The 2025 PRSA ICON conference, which took place Oct. 28 to 30 at Washington, D.C.’s, iconic Washington Hilton, gathered approximately 2,100 communications professionals, educators and students to explore themes on impactful storytelling, industry ethics, leadership and reputation in polarized times, and the effect that an acceleration in technology is having on the profession.
While PRNEWS couldn’t get to every session—and there were many great ones—we extracted five takeaways for PR professionals that stood out.
1. PRSA Leaders Set the Current Industry Tone: Protect Truth
Day one began with a welcome and state-of-the-industry-type speech from 2025 PRSA Chair and Vice Chair at Stagwell, Ray Day. He emphasized how the evolving expectations of the communications function reflect its expanding influence across the business.
“Right now communications professionals are stepping further into the strategic heart of their organizations,” Day said. “We are being called to lead more than ever.”
Day also bestowed PRSA’s prestigious Golden Anvil award to Grace Leong, CEO, Hunter, and an over 40-year member of PRSA. In an era defined by misinformation and eroding public trust, Leong challenged attendees to prioritize truth over convenience, an ongoing theme throughout the conference.
“We live in a time where trust feels very fragile,” Leong said. “The greatest threat to truth is comforting myths we choose to believe. That is our challenge: not to use our voices for spin, but for service. To bring clarity where there is confusion.”
2. Political Playbooks Find New Life in the PR World—and Reshape Brand Communications
PRSA ICON benefitted from its location in Washington, D.C., home to many current and former White House and political communicators. Robyn Patterson, former White House Spokesperson in the Biden administration and current SVP of Corporate Affairs at Allison Worldwide, discussed how effective communicators must adopt a crisis mindset. Patterson shared examples from her career including the 2024 Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, helping launch the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 and working the 2020 Democratic Primary for former United States Representative Beto O’Rourke.
Patterson noted that in the current challenging media environment it's important that organizations focus relentlessly on their core message and align all communications with clear values.
“We live in a very different world than we did a couple of years ago,” Patterson said. “Every single organization, whether you are a Fortune 100 company, a nonprofit, a university…is thinking about politics. How do we make sure that we are not a target for politicians who may disagree with what we're doing, and how do we make sure that we're still serving the people that we are meant to serve in an environment that is so difficult? Should we be switching our positions on a range of hot button issues, like the environment, DEI, tariffs, etc.?”
Patterson’s guidance for corporate leaders: "[Corporations need to] determine their values, and values matter most.”
She provided these steps for getting through chaotic crisis times:
- Adopt a crisis mindset before you’re in one.
- Stick to your message.
- Values matter. Determine what you will not give on and what you want to be known for, no matter the political winds.
3. CEOs Have a Choice: “Be Normal or Do Stupid Things PR People Have to Fix”
A presentation by Gregg Feistman, Professor of Practice, Public Relations and Heather LaMarre, Associate Professor, Communication at Temple University, acknowledged the pressures CEOs face from compliance, AI integration and public scrutiny.
The conversation also introduced a CEO risk matrix with five personas: traditionalist, autocrat, visionary, power broker and rockstar. Examples included "traditionalist" JP Morgan Chase’s Jamie Diamond's obsession with legacy and a generational gap, which shone through his public commentary on return-to-office policies. "Visionaries" like Elon Musk can end up in the hot seat with outlandish remarks and the public's tendency to equate their brands the behavior of that leader.
“Everyone is held accountable for everything they say,” Feistman said. “From the public's perspective, there's no difference between the CEO saying it and the business saying it. The CEO is the company. His or her stance is the company's stance. Remember they are the storyteller-in-chief.”
However, the duo noted, the challenges of maintaining trust and reputation in organizations can be mitigated by developing a strong relationship between the CEO and the chief communications officer (CCO) or senior leader of communications. And that relationship could be strengthened by developing the “three C’s of trust," which include:
- Credibility (reliability, which can be performance-driven)
- Competence (expertise, driven by technical skills)
- Character (integrity, ethical-behavior driven)
4. PR Pros Need to Think Like Lawyers—and Lawyers Like Communicators—When Crises Go Public
A presentation centered on the impact of media scrutiny on high-profile litigation, using the Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni case as a prime example, proved a great session for fans of PR and popular culture. Key points included the importance of crisis preparedness, the role of media in shaping public perception, and the challenges of balancing legal writing for the court versus public consumption.
This particular case involved over 800 docket filings in less than a year for Blake Lively, a very A-list star, which ignited significant media attention and social media amplification. It also demonstrated the importance of PR and legal teams working together.
Content creators are producing pieces critiquing dockets and legal briefings—and that's something PR folks need to pay attention to, according to lawyer Mary Jane (MJ) Morley, founder and principal attorney at MJ Morley Law, PC.
“When we have litigation with public figures, we know that every single word that you file on the docket is going to be read out loud by a content creator in a tone that maybe wasn't the tone that you wrote it [in], or they're going to emphasize things that really aren't important, because it makes for better clicks, it makes for better views,” Morley said.
Brittany Frey, Partner and Co-Founder at Hays Frey Public Relations, noted the importance of not being cheap with reputation monitoring tools during a legal battle—or really, any crisis—particularly when social media posts, such as the examples about dockets, exist.
“You have to invest in the right tools and spend the money,” she said. “Things shift so quickly that if you're relying on Google Alert, you're late. The PR person never wants to be surprised, right? The client certainly doesn't.”
5. The Way Your Boss Thinks About the World Will Impact the Way They Speak
Steven Kelly, Former Chief Speechwriter to Vice President Kamala Harris, says the former VP and Democratic Presidential Nominee taught him some valuable lessons when it came to speechwriting, messaging and voice. One of Kelly’s first assignments for Harris was a speech about lead pipes in 2021. Harris came back to Kelly saying, “Steven, this doesn’t sound like me.” He had used her words and talking points and facts, but she explained that he had begun with the problem, instead of why they were doing that work.
“The problem with that first draft is not the words,” Kelly said. “The problem was the ideas. Most often when someone says 'this doesn't sound like me,'” what they are actually saying is, 'this doesn't think like me. This doesn't reflect my world. This isn't how I understand and conceptualize the topic we are discussing.'” Understanding someone's worldview is the skeleton key to unlocking their voice.”
Kelly provided three tips for finding the voice of your subject, which can work for thought leadership pieces, social posts, op-eds, internal comms and the like.
- Consume consume consume.
There is no substitute for osmosis. You just need to get into your boss's world. So, read everything they have written, watch everything they've done, listen to everything they have said, and you will passively start to soak things in.
- Breadth, then depth.
Once you've gone broad, go deep. Pick one thing, a core text, and read it 5, 10, 15 times. There are things you will notice on the second or third read, but there are many more [patterns] you will notice on the 12th or the 13th read that you just didn't pick up on.
- Unscripted is gold.
When your boss is speaking extemporaneously at a town hall, a q&a, in an interview on a podcast or in a meeting, it's akin to a full fiber optic connection into their brain. That's the cleanest mental thumbprint that you're going to get. So, prioritize that sort of content. Op-eds, speeches are all great, but they're mediated.
Bonus social chats:
PRNEWS caught up with several friends at PRSA ICON and learned about some trends floating around the scene. Enjoy these conversations on our social media channels:
- More about PRSA’s new updated Ethics Guide with Andrea Gils Monzón, member of the PRSA Ethics Committee and CEO & Founder at Shiftmakers Agency.
- Sabrina N. Browne, PRSA’s Co-chair of the National DEI Committee, and SVP, Personal Banking comms at Citi, schooled us on one huge content trend she's seeing in the PR industry.
- Matisse Hamel-Nelis showed us her new book, Accessible Communications, and gave us an easy tip on how to make your content more accessible for everyone.
- And Rafi Mendelsohn, CMO at Cyabra, talked about the "trust ops" trend he's seeing in the PR industry.
Nicole Schuman is Managing Editor at PRNEWS.