Crisis communication has always been a top concern for companies everywhere. Staying ahead of the message during times of great stress and uncertainty has always been a desirable skill for elite communicators. Now, with the influence of AI and misinformation, that skill is even more in demand. Join Co-hosts Rob Johnson and Eileen Rochford for this episode of the Can You Hear Me? Podcast, as they welcome corporate CCO Howard Karesh to discuss “Calm Leadership in Crisis.”
Howard Karesh is a global communications leader with more than 30 years of experience helping organizations navigate complexity, from large-scale acquisitions and organizational change to high-stakes issues and employee engagement. He has served as Chief Communications Officer at TreeHouse Foods and previously led global communications for Hillrom through its acquisition by Baxter, partnering closely with CEOs and executive teams to bring clarity, alignment, and steady leadership in fast-moving environments. Earlier in his career, he held senior roles across corporate and agency settings, and has advised organizations through his own consultancy.
Website: canyouhearmepod.podcastpage.io
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Rob Johnson: [00:00:17] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Can You Hear Me podcast. I'm Rob Johnson, president of Rob Johnson Communications. [00:00:24][6.8]
Eileen Rochford: [00:00:25] And I'm Eileen Rochford, CEO of the marketing and strategy firm, The Harbinger Group. Crisis communications has always been at the top of the list for effective and successful communicators. Preparing for the worst, staying ahead of the messaging during a crisis, and being able to process that information seamlessly have always been traits in high demand. Now, throw in the influence of misinformation and AI into this equation, and the job of a chief communications officer becomes even tougher. [00:00:51][25.9]
Rob Johnson: [00:00:51] That is so true and so, you know, it's been a while since we really focused on the crisis element for companies concerned with reputation and the damage that can be inflicted if that reputation isn't adequately protected. However, we have the perfect guest to discuss this issue today. He is Howard Karrasch, a longtime communications leader who was most recently the CCO of Treehouse Foods. Howard, thanks for joining us again on Can You Hear Me? He is a return guest. That's how good he is. Hello, friends. It's an honor to be back. [00:01:19][27.8]
Eileen Rochford: [00:01:19] Ah, ding, ding ding. Second timer. That's the best. We only let certain people come back on our disorder clear. [00:01:28][8.4]
Rob Johnson: [00:01:28] You gotta be really good, but you're right at the top of the list. [00:01:30][2.1]
Eileen Rochford: [00:01:30] Because Howard, we had you on to discuss employee engagement during times of disengagement in episode 23, which aired in May of 2022. [00:01:39][8.9]
Rob Johnson: [00:01:40] Almost four years ago. I know. Right. It took us almost four years to get him back. We're just lucky to be here. And I mean, I talked to him. We're just lucky that he's here. [00:01:45][5.1]
Eileen Rochford: [00:01:45] I mean, I talk to you all the time, so that's embarrassing, but okay, we're making up for it today. So his wisdom was fabulous back then, and that's why we're honored to have you on today, Howard, before, and we were going to dive into the crisis issue. But before we do that, just to refresh people's memories, because it has been four years, why don't you tell our listeners about your background and a little bit of the origin story to give some context. [00:02:09][23.6]
Howard Karesh: [00:02:09] Sure. Well, actually my relationship with Eileen goes back to Golan Harris, known as Golan-Harris at the time in the mid-90s. And I spent about a dozen years in the agency world before embarking on what has been a very fun corporate career across banking and energy and medical technology and most recently food. And over the course of those positions, with larger and larger remits at each one, you see crises from very different angles, but there are many commonalities across. Those industries in terms of how you successfully and effectively manage and deal with a crisis. [00:02:44][35.0]
Rob Johnson: [00:02:45] Just every time you talk and just think about where you spend all of your time looking around corners because that's such a key component of what you have to do to be successful, it's always fascinating for me. So I guess the best way to ask this, to get into our topic today, is without giving up corporate secrets or any intel, what do you worry about? What keeps you up at night? After all, you've led global communications at publicly traded companies and have weathered your share of crises. So what are those things that keep you up in… [00:03:12][27.0]
Howard Karesh: [00:03:13] You know, Rob, you used the phrase, looking around the corner. And that is a very big part of what a senior communicator's job is. It's to see around the corners to be a real business partner. Yes, you have to be good communicator, but it's really a business function with expertise and communication. And what keeps me up are the unanticipated actions and consequences of things that are coming at us and the way we deal with a particular crisis. You could end up in a whack-a-mole situation where you solve one problem and inadvertently create another. So the things that keep me up, in addition to geopolitical shenanigans and the rise of AI and how to be a better practitioner with those elements well in hand, are the things that you can't and do not know. [00:03:55][42.5]
Eileen Rochford: [00:03:55] Yeah, and how do you stay ahead of get get your information so that you're feeling like you have what you need to be able to anticipate? Is there a secret to that? Not really. Fundamentals. [00:04:06][10.2]
Howard Karesh: [00:04:06] It starts with relationship building and you have to have trusting relationships with the other senior leaders in the company, whether they are the executive leadership team or perhaps peers, you know, one level down from there. Without those trusting relationships, you're not going to be able to properly prepare for and anticipate and plan for the crisis that will eventually come. I don't know that. Any company ever gets away scot-free. Something is going to happen, a recall, an employee fatality, a plant shutting down, labor unrest, tariffs, all right? These things are going to happen sometimes more than one at a time. And to the extent that you have strong enough relationships that you can prepare, you know, you're never going to know everything, but prepare as best you can, you stand a much better chance of an effective crisis response. [00:04:54][47.4]
Eileen Rochford: [00:04:55] I love to hear you say that trust is a bedrock. We talk about that a lot on the show. And I think those of us in communication certainly appreciate that if you don't have trust in so many different aspects, your success is going to be hindered for sure. So let's talk about what would you say is the best way to gain and maintain the trust of your fellow executives, especially the CEO and anyone else who's critical to moving fast and making good decisions in a crisis. [00:05:22][27.2]
Howard Karesh: [00:05:23] Aside from being good at your job, consistently good at your job. You have to have the guts to tell the CEO what she may not want to hear. You know, if a communicator is an order taker, put out this press release, draft this statement, that's not a strategic role. But if the role is business counselor who can, again, that phrase to see a little bit around the corner and say, listen, if we make this business decision, these are the potential fallout options from positive to negative, the CEO may choose a route that she or he believes is the right one. And It's our job to do two things. Number one, give our very best advice. And then number two, know that it's not a democracy and at some point the CEO will make the call and you need to make the very best of that decision whether you agree with it or not. The decision in the room is the decision in a room. So once your advice giving is done, then it turns to. Flawless execution, flawless thinking in reverse order, and making the best of what is sure to be a challenging time. [00:06:17][54.7]
Rob Johnson: [00:06:18] I think that's a really important thing you just talked about, Howard, because you were talking about being a business counselor, offering that good counsel to the CEO for him or her, and not being an order taker. Because as we get ready to transition to the part of the conversation where we talk about technology, the order takers, it feels like, are the ones that are easily being placed out of jobs because of technology, and the people that are providing something unique that perhaps not anybody else can do. That's how you're going to maintain your effectiveness and your value to that I believe certainly agree with that So we're getting into tech here a little bit. With the advances that are simply occurring at a dizzying rate, I think we don't agree with that. What do you think the top concerns are that you have for technology relative to doing your job effectively? And how can you attack that challenge knowing that every three to four weeks, AI is improving in multiple ways? [00:07:11][53.0]
Howard Karesh: [00:07:11] So I think about this from a couple of different angles. First of all, there's the, how can I use a tool like ChatGPT generative AI to help me develop content faster, better, cheaper? Now, I am of the strong view that these tools should augment the brain, the human brain, not the other way around. Um, but no, so number one, we have to try them. We have to try the different tools, Claude and whatever they are, and figure out how to use them the best. So that's one piece, how to use the basic tools for the basic everyday stuff. But then there's a higher order of thinking around AI, which is not just about generating content, but about getting work done. Think about agentic AI and you're seeing online, people have built engines, you know, on on an AI platform that allow them to do A, B, and C, basically for them, while they babysit those features. There was a piece in the Wall Street Journal that we're recording this mid-March 2026. There was piece in The Journal within the last week that discussed this very phenomenon. So I think as senior communicators, there are two things we need to get a handle on. Number one is, how do we use it an hour every day to make things better and not worse? And then B, how did we get a hand on what is AI doing for business more broadly and really understand the power and the challenge of these tools? Personally. I'm playing with the different various different platforms and just trying to figure them out. And the other thing is I'm learning. I am on Coursera, for example, and there is a lot of wonderful detailed content that is helping me get a little bit smarter, hopefully a lot smarter, but for the moment a little smarter about AI, its power, how we use it, how perhaps we should not yet be using it and what for. Really important stuff. [00:08:50][98.7]
Eileen Rochford: [00:08:50] Mm-hmm. Good things to think about, absolutely. Okay, so here's a fun one. How important is it for someone like you to be level-headed and calm? Because your role in counseling the C-suite often is about dealing with issues that might cause someone not to be level-head and calm or the people you're dealing with to not be level headed and calm. [00:09:11][21.4]
Howard Karesh: [00:09:12] Who in the world is going to take your advice if your hair is on fire? Let other people's hair be on fire. There are plenty of people who will have a lot to worry about. The communicator also has a lot to worry but the individual, the individuals who are serving in that role during a crisis, the number one duty aside from learning all the information is, as you said in your question, to stay very, very calm. Nobody wants a communicator who's running around, not knowing what to do and I mean, Imagine a flight attendant in a crisis. You want to know that that individual is very, very calm. So the communicator, in many ways, is responsible for the mood in the room, for helping other people realize that, hey, we've got this, and we have ways of being responsive to our audiences internal and external, taking care of one another as professionals, as colleagues, as friends, and the ability to stay cool and to stay calm no matter what is hitting you. I don't know how you'd be a successful communicator without that. [00:10:11][58.9]
Eileen Rochford: [00:10:11] Yeah, and I've heard you talk a lot in the past about the importance of regularly running scenarios within your comms department and with your C-suite team. And I would imagine that that very practice is, it's almost like, you know, you got to get your reps in and the more that you have kind of run through, albeit, you know, scenarios that are fictitious, you still understand this is the first thing we do. This is the second thing we do. We have prepared statements for all these scenarios. Would you agree that the training bit of it does help you maintain that calm demeanor and being the voice of reason in trying times? [00:10:54][42.5]
Howard Karesh: [00:10:54] The reason that militaries all over the world play war games is because when the actual war starts, that's not the time to train, it's the time to rely on your training. Communicators is no different, and occasionally we find ourselves in situations where people are injured, or heaven forbid lose their lives. I've unfortunately been part of those events over the years. And the tabletop exercises, doing the actual work in practice. And yes, having some templates on the shelf certainly helps, can make all the difference in the world. At my last company, which is a food and beverage manufacturer, we did a quarterly crisis preparation and response exercise. And that meant doing actual work. We would write statements, write press releases, figure out FDA stuff. And the only quarters when we didn't do that sort of exercise were ones where we had something real to deal with. And, you know, in every position that I've had in the last 20 years, we have run crisis simulations and in every company I've worked at in the past 20 years those simulations have proved incredibly valuable when it came time to deal with the real thing. You have to prepare in advance. If you start preparing when you first learn about an actual crisis, it's going to be a rough afternoon for you. [00:12:06][72.0]
Rob Johnson: [00:12:06] Oh, you're gonna be hours behind the news cycle. There's, there's- Right. [00:12:10][3.3]
Howard Karesh: [00:12:09] Right, and you don't have hours, you have 15 to 30 minutes perhaps, perhaps, depending on what it is. [00:12:15][5.9]
Rob Johnson: [00:12:16] So, Howard, would you say all this preparation, all the work you do aiming for scenarios that are going to happen? I always tell people when they talk about having nerves on the job, whether it's presentations or regular communication or whatever the case may be. Priceless communications is your world. Does it go from nerves to adrenaline because you've done the work? Because here comes the scenario that you've trained for. Ergo, you would have the adrenaline pumping because you know what to do and you know that your team knows what to do as opposed to people who didn't plan for it who may be feeling nervous because what's next? Is that a reality in your world at all? [00:12:50][34.7]
Howard Karesh: [00:12:51] You know, I think it is and I think there is a strange, I think the right word is professional, the right phrases, professional satisfaction of handling something really hard, really well, and relatively smoothly and having worked out in advance and what are our approval processes, who is allowed to speak to the media, who's never allowed to speak to the media. You know, all of the things that can and eventually do go wrong over the course of a 40-year communication lifetime, there is professional satisfaction in handling it well. I'll give you one perfect example. Companies lay employees off all the time. I myself had been part of both sides of that exchange. It's never fun. But if you can walk away after helping your colleagues navigate a reduction in force where those who were unfortunately let go as part of that reduction feel respected and that they were treated like adults and human beings. That, as difficult as it is, is a win for the communicator. Because you've helped people lead in a very challenging, incredibly personal situation. And as hard as that is to do, there's great satisfaction in doing it well. And the same is true in crisis, no matter what that crisis is. And that's where people like us make our money. Yes, you need to do the everyday and keep the lights on and do that exceedingly well all the time. But when it hits the fan, you've gotta nail it and know that you were not only ready for it, but you understand how to look back on that event and determine how successful were you, how smooth was it, how calm were you. Were you not? You might not have been. It's possible. We all have our moments. But there is a unique sort of, again, satisfaction and joy, a little joy, in handling something really hard, really well. [00:14:33][102.6]
Eileen Rochford: [00:14:34] No doubt. I mean, the best crises are those that people never even hear about on the outside, because communicators were prepared and handled things as they should be handled and really kind of just smoothed the way for, you know, not much to have come of it, frankly. [00:14:48][14.7]
Howard Karesh: [00:14:49] Or what could have been a 7 to 10 day news story was kind of out and done in a couple of days, which is not fun for a couple days, but I would rather it be not fun for two than not fun 10. [00:15:00][10.5]
Rob Johnson: [00:15:00] Yeah limited exposure for sure [00:15:02][1.8]
Howard Karesh: [00:15:02] That's right. And take care of your people. Take care of employees because they're on the front line of this and they didn't ask for that. Take care. That's part of the job. [00:15:10][8.4]
Rob Johnson: [00:15:10] You've given some great advice here, but before we wrap up, and I know you've shared a lot of things so far, is there one particular piece of advice you want to share with our listeners about what they should consider when handling a crisis? I know that you talked about planning and knowing what's next and all that sort of thing. Is there one thing kind of above all that people should be thinking about, perhaps? [00:15:28][17.2]
Howard Karesh: [00:15:28] In addition to what we've already discussed, which as you open was prepare, stay ahead, learn how to process information in real time and deal with it, is once you've done that, have the confidence when it comes time that you will do the right thing for your company, for your leadership, for your colleagues, and for yourself. [00:15:43][15.3]
Eileen Rochford: [00:15:45] I'm dying to ask you this question, but only if we can have a short answer. And that is, how do you organize information as it is coming in at lightning speed during a crisis so that you can process it effectively? Is there something that you do in terms of the tool or the way that you organize that you can tell us about. [00:16:04][19.1]
Howard Karesh: [00:16:05] I don't think I'm particularly special. I happen to absorb information fairly quickly, but I think part of the communicator's job is to make sense of a lot of information, filter out the noise, and quickly pick up on what of this mess. Do I need to move forward for the next 15 minutes? And siphon that out very, very quickly and act on it. And the only thing I'll add to that is you have to be willing and very comfortable making decisions without perfect information. You will never have perfect information, so once you have just enough… to, again, with training that you can rely on and seasoning that you've got because you've been at it a while, make the decision, have a bias for action and go. There's very, very few things you can screw up that are so bad that they're not fixable if you happen to get it wrong. But the ability to decipher a lot of information fairly quickly, filter it and act on it, I don't know how to tell anybody else to do that, but it seems to me that that's what happens in real life. And you make your best decision and go. [00:17:03][58.1]
Eileen Rochford: [00:17:03] Yeah. And that's probably the hardest part about managing crises. So if you're going to hold trainings, make sure that that's a piece of it, you know, like their head, there needs to be a barrage of information that you have to filter through quickly for you to understand this is what I feel like when I'm having to do that and train yourself to kind of just quell the emotion, focus tightly, synthesize, yeah. [00:17:24][20.8]
Howard Karesh: [00:17:24] One of the things that scenario planning will do is help you understand, well, the communicator thinks that A, B, and C are the important pieces of information, but the CFO might think X, Y, and Z are the pieces of important information. Having that practice and that dialog and that trust and that relationship will help you navigate what are potentially different findings from an onslaught of information that's coming in live during a crisis. [00:17:48][23.7]
Eileen Rochford: [00:17:49] Yeah, really good perspective, absolutely. [00:17:50][1.8]
Rob Johnson: [00:17:50] To get to your point, you have to give your best possible counsel and understand that somebody else might make a decision. You've suggested something, they may do something else because they're looking at it from a little bit different standpoint, but you know that you've done everything you can to give the best possible council you can give, right? [00:18:06][15.3]
Howard Karesh: [00:18:06] Right. But don't go back with an I told you so. That never works out. But what it does mean, as I said before, is you have to make the very best of that decision. And first of all, you have understand who's making the call. And whoever makes that call, that's the call, that's an input you need to deal with. Ego aside and do what's best within that system for the company, for its people, for it's customers, for investors. [00:18:27][21.2]
Eileen Rochford: [00:18:29] Awesome. Thank you, Howard, the coolest cucumber in the room during a crisis. Thanks for joining us today and imparting your wisdom. We appreciate you coming back for a second time. I'm confident that you'll be back for a third and we won't wait four years. Thank you for being with us today. [00:18:44][15.6]
Rob Johnson: [00:18:44] We promise we won't do that. [00:18:45][1.3]
Howard Karesh: [00:18:45] Yeah. Well, thank you both. It's always fun to talk shop with the two of you. Yeah, likewise. [00:18:49][3.7]
Rob Johnson: [00:18:50] Howard, thank you so much. That's going to do it for another edition of Can You Hear Me? I'm Rob Johnson. If you'd like to comment on the podcast or suggest a topic, please contact us at our Can You hear Me podcast page or check out our newsletter. Both can be found on our page on LinkedIn. And we have started a website as well. You can find that at can you hear me pod dot beam dot l y. We will leave that address in the show notes. [00:19:15][25.7]
Eileen Rochford: [00:19:15] Yes. Thanks for that plug, Rob. And I'm Eileen Rochford. If you liked what you heard today, please consider giving Can You Hear Me a positive review wherever you get your podcasts such as Apple or Spotify, doesn't matter. Your reviews help others find our show. Thanks so much for listening and we hope you learned something today. [00:19:15][0.0]
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