#KatieTalks with Trudi Rowley: Boards Endorse Recommendations. Where’s Yours?

Recorded the night before they walked on stage at IABC APAC Fusion in Brisbane, Katie Bennett-Stenton and Trudi Rowley take their own advice: make the call before the results land. Every executive in their research wants evidence of business impact, yet far fewer can say the last marketing or communications report they received changed a decision. The gap isn't data. It's judgement.

 

Trudi Rowley is Director of Rowley Advisory and a data and insights-led digital marketing strategist with deep experience in superannuation and wealth management. Together, Katie and Trudi bring around sixty years of getting clarity fast with executives and boards when the stakes are high and the patience is low. Their framework, the Authority Cycle, came out of those rooms. Their new research, surveying marketers and communicators on one side and executives and directors on the other, pressure-tests it.

 

What we explore

• Where the Authority Cycle came from, including the micromanaging executive who stopped coming to Trudi's meetings once the reporting changed
• Gather: AI has made data infinite and executive attention scarcer, so clarity becomes a contribution to good governance
• Link: tying the work to what boards actually weigh, Katie's three Rs of reach, relationship and revenue, and whether "executives don't value what we do" is a truth or a comfortable lie
• Recommend: insight first, then the call, and why a report without a recommendation is abdication, not deference
• The smoke alarm: executives rank early warning of emerging risks well above where marketers and communicators expect it
• Compounded judgement: what a senior marketing or communications leader offers that Copilot can't

 

Why this matters

For directors and executives, this is what to expect, and demand, from your marketing and communications leaders. For marketers and communicators, it's how you earn the trust to be brought into the decision earlier, rather than asked to report on it afterwards. Your CEO can rent Copilot. They can't rent your compounded authority.

 

Have your say

The research is a snapshot, and both surveys stay open for another month. Each takes one to three minutes.

• Marketers and communicators: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/Qb6mqP4GVY
• Executives and directors: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=DQSIkWdsW0yxEjajBLZtrQAAAAAAAAAAAAMAAMbEqw9UMTVSRFVZWDZSQUdQQzdZT1dNTTE3TjZFOS4u

 

Want the Authority Cycle in your team? Email Katie and Trudi about an Authority Advantage workshop or audit: katie@bennett-stenton.com and trudi@rowleyadvisory.com

Want the one-page thinking template? Comment "template" on Katie's LinkedIn post.

Mentioned in this episode: IABC APAC Fusion 2026, Brisbane; AICD Director Sentiment Index 2026.

 

Connect

• Katie Bennett-Stenton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiebennettstenton/
• Trudi Rowley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trudirowley/More
• from Katie: https://www.bennett-stenton.com