PRWeek TV: In-house comms, marketing and IT 'will have overarching leaders'

This week’s PRWeek podcast sees Michael Thorne, director of business analysts Pearlfinders, and Gavin Ellwood, director of Ellwood & Atfield, discuss new research suggesting that senior in-house PR professionals are increasingly taking on wider remits. This follows a PRWeek news analysis on the subject.

Thorne told PRWeek that he expected to see a growing trend towards senior roles that would have oversight of not only marketing and comms but also IT, as technological advances such as apps continue to be used for outreach purposes.

He said: ‘There’s a role for someone who can act as an overarching messaging guide on how these three departments can work together.’

Ellwood added that he was seeing a growing movement towards PR people grabbing marketing responsibilities as part of their roles. He said that he was seeing this particularly in consumer-facing higher profile organisations.