Chris Komisarjevsky knows about public relations. The recently retired president and CEO of the global public relations firm Burson-Marsteller has worked in the industry for more than 30 years. He remembers when his company began endowing a chair at Boston University in honor of the company’s founder, Harold Burson.
Now, 15 years later, Komisarjevsky is filling that chair, previously held by Otto Lerbinger.
“I think he’s an excellent choice [for the position],” Harold Burson said. “Could not have been better.”
Komisarjevsky recently accepted the Harold Burson faculty chair in the College of Communication public relations department this semester and has been teaching public relations while helping to lead the search for a new, permanent chair.
“My view is that there needs to be a balance between the academic and the practical,” Komisarjevsky said. “It’s so important to focus on why a company needs to do something. The ‘what’ is easy; the ‘why’ is what’s difficult. You only understand the why when you’ve had a chance to do it in the real world.”
According to COM dean John Schulz, the Harold Burson chair’s responsibilities are to teach and mentor students, advise the dean and the department chair and help BU build strong ties to the industry side of public relations.
“I would anticipate that now that Chris has blazed a pathway to BU and added his great reputation to the position other senior CEOs who may be coming to retirement would find that this would be a very attractive next stage in their career,” said Schulz. “Chris will be actually helping me-is helping me-as we begin to look at possible successors. And I’m very optimistic that this will move fast.”
Regardless of how fast it moves, Komisarjevsky, who has never taught full time before, says the best part of his time at BU is spent in the classroom teaching the class “Managing Corporate Crises and Issues,” for which he commutes to from his home in Atlantic Beach, New York on the first and last flight each Monday.
“It’s not a lecture,” Komisarjevsky said. “I fashion the class as though it’s part of a business I was running.”
Students in Komisarjevsky’s class spend the class discussing real public relations crises that are currently in the news each week.
“It makes it more challenging just by virtue of his being in the field,” second semester graduate student Kimberley Sthrader said.
Students said they were excited to take the class, finding Komisarjevsky’s professional experience very helpful. They also appreciated its many real world challenges and critical thinking skills that aren’t typical of many college courses.
“He treats us the way we will be treated out in the actual workforce,” second semester graduate student Stephanie Adel said. “I feel like dealing with him, I am more prepared to face what’s out there.”
In addition to teaching the graduate class the past two semesters, Komisarjevsky has also written a book with his wife, titled “Peanut Butter and Jelly Management -Tales from Parenthood, Lessons for Managers,” which has been published five times and in three different languages.
Komisarjevsky said the field of public relations moves faster than it used to, especially with the option of the internet and other technology. A mistake or good deed travels “100 megabytes per second faster” out into the world.
“I think it’s very dramatic today that companies who don’t behave in the public interest … will be exposed and will ultimately have to pay the price,” Komisarjevsky said. “Unfortunately, corporations behave like human beings and they make mistakes and they do things they shouldn’t do.”
Despite this challenging aspect of his field, Komisarjevsky said he continues to work ethically, passing on those traits to his students.
Komisarjevsky said he works to make sure that he does not fall into the less-than-flattering stereotype of public relations executives.
“There’s no such thing as covering up. There’s no such thing as spin,” he said. “Corporations are successful, they succeed or fail based on the views of whether or not they’re behaving in the public interest. Once you understand that everything flows from it. The role of public relations is to be a guardian of the integrity of the corporation.”