Executive Evangelism: A Theory of Modern Communications
The basic insight behind executive evangelism, the founder- or CEO-led approach to communications, is that company leaders can and should take advantage of modern communications channels to speak directly to their audiences. Instead of relying on third-party gatekeepers (journalists, event organizers), a CEO should use social, email, and audio to distribute their message. This comes with some obvious benefits:
1) Say whatever you want at a cadence of your choosing. Avoid the censorship of gatekeepers.
2) Build a direct relationship with your audience: customers, investors, talent, and partners. People like to hear and buy from other people. In this case, they can feel like they have a direct connection with the CEO.
3) Meet the customer (or talent or investor) where they are. People spend a lot more time on LinkedIn, Instagram, and X than they do reading the trade press. So, follow the first rule of marketing distribution, and be where your customer spends their time.
But the case for executive evangelism goes beyond the practicalities of marketing. Executive evangelism is merely the logical response to the dominant paradigm of modern media, which is the shift from institutions to individuals. Understanding that shift is critical for any CEO, salesperson, marketer, or businessperson who’d like to maximize adoption of their product.
Trust is shifting from institutions to individuals
The most important dynamic in contemporary media is the shift from institutions to individuals. This is by no means limited to the B2B sector of the tech industry; on the contrary, we may be the last to have found out about it. The decline of institutions and the rise of individuals is unfolding across every power center in the media ecosystem.
Hollywood has never been weaker. Studios are folding and consolidating. The movie star, forged by the studio system and raised aloft by the press, is becoming a relic of the twentieth century. CBS and Fox are for old people. In the wake of these cultural products are direct-to-consumer phenomena created by individuals on social media platforms. Kim Kardashian was mocked for being famous for being famous. Now, that is the norm as influencers with direct relationships with tens or hundreds of millions of followers supplant institutional celebrities.
The press has been hollowed out. Newspapers across the country have been shuttered or gutted; they will not return. Media conglomerates, too, are consolidating. Even the Washington Post, the second largest and most influential newspaper in the country, is shedding huge swaths of its coverage and staff; billionaire ownership couldn't save it. Trust in mass media (newspapers, TV, and radio) continues to fall — 28% last year, down from 40% five years ago. And as in the case of Instagram influencers and TikTokers becoming the new celebrities, individuals are replacing these institutions. Podcasters, just individuals with microphones and a direct connection to their audience, are widely perceived as having swayed the last presidential election. It is Ezra Klein, not the New York Times, with which younger consumers have strong brand affinity.
In politics, the dominant figure of the last decade is a reality TV star: a showman who, for better or worse, is a master marketer apt at fostering a cult of personality and developing direct connections with millions of consumers. Policy is now shared via TruthSocial. Does anyone take the White House press secretary seriously? Why would you? We now expect to hear policy directly from the president. Meanwhile, while individuals such as Trump, AOC, Mamdani, and Bernie Sanders have never had such direct, powerful connections with the electorate, faith in the institutions of government is at an all-time low.
And then there’s business. The Super Bowl was last week. The ads were widely panned. No wonder. A 30-second ad created by a faceless ad agency laboring on behalf of a faceless corporate marketing department is not the way to build a brand in this landscape. The great brands of the present and future will be forged in the likeness of their founders: evangelists, men and women whose aura speaks through their company’s products and marketing and who win raving fans on that basis. Steve Jobs’ second focal point after product was said to be marketing. It is no accident that Elon Musk is the same. Buying X was not a lark; it is a reflection of his long-term investment in communications and his conviction that direct-to-consumer channels are the defining modality of contemporary media.
Direct communication is replacing institutional mediation
Critics of the contemporary state of affairs lament the loss of institutional trust and argue the world was better the way it used to be. In many ways, they’re right; I’d certainly prefer a media environment that didn’t beget the return of measles. But where I depart from the critics is the notion that we have the media we do today because corporate interests have made it so. No, not primarily. The truth is we have the media that people want.
The contemporary state of media — one of individuals over institutions, the era of the executive evangelist — has not been foisted upon us. The most important variable in the shift from institutions to individuals is that consumers simply like it better. People vote with their time. And they have repeatedly chosen the current state of things: social media over the news media, YouTube over Hollywood productions, showmen over statesmen, influencers over movie stars.
There is no putting the genie back in the bottle because consumers do not want to send the genie back.
For marketers and communications professionals, whose job is to navigate the media landscape to grow the reputation of their companies, the task is clear: Respond to the defining shift from institutions to individuals by capitalizing on direct-to-consumer channels and elevating the individual. Do not retreat to the false safety of faceless corporate marketing. Elevate the CEO, who is best positioned to speak for the company as a whole, and build the brand of the company through their voice, trust, and connections with stakeholders.
This is the way of modern communications: executive evangelism.
B2B is arriving late to the party
If anything, business has generally lagged media and politics in its embrace of this era of individualism. Corporations are conservative; any business operating at scale is largely run by bureaucrats, and so it takes CEOs, usually founder/CEOs, of great conviction to break out of the mold of humdrum corporate marketing and build a brand predicated on personality, provocative views, and personal experience.
This is even truer of B2B. When you think of B2B marketing, you likely still think of dull press releases, voiceless social posts, and jargon-riddled websites. B2B tech companies in particular generally lack anything redolent of what the kids might call ‘aura.’ But because this remains the norm — because B2B tech companies need to be pulled kicking and screaming into the era of the executive evangelist — does not make it the optimal approach.
B2B tech is not immune from the dynamics of modern media. Far from it. And it is only by responding to that state, by elevating the CEO to cut through the noise and leveraging communications channels to forge direct relationships with customers, talent, investors, and other stakeholders, that a B2B tech company can achieve its communications potential. If you are not running the executive evangelism playbook, you will lose the war for attention to a competitor founder/CEO who is.
It has often been said that marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department. That’s true. But it’s never been truer than in the modern era of media and communications. Nowadays, marketing isn’t just important enough to be the remit of the CEO; the CEO is the only person who can spearhead communications to shape the perception and maximize the awareness of a company.
In 2026, the CEO is the chief evangelist. It’s the job of communications to elevate that individual — and to bring the institution along with them.
