New CEO Steps Into the PRSA Gaslight

The long-embattled Public Relations Society of America, Inc. (PRSA) announced today a new CEO, Ms. Linda Thomas Brooks.

See the full news release here:

I wish Ms. Thomas Brooks well and want PRSA to be successful.

It can't escape notice, however, that no mention was made in today's release, yet again, of PRSA’s need for a financial turn-around and an equivalent return to strong transparency / accountability to members -- qualities that have gone sight-unseen in the national organizational culture for years now.

Ms. Thomas Brooks deserves every opportunity to get her bearings within the PRSA structure and to glean a realistic understanding of PRSA’s some $2 million in losses over 2019-20.

She deserves the opportunity to present a responsive vision for leading her staff’s execution of a 2020-22 Strategic Plan that (hopefully) was properly recalibrated by the Board in 2020 to account for the pandemic realities, in order to ensure PRSA’s survival.

And, Ms. Thomas Brooks deserves an initial three months to earn the initial trust and support of PRSA’s membership, who have been roundly disserved, discounted and dismissed in recent years amid a culture of PRSA National leadership silence, stonewalling and status-quo complicity.

Sadly, it’s a very unfavorable organizational scenario for any CEO to walk into, and I am concerned for her plight in that respect …

But only to a limit:

• I hope Ms. Thomas Brooks did her own, independent homework on this organization, before she accepted the position and a contract that likely will be compensating her upwards of half-a-million dollars in member funds annually (unless PRSA’s CEO Search Committee opted to offer a lesser compensation package to Ms. Thomas Brooks than her male predecessor … which is not without precedent on PRSA executive staff).
• I hope Ms. Thomas Brooks demanded to see, was given and thoroughly examined all PRSA AND PRSA Foundation financial books and records in Phil Bonaventura’s tight possession. In fact, I hope she asked for all PRSA, Inc. / PRSA Foundation annual audits of the past five years and went to whatever expense was necessary to have them independently verified by her own financial team, before accepting the position.
• I hope Mr. Thomas Brooks knew what questions to ask about said books/records, asked them, and received satisfactory answers (because believe me, we members are still largely in the dark and twisting in the wind, awaiting answers to *our* questions).
• I hope Ms. Thomas Brooks realizes that the PRSA organization is currently on a clear, precipitous, downward trajectory, originating well-pre-COVID, which places her at an automatic disadvantage as the first female CEO of PRSA in some 15 years.
• I hope Ms. Thomas Brooks understands the critical responsibility of PRSA to its student organization, PRSSA, and that PRSA has lost nearly HALF of those student members in only six years -- mostly pre-pandemic.
• I hope Ms. Thomas Brooks received proper background on PRSA’s long cultural / ethics issues, including bylaw / legal violations and documented actions / behaviors that may yet have legal implications and liability issues.
• I hope Ms. Thomas Brooks understands PRSA's historical penchant for all-talk, no-action, particularly on important issues like Diversity. For example, the organization's perceived tendency to use members who are women and professionals of color as human shields to deflect criticisms -- rather than to engage Diversity in authentic ways organically and holistically across PRSA leadership and programming -- has spurred member cynicism that is deserved.

I hope a lot of things.

But hope is not a strategy, and only Ms. Thomas Brooks can execute at this point to the needs of this organization.

Among the gaslighting in PRSA’s announcement news release:

1. Per Chair Michelle Olson: “The search for PRSA’s next CEO was a very deliberative process…”

FACTS: This “search” took two years, spanned four National Chairs’ involvement (D’Angelo through Olson) and two “Search Committees,” required two separate highly compensated executive search firms costing upwards of a quarter-million dollars in member funds, and incurred spinning / obfuscation by leadership that deeply damaged member relations and trust. That’s more than just “deliberative.”

2. Per Chair Olson: “…through this next era of growth.”

FACT: “Next era”? At what time over the past two decades has PRSA been in ANY discernible “era of growth”? At present, membership is less than what existed prior to the Great Recession. Is PRSA's message here that due to losses, membership has nowhere to go but up?

3. Per Ms. Thomas Brooks: “I'm very focused on media literacy and the impacts of mis/dis information…”

FACT: PRSA National has purveyed more mis/disinformation than any PR organization should be allowed to and still stay in business. Her #1 goal needs to be righting that ship internal to PRSA, above all else. Godspeed to Ms. Thomas Brooks on that account, since a vast majority of it has originated from the Board ranks to whom she will now report.

4. Per 2020 Chair Garland Stansell: “… our nearly 30,000 professional and student members…”

FACTS (per PRSA’S 2020 “Year in Review” Document): PRSA members = 19,572; Student members = 6,670; TOTAL = 26,242 

5. Per 2020 Chair Garland Stansell: “I could not have imagined anyone else working alongside me (Phil Bonaventura) in my year as Chair of PRSA.”

FACT: Sounds about right.

Again, best wishes to Ms. Thomas Brooks.

But I’m still here. 

Mary Beth West, APR, Fellow PRSA served on PRSA's National Board 20 years ago and has advocated vocally for ethical accountability and legal compliance in PRSA, out of necessity. Twitter: @marybethwest