Richard Edelman on trust, ‘Succession,’ and how to advise a CEO

When you’re advising a CEO in a moment of crisis, says Richard Edelman, it’s better to play general practitioner than surgeon.

“Surgeons are always so damn assertive. ‘You need to do that knee operation right now or you’re going to be lame.’ What a GP does is kind of hug you first and say, ‘Gee, too many football games?’” he explains, in a conversation with Semafor and Penny Pritzker, the PSP Partners founder, former US Commerce secretary and fellow Chicagoan.

“You have to watch the room and you have to wait for your moment and you also need to give options. You need to say, ‘Here’s the context, you have these choices, this is the one I would advise.’”

Edelman’s bedside manner has made him one of the most influential advisers for other CEOs who are going through career-threatening moments — or trying to forestall them. He employs an army of other advisers, but when an important client has a particularly hard problem, “I go because my name’s on the door.”

The eponymous public relations firm his father founded in 1952 has ridden — and shaped — the growth of its industry to become the world’s largest communications group, with annual revenues of almost $1 billion. And the Edelman Trust Barometer, which its CEO launched more than 25 years ago, has become one of the global C-suite’s most cited surveys, even as critics question whether a shaper of corporate narratives can be an impartial arbiter of trust.

Weighing words while doing the work

Edelman’s barometer has been telling executives for years that business is seen as more competent and ethical than governments, NGOs, or the media. Even so, its latest report, out today, finds that CEOs face a growing credibility problem, with an 11-point rise since 2021 in the share of people who worry that business leaders knowingly mislead the public.

Edelman has often counseled his clients to show leadership on issues such as climate policy, racial equity, or voting rights. But many CEOs have been stung by a backlash to “woke capitalism” over the past five years, and he now advises them to do so less vocally.

“I think you have a very activist government in the US at the moment and there’s political risk in being a loud voice,” Edelman says.

“CEOs need to weigh their words,” he adds, but “I’m telling companies to continue to do the work on diversity and also on sustainability.” You might talk about opportunity rather than diversity, or rethink the wording on your website, “but the reality of the work should carry on because you’ve got employees [and] customers who care about this.”

What builds trust, he believes, is action, consistent communication, and visibility. “If you have had a problem, acknowledge it, explain it, then do something,” he says, “and the public will be behind you because in the end, they want to have a company that is their partner in life that’s competent and ethical.”

Crisis response when you don’t have the facts

In moments of crisis, Edelman says, CEOs need to measure their actions and their words, but quickly. Clients used to have half a day to decide how to respond, he says, but the pressures of social media have shortened that window.

A company’s first statement may just be an effort to buy time for a fuller review, but he advises clients not to wait to have the full picture, because “you never have all the facts.” In common with some others in his profession, he also warns CEOs against letting their general counsel dictate the crisis response.

“I would say, don’t listen to the lawyers. I mean, the lawyers are here to protect you, but they also can paralyze you. And if you have an instinct as a leader that your employees, your customers, [and] your shareholders need to have action, you should do it.”

How a PR man handles headlines about himself

Part of Edelman’s role is to tell clients how they’re seen by the outside world. “If you’re just in a small circle, you don’t necessarily hear the criticism. You should. You should hear the critics,” he says. He speaks from experience. By tying his firm’s brand to the theme of trust, Edelman has invited accusations from its own critics that it is buffing the reputations of oil and gas companies and foreign governments.

“I get protesters at the Cannes ad festival, and I get people interrupting my talks at [New York University’s business school]. And it’s OK. And I say, ‘Do you want to have a debate? I’m happy to discuss with you. If you want to have a circus, I’m just going to sit here. It’s up to you.’”

He was criticized for working with Saudi Arabia’s culture ministry, he notes, but instead of steering away from an account likely to invite the kind of negative headlines he helps clients avoid, Edelman says he thought the work was important for building bridges between Saudi and Western culture.

Similarly, when some of his younger employees expressed anger at the firm’s work for fossil fuel clients, he told them he would not walk away from those contracts. “I’ve made the case to both the climate activists and my own team: I want to work with companies committed to change and committed to improvement,” he says. “I don’t want to work defending that which has been.”

Watching Succession as a cautionary tale

Some of the critiques come from Edelman’s three daughters — Margot, Tory, and Amanda — who all work in the family firm and sit on its board. “When I make decisions, I try to explain to them why I did what I did. And I try to also work directly with them on projects as much as possible,” he says, “so they get to watch. They also get to criticize.”

Margot, in particular, can be “vociferous… which is fine. It’s good. She should speak up. Because I said to her, ‘Good that you can criticize now. The chairs are going to change in about eight or 10 years. I’ll criticize you.’”

The line is delivered jokingly, but Edelman confirms that, at 72, he is thinking of handing over to the next generation around the time he turns 80 — depending on when he determines that his daughters are ready. “I want to give them responsibility as they earn it and also as they’re accepted by the team. And so I don’t want to keep them from their manifest destiny,” he says.

Edelman himself had not planned to join the firm until his father called to say he had received an unwanted takeover offer from DDB, the storied advertising agency, and if his son was working in the business it would be a good reason not to sell.

In the intervening 47 years, Edelman has become acutely aware of the potential dramas awaiting family firms — real and fictional — when one generation prepares to pass the torch to another.

“I watch Succession very, very closely, and I’m not going to set up a circus in the competition among them,” he says. “This is not the Hunger Games. And it doesn’t matter which one is nicer to me as to which one’s going to succeed me.”

A family business adviser has played an essential role, he adds. Such individuals “can be objective in pushing a conversation that you as a parent may not really want to have … [and] taking some of the heat for you.”

Driving ‘second-city’ hustle as the industry’s No. 1

DDB, whose offer for Edelman’s firm was followed by approaches from Publicis, Interpublic, WPP, and others, was folded into TBWA last year in a wave of consolidation that he calls “the year the agencies died”.

2025 was a bad year for many in the communications businesses, and Edelman’s firm saw revenues fall by about 4%, unwinding part of the growth it had enjoyed as clients paid up for advice during the COVID pandemic. Returning to growth is now “what drives me every day,” he says. “I have the bit between my teeth about performance culture and hustle and leading from the front, so it’s a constant exercise in motivation. Because Bill Belichick [the NBA coach] wasn’t satisfied with one championship, nor was [NBA coach] Phil Jackson.”

He runs the largest independent PR group, but he is up against far larger advertising holding companies, and he says he is still driven by an underdog desire to beat “the bigger guys.”

“I’m a kid from Chicago and that’s how I am. I’m like a second-city kid. And I love people underestimating me.”