By Sarah Ogden
This week, I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of future communicators at the University of Florida, for a course led by the incredible Patrick Ford. My session followed a talk led by the sage wisdom of an industry leader who has walked many corridors of power and demonstrated impeccable leadership, Ron Culp.
The topic for our guest lectures was ‘Building International Business Acumen’. What I realized — and what I want to share here — is that this isn’t just a lesson for the next generation. It’s a wake-up call for all of us already in the room. Because let’s be honest: the world we built our strategies in has changed.
We’ve moved from a unipolar, Western-centric world to one that is fractured, accelerated, and fundamentally multipolar. Power is no longer concentrated — it’s distributed across regions, ideologies, and increasingly, algorithms. From the rise of BRICS+ to the repositioning of soft power, the rules of engagement have changed.
And yet, too often, public relations can seem stuck in an old playbook — one that still assumes cultural universality, that treats markets as extensions of HQ, and that sees storytelling as the endgame, not the starting point.
Now, more than ever seems like the right time to reframe PR
Today, communicators are not just brand stewards — we are geopolitical navigators, cultural translators, and trust architects. We must understand how economic systems, stakeholder expectations, cultural nuance, and social dynamics intersect — because they do. Daily. Visibly. And sometimes, chaotically.
That’s what international business acumen means to me. It’s not just knowing what’s going on — it’s knowing how it feels, how it lands, and how it moves people in different parts of the world. It’s reading the room — when the room is the world.
Here’s what I shared with the students — and what I believe we need to embed across all aspects of the comms ecosystem and strategies:
- Multipolar geopolitics is back. And it’s in the boardroom. Today’s stakeholders are informed, ideologically fragmented, and often skeptical. Reputation is built in real-time and eroded even faster.
- Capital moves faster than culture. Business chases returns. People chase meaning. Our job is to translate between the two — with integrity.
- AI is not the strategy. It’s a tool. Use it to scale intelligence, not to outsource thinking. Cultural sensitivity, ethical clarity, and human judgment matter more than ever.
- Trust is everything. It is slow to earn, easy to lose, and the only true differentiator.
This isn’t just philosophy. It’s a call to face the new reality.
By continuing to expand the aperture of PR and build business cases for why it should not be treated as a siloed function, we can realize its potential as central intelligence system for any business with ambition and accountability. Our job isn’t just to tell the story — it’s to sense, shape, and safeguard it across borders, ideologies, and cultures.
So, the questions that continue to drive me and the work we do for clients are:
How do we build and scale the tools and techniques to enable our clients to partner with us more deeply, to help navigate this complexity — beyond seeing us as experts in executing campaigns?
How can we train everyone across all aspects of our business to see patterns, interpret nuance, and understand systems — and have the confidence and evidence to challenge outdated formats and low impact outputs
Because in this world, the difference between relevance and redundancy is acumen.
Let’s build it.
Sarah Ogden is Chief Client Officer, Europe, Zeno Group. This post also appears on her