Remembering Dr Roger Hayes
The public relations industry has lost one of its foremost thinkers and doers.
Six intellectual public relations heavyweights have been a huge influence on my professional career and personal life over the past decade.
Professor Anne Gregory is the Professor of Corporate Communications, Huddersfield University. She’s a plain speaking former CIPR President who continues to push the boundaries of theory and practice.
Professor Ralph Tench is my co-editor on Exploring PR and Management Communication. He’s the director of research at Leeds Business School and a founder of the European Communication Monitor.
Professor Betteke van Ruler is Emeritus Professor of Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam. She continues to push thinking and innovation in teaching in public relations.
Professor Dejan Verčič is the Head of the Department of Communication at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He’s a bon viveur who along with his wife Professor Ana Tkalac Verčič and Professor Krishnamurthy Sriramesh organise BledCom.
Henley Business School’s Dr Jon White ran against me as President of the CIPR in 2013. It was the start of a great friendship. He frequently challenges me to continue driving change in PR.
And then there’s Dr Roger Hayes. We first met in 2014 when he invited me to breakfast in London as the newly minted President of the CIPR.
Roger’s career spanned 40 years, working in journalism, strategic communications and public affairs.
Over bacon and eggs, Roger impressed on me the opportunity for professionalism in public relations, and the need for a professional competency framework and robust educational standards.
He was a fearsome advocate for the CIPR internationally, latterly supporting the organisation’s professional qualifications as an external examiner.
Roger, like the other practitioners and scholars that I’ve cited, believed that the exchange of ideas between theory and practice is a critical component of the professionalism of public relations.
He was an Associate of Henley Business School, teaching in Malaysia, South Africa and the UK.
I learned of Roger’s passing from my long-time business partner and friend Steve Earl on Saturday evening. Steve and I built and sold two agencies.
In a twist of fate Steve has spent the past six months working with Roger at APCO Worldwide as managing director of its London office. Roger worked as a Senior Advisor at the firm since 2004.
I introduced Roger and Steve via email last Summer. I regret that the three of us will never get together.
In 2018 I traveled to BledCom in Slovenia with my wife Sarah. She was speaking at the conference as President of the CIPR.
Bled is a great place to think and catch up with thinkers and doers in our profession from around the world. There’s space to think, relax and debate long into the night. We caught up with Roger who was on rare form.
I last saw Roger at the PRCA in London in November 2018 at the launch of Sarah’s book Once Upon a Time in PR. She named Roger as a wise elder of public relations theory and practice.
I once asked Jon White what stops him from being grumpy about how public relations was so slow to grow up. Our role, he said, is to inspire the next generation.
Roger inspired me. His memory lives on in my academic work.
