Advisory Board Member and Advisor Ed Dixon on the streets of New York, back where he started his career.
Few people speak about corporate communication’s impact on organisational reputation with the passion – or precision – of Edward Dixon. For Dixon, now a senior advisor at Linq and a member of its advisory, the future of communications does not lie in vague positioning or soft narratives. Rather, it lies in the analytical rigour, credibility and business alignment that reputation strategy can offer. And after four decades shaping some of the world’s most influential communications functions, he’s earned the right to be bold.
“What inspires me,” Dixon says, “is to the ability to leverage reputation research and data analytics to drive reputation among key stakeholders. In the past, impact of corporate communication was challenging to quantify, at best.”
Dixon’s journey into communications was anything but traditional. It began with an internship at Citibank, supporting grassroots community engagement efforts. He joined full-time through a management programme, with one condition: “I wanted to do comms. Eventually, they made it happen.” He stayed for 11 years, with time landing in the global public affairs office – a tenure that saw him evolve from a self-described “unqualified guy” into a trusted operator that Mastercard was eager to bring onboard.
At Mastercard, he took on a global communications role just as the e-commerce era began to take shape. From there, Dixon moved into agency life – initially prompted by a desire to better understand how agencies operated. And when a trusted contact moved to Porter Novelli, she brought him over. “I thought I’d stay two years. I stayed 17.”
That long agency run started in New York and included several years in Asia – a move that began as a two-month assignment and ultimately stretched into nearly eight years. “I was sent to help with a short project,” Dixon says. “But I saw the potential. The complexity, the ambition of understanding global markets – I wanted to be part of it.”
After his Asia stint, Dixon wanted additional global experience. Omnicom, Porter’s parent company, helped facilitate a move to FleishmanHillard in the Middle East, where he was the GM of the Saudi Arabia business. He worked with government and corporate clients on reputation-led communications and transformation programs, including helping develop communication plans for one of the largest multi-stream corporate transformations ever implemented.
Dixon then returned to New York and served as chief marketing and communications officer at Guy Carpenter, the reinsurance arm of Marsh McLennan. It was a pivotal period in the firm’s history — and in his career.
“I joined as the business was navigating what turned out to be the largest merger in the reinsurance industry’s history,” he explains. “It involved tens of thousands of employees across a global footprint, and an enormous stakeholder landscape.”
His remit was broad and high stakes: from shaping strategic messaging around the deal to ensuring internal cohesion during a time of rapid change. “The challenge was not just external reputation – though proactive media relations were crucial – but also the internal narrative,” Dixon adds. “We had to unify people and purpose across newly combined entities, with strong, consistent communication. And at the same time ensure clients saw the value of the combined entity to ensure business success.”
The scale and complexity of the role helped crystallize Dixon’s conviction that reputation must sit at the heart of business strategy, not as a communications afterthought, but as a boardroom priority.
Eventually, his journey took back him to the Middle East, where he joined Saudi Aramco in a corporate communication role. He helped develop a research and stakeholder reputation-based corporate communications strategy. “It was about shifting from reactive communications to a more integrated, strategic approach to global stakeholder communication,” Dixon explains. “I supported the development of a best practices-based framework to enhance internal communications and align it with broader corporate priorities.”
Dixon now brings his expertise to Linq, where the focus is on elevating communications from a tactical function to a strategic business driver.
“Reputation-led communication should align with and directly support strategic business priorities – from hiring & retaining staff, market expansion, driving business growth, mitigating corporate risk, influencing key stakeholders, to building investor confidence. Communication isn’t just brand; it’s risk management, growth, resilience,” he says.
So what’s next? “The opportunity is huge,” Dixon says. “We can elevate comms into the boardroom – not just in a reporting sense, but positioning the function as a decision-impacting force. That’s the next evolution – and one I want to be part of.”