Two Thirds of the Room but Almost NONE of the Corner Offices

In Canada, women make up roughly two thirds of the public relations profession. They are the majority in the classrooms, the majority in the entry level roles, and the majority climbing through the middle ranks. And then somewhere around the senior level, the numbers flip. The leadership tables in PR firms and communications departments across the country look nothing like the profession they are supposed to represent. This is not a new observation. The data has been there for years.

Here’s what’s new. Two researchers decided to stop describing the problem and start asking a harder question. Not how do we get more women to the table? But why does the table keep failing the women who get there. Because what the data also shows, and what too many PR women know personally, is that the exit is often quiet and deliberate. Not a firing. Not a failure. A decision. A moment where a woman who is absolutely capable of leading looks at what it costs and says this is not worth it. 

This episode is about what is driving that decision, and what it is going to take to change it.

Listen For

4:15 Why Do Women Hold Fewer Than 30% of Senior PR Leadership Roles?

7:11 What Does It Mean to Rethink the Leadership Table?

9:15 How Can PR Organizations Create Sustainable Leadership Careers?

15:06 What Can Women and Men Do to Change PR Leadership?

17:03 Why Won’t Teaching Women to Play Golf Solve Workplace Exclusion?

Guests: 

Amy Thurlow

Website | LinkedIn

Colleen Killingsworth 

LinkedIn

Book Rethinking the Table on Amazon

Doug

Substack | Website | LinkedIn

Watch this episode on YouTube

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Transcript

Lady Emily (00:00):
Every system has people it was built for and people it wasn't. The question is, what do we do when we finally notice the difference? I could have loved you with a fire to make all other loves seem like ice, but one call from that milk faced denied Lily and you run whining at her heels. "No man leaves Delina."

Doug Downs (00:37):
In 1940, the most famous woman in the world was also the most underestimated. Hedy Lamarr was on every movie poster in Hollywood. MGM called her the most beautiful woman in the world. Men watched her on screen. Nobody listened to her in a room. But at night, after the studio lights went down, she went home and she worked. Not on scripts, not on her appearance. She worked on something that had been turning in her mind for years, a problem nobody asked her to solve in a field nobody thought she belonged. She'd grown up around engineers and she'd listened. She'd understood more than anybody gave her credit for. And she had an idea, a genuinely radical idea about how a signal could move, how you could make it impossible to jam, impossible to intercept, impossible to stop. She filed the patent in 1942. The Navy took the idea and they set it aside.

(01:34):
 The patent expired before anybody used it. She received no credit, no compensation. She just went back to being decorative in Hollywood. It wasn't until decades later that engineers building something new reached back and found her work sitting there. Foundational, undeniable. Hers. Every time you connect to Wi-Fi, every time your phone finds a Bluetooth signal, Hedy Lamarr, the most famous woman in the room and the smartest one, and nobody thought to ask. Today on Stories and Strategies, why the most talented women in the room are quietly deciding the room isn't worth it.

(02:29):
 My name is Doug Downs. My guests this week are Amy Thurlow in Nova Scotia and Colleen Killingsworth joining today from Calgary. Cheers to you both.

Colleen Killingsworth (02:38):
And to you, Doug. Who?

Doug Downs (02:40):
It's great to... We've got three Canadians at the table and so I've worn my Canada ball cap, which I don't wear all that often. If we say process or A, you'll know what we're doing and we're fitting a U into any word that we want. Colleen, you are one of the most decorated practitioners in Canadian public relations, a former national president of CPRS, a fellow of the college, and the recipient of both the Lamp of Service and the Philip Novikoff Memorial Award. Amy, you're a professor of communication studies at Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax, a fellow of the Canadian Public Relations Society and the person CPRS recognized in 2021 with their Outstanding Achievement Award for bringing the Global Capabilities Framework to Canada. And I think you and I did an episode way back in 2021 on that. And together you've won the 2025 CPRS Thought Leadership Award for the research that formed the content of your book, Rethinking the Table: Women Leaders in Public Relations, which I have dutifully marked up in yellow highlighter throughout the book with folded pages.

(03:48):
 I've wrecked the architecture all over the place, but it's great to have you both.

Amy Thurlow (03:53):
Thank you.

Colleen Killingsworth (03:54):
Thank you. It's great to be here.

Doug Downs (03:55):
You've spent some serious time researching why women are underrepresented at the leadership level in PR despite being the majority of the profession. Before we get into what needs to change, help me understand what's actually happening. What does the data show about where women are going?

Amy Thurlow (04:15):
You're right, Doug. We looked into a number of surveys and studies over the past several decades on this very issue. And just sort of to summarize overall, we would say that despite forming approximately 70% of the profession, women hold less than 30% of seats at the senior leadership, senior decision making tables. And that's been fairly consistent across jurisdictions and over the years. So there's something there that's really indicating barriers to women. And that's kind of where we started. That's where we dug into our research. You would think because there's this increased proportion of women in the profession that that would lead to increased status and increased power or equality. But actually that hasn't happened. And it's labelled in some studies as a phenomenon that we know in public relations and in other sectors as the pink collar ghetto or the velvet ghetto where women get access to a particular profession, but they can't seem to increase their status or accessibility to decision making in that profession.

Colleen Killingsworth (05:37):
Yeah. Our research really found that women are leaving traditional roles, leadership tracks and organizations because the systems within organizations are making long term sustainability for them just really difficult. Women face barriers that really include gender bias and stereotypes, old boys' networks that make it really hard to break through, limited access to the dominant coalition. And again, some of that is because of those old boys' networks, lack of mentorship and sponsorship, work life imbalances and caregiving demands, imposter syndrome and internalized self doubt. And we know that's not just a women's issue. Many queer professionals, male or female, do suffer from that. And the intersectional barriers for women of colour and our Indigenous women, that doesn't mean that they're quitting the profession. They're just finding different ways of being involved and trying to find that balance that is going to make them successful within the profession.

Doug Downs (06:53):
So the conversation has always been, how do we get more women to the table? But the title of the book is Rethinking the Table. I better say it formally. Rethinking the Table is what you search. You're essentially saying, let's change the table. What does that mean? Is it just adding more seats so it's a more crowded table?

Colleen Killingsworth (07:11):
Yeah. Nope, not at all. No. And I really feel that continuing that conversation about how do we get more women at the table is really the wrong conversation. It's how do we change the constructs and transform what that table looks like and what the systems that support women leadership look like? It's a full scale transformation we believe from policies that support flexibility to ensuring support and wellbeing for employees, especially women. And that twenty four seven nature of the PR industry really, it's not just unsustainable. It disproportionately affects women because of the caregiving needs that they often have outside. So if we really want to make it more sustainable and inclusive, we really need to look at how we change roles, how we change policies, how we change the systems within organizations that may be suppressing women's desire to stay within the organization, stay within the leadership tracks and actually find their way to the table.

Doug Downs (08:34):
A lot of women at that senior level and they're right at the point where they could escalate to the C suite, but there's almost like a, I give up. This is ridiculous. I got people at home pulling me this way and I need to do it. Or I've got things at work that are exasperating. And a lot of them, they go hang a shingle. Hang a shingle if that's in your blood, but we're talking about how to explore the leadership. So it's systemic change. What has to happen? Because I'm sorry, I'm one of those old people who says, "We've been talking about systemic change since the '90s. What actually has to happen? What does it look like?"

Amy Thurlow (09:15):
Yeah, that's a great question, Doug. And really, I mean that is the question in terms of how do you rethink this table? And so I guess I'll just start at the individual level, what do women do in public relations careers? And it's important for women to advocate for themselves, not just asking for access or demanding access at the table, but asking for changes to the things Colleen was just describing in terms of the structure and system that they work in. Women need to negotiate opportunities for flexibility so that their life and their work, I don't know if the word balance is even, people aren't even talking about balance. Integration. Just sustainable or something.

Doug Downs (09:59):
Yeah.

Amy Thurlow (10:00):
Exactly. Yeah. They should seek out mentors and champions and networks and peer groups that support them and support their work to make these changes and to make strategic career choices, keeping in mind what they need in the big picture in terms of success. But the individual struggle for equity is not enough. It really has to happen at a broader systemic level, as you're saying. And we have to transform systems at a very profound level. So transforming organizational structures, it sounds like I'm saying this is very straightforward. And of course it's not. It's very complicated. But I mean, if you work in corporate public relations, you're in an entrenched corporate system and there's certain discourses of success there that are very hard to unwind. So what does a successful senior leader look like? Excuse me. What does it look like when you're at the table? And we will think of things like available twenty four seven, working all the time, available for any crisis, committed to the organization beyond any.

(11:20):
 Those things, if we use those as the way we define success or use them as determinants of success. There was one quote that came up in our research that says it makes it feel like public relations almost unsustainable, incompatible with family life. You just can't be twenty four seven on crisis communication and also do what you need to do in other aspects of your life. So it's just not sustainable to have an industry that operates in that way and expect the employees and the people in it, the people that make the work happen, to be able to sustain that. And then at policy levels, there's things like we have pay equity legislation in Canada, many countries do. It has to be. Different.

Doug Downs (12:12):
Provinces. I mean they enact it differently across the country.

Amy Thurlow (12:17):
Yes, provinces have it, different sectors have it. But not just in public relations, but in Canada across sectors, there exists still a wage equity gap. Still again, controlling for all factors. There's still a piece we can't explain except gender as the difference. We need to enforce pay equity and we need to adopt intersectional approaches to diversity. So considering more than just gender, but gender and other factors that define the identities of the individuals in our profession.

Colleen Killingsworth (12:56):
Yeah. If I could just build on a couple of things that Amy said quickly, one of our interview subjects, I just loved the framework that she shared in her success. She's always looked for organizations that really align with her values and goals. And so she's not trying to go into organizations that may not align with a bit of the work life flexibility she needs as a single mom, but finding those organizations that do align with that. So that is something I think women can take away and think about. And just having the courage to have the tough conversations about, I'm happy to be on twenty four seven every other week when I don't have my kids. But what it looks like those weeks I have my kids is I'm leaving at four. I'm taking care of my family. I'll log back on and finish my day.

(14:04):
 So to find the organizations where you can have those conversations, where you can find that win win balance, I think was something that really stuck with me from some of our interviews.

Doug Downs (14:19):
And not to skip the part that okay, more men can help out more at home. I don't mean to just gloss over that. I don't mean to treat it as a whole other discussion or unassumed. Each of us is only one person. So let me split this into two parts. For the woman listening right now or finds herself in this conversation that she's having an identity moment right now, this applies to me. What are the practical steps she can take? But let me add to that a second question because I think the role that men play here is equally as critical at this juncture in the conversation or design of the table, equally. What can men do to help this which is better for everyone?

Colleen Killingsworth (15:06):
Yeah, I think ultimately for kind of a takeaway for women is that really understanding your values, what you want out of your career, what you want to contribute, what does the whole package look like? And then find the construct that allows you to be successful. And I think for men, we know, and Amy and I have talked about this a lot in the many venues we've discussed the book, this isn't just a women's conversation. This is an all of us conversation. Yeah, it is absolutely. And it's a generational conversation as well because as different generations, we have different experiences in how we kind of frame that work life balance and the expectations of caregiving and such. And I do think I hold a lot of hope for the younger up and coming generations that they're a little bit more inclusive I think in how they view their roles and balancing work, home, caregiving and such than some of the older generations.

(16:33):
 So I just really think it is an all of us conversation. And especially when you're looking at trying to break down some of those systemic issues that really impact women and diversity beyond gender. It's how do we break it and then reconstruct it to support a better PR industry going forward?

Amy Thurlow (17:03):
I absolutely agree. And I'm so glad you made that point because a lot of times people we talk to think this is a women's issue in public relations, but our starting point is that the profession as is not sustainable. So I mean that's something all practitioners should take note of and think about, okay, how can we tackle this? We heard a lot from people about golf. I'm just using this as an example of a structural issue, but women in public relations will say, "Well, in my corporate environment or whatever, a lot of decisions get made on the golf course and men play golf." Whereas the women in the organization, not all, I mean obviously some women do, but overall it wasn't a game or a sport that women typically played or were drawn to. And so they were excluded from those conversations. And I like to use that example.

(18:03):
 I mean, I don't like the example, but I like to use it because it kind of highlights, so what's the solution? And a lot of people say, "Well, let's teach women to play golf because then they'd be on the golf course." And that's to us kind of similar to saying, let's put more chairs at the table or let's get people in the... It doesn't solve the problem because there were lots of structural issues around how those decisions were made outside of the office in different networks, who was allowed to play, who didn't have access, all that thing, that are not solved by just moving the chairs or changing the players on the team or whatever. So you really have to look deeper in terms of how can we work together? What is it that we want our profession to look like? I mean, is it sustainable the way it is when success looks like something where you have to sacrifice other parts of your life?

(18:56):
 And then what needs to happen to change that?

Doug Downs (18:58):
Well said. Colleen, Amy, really appreciate your time today. Come back. I want to bring you both back in a couple of weeks, do another episode on a key part of the book.

Amy Thurlow (19:08):
Great.

Colleen Killingsworth (19:09):
Thank.

Amy Thurlow (19:09):
You.

Colleen Killingsworth (19:09):
Thank you so much, Doug.

Amy Thurlow (19:11):
Pleasure to be here.

Doug Downs (19:14):
All right, here are three things I got from Amy and Colleen today. Things you might bring up in conversation over the next week or two.

Number one, change the table. It's not about adding to the table, it's about changing it. Adding women to leadership is not enough if the system's expectations and decision making structures remain unchanged.

Number two, redefine success. PR leadership must move beyond the unsustainable expectation that commitment means being available 24 hours a day.

And number three, build real mentorship. Mentorship works best as an organic two way relationship that develops skills, confidence, and career opportunities.

If you'd like to send a message to my guests, Amy Thurlow and Colleen Killingsworth, we've got contact information in the show notes. Stories and Strategies is a production of Stories and Strategies Podcasts and our crackerjack producers are Emily Page and Jocelyn Floralde. Lastly, could you do us a favour?

(20:12):
 Forward this episode to one friend. Thanks for listening.