee engagement, events, trade media engagement, megatrends, and sentiment. These scores are combined through a proprietary weighting system to determine overall rankings.
About Golin
Golin is a global public relations agency that creates change that matters through work that moves culture and drives business impact. With 1,700 professionals across 50+ offices worldwide, collaboration is our superpower, bringing together varied skills and experiences to deliver breakthrough solutions. Committed to becoming the first fully AI-integrated global PR agency by 2026, we pair human creativity with innovative technology and go all in on every opportunity. Our agency has achieved unprecedented recognition as Global Agency of the Year from Campaign, PRWeek, and PRovoke Media (2024-2025), while our creative excellence has earned historic Cannes Lions recognition including double Grand Prix and multiple Gold & Silver wins. This record-breaking success across agency work, client campaigns, and workplace culture — including consecutive Best Agency to Work For honors — has established Golin as the most awarded agency in our history.