When Nicolai Tangen, head of Norway’s $1.6 trillion oil fund, started interviewing CEOs for his new podcast in 2022, it was a way to give the Norwegian people an idea of the big international companies he was in. investing your country.
Its roughly 45-minute weekly episodes, which have featured top bosses from Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon and Citi’s Jane Fraser to Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and X’s Elon Musk, have since reached a much broader audience, with 5 million total downloads.
The optimistic 58-year-old host says the podcast format allows “more time to explore what drives their businesses and them as people.”
“What are they trying to improve, what is the competitive landscape like, how do they win in the market?” They’re the kind of questions that don’t naturally lend themselves to a quick one-liner or news story, but they say a lot about how a company is run, Tangen says.
His In good company The series is one of many business-focused podcasts that have emerged to feature high-level CEOs as hosts, interviewees, or both. Others include The Diary of a CEOa talk show with British entrepreneur Steven Bartlett discussing personal and business development; All inclusiveorganized by a group of technology-focused venture capitalists; acquired deep dives into well-known brands; and Masters of the scale led by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.
Aiming to educate and entertain, some of these shows are among the most popular on streaming sites. They attract executives looking to reach specialized audiences and listeners who may not have previously engaged with their companies. The male-dominated tech industry, in particular, has found this to be a useful medium; Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg recently appeared on Acquired. It allows founders and executives to chat with each other in a more relaxed way.
Outside of the technology sector, corporate marketing and communications teams are turning to audio as a means to highlight their expert knowledge and contact books. Goldman, for example, has his own podcast series, Goldman Sachs Stock Exchangesin which the bank’s senior managers speak to industry figures about important issues shaping the global economy. KPMG UK Chair Bina Mehta hosts the Pull up a chair podcast with other notable directors.
CEOs have warmed to the peer-to-peer format, which some see as a way to mitigate reputational risk and meet increased demand from customers and employees to speak out about political issues. Interviews are conducted in a more informal and less confrontational environment, often without the level of scrutiny that a CEO might expect to receive from a newspaper or television journalist. (Tangen says his guests have “editing rights,” although these are rarely exercised and his team has the final say. Interviewees can also listen to the entire podcast before it is published.)
The format allows guests to have more control over how they communicate, shape their own narrative, and interact directly with their chosen audience, often at length (some podcast episodes, for example). AcquiredThe recent conversation with Howard Schultz of Starbucks exceeds three hours).
Communications specialists say podcasts can encourage executives to speak more openly and on a more personal level. This can give listeners (which typically include employees, shareholders, as well as customers and industry specialists) an unfiltered view of the person running the company.
“The open format allows executives to bring their comments to life with all kinds of material that might otherwise be left on the cutting room floor: anecdotes, book references, you name it,” says Joshua Rosen of the communications firm Prosek Partners. “Detours and rabbit holes are not only welcomed, they are encouraged. And so there is more room to show depth and breadth, that you are an authority in your industry, but that you also see the bigger picture.”
Rosen adds that, for most executives, the rush to appear on podcasts has less to do with “looking for safe spaces” and more to do with showing “the ability to riff.” More relaxed interviews typically complement traditional media appearances, rather than replacing them, he says.
But this softer approach, which can make executives feel like they’re talking to a friend, can make it more difficult to hold them accountable for specific business decisions and actions or provide room for probing questions. Having an interviewee sign off or provide “no comment” does not make for good podcast content.
Tangen disputes the suggestion that guests might prefer the softer approach of a fellow executive to a traditional media interrogation, saying he is trained in military interrogations and has spent an entire career bothering CEOs as a portfolio manager. “I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
Veteran journalist and communications specialist Richard Miron founded podcasting company Earshot Strategies in 2017 to help businesses shape their messages. He says that while podcasts can give “CEOs a platform to create a clean, unquestionable version of what they want to say,” these people just come across as stiff, scripted and boring. Being under scrutiny and being pressured by shareholders and journalists is something that is “good for them.”
If companies are going through a rough patch and don’t want to appear cautious, “don’t do it. Instead, put out a press release,” says Miron. “People like emotional commitment. If the CEO doesn’t do that, everything will be dry. If you’re asked questions like, “Why are you such a good CEO?” “No one is going to listen.”
Miron says many corporate executives have gone through hours of media training, often with crisis response teams nearby, to formulate optimal responses to any potential media questions. While communications teams might think this helps them, “it’s no longer perceived as genuine,” he says. “CEOs who show a little leg and are more normal [are] unexpected and people like that.”
For the person or company hosting the podcast, it is also a way to reach younger generations who consume news and media differently, turning more to social platforms and video content. Some podcasters record videos of their interviews and post them on social media. Others also hold live events.
Tangen notes that hosting his own podcast has brought benefits to his company: Norges Bank Investment Management, which oversees the oil fund, has received a flood of job inquiries that it believes are due in part to the podcast. “In Norway we always had a lot of requests,” says Tangen. “But we are seeing more applications in New York and London than in the past. “Dramatically higher.”
And yet, despite being a major investor in some of the world’s largest companies, Tangen faces the same problems as business journalists in getting interview guests. “It is a difficult struggle to get them to get to work [with] communications departments whose only job sometimes seems to be to make sure they never appear on any podcasts, so it’s really difficult,” Tangen says. But he remains persistent and points out: “My wife [Katja Tangen] He rejected me the first time.”