Abbie Fink talks with newly appointed PRGN President Frédéric François about his vision for the Public Relations Global Network throughout his term.

Frédéric shares three key initiatives: combating misinformation and disinformation, advancing digital-first strategies among PRGN member agencies, and responsibly integrating AI into our work. By aligning agency efforts towards these goals, PRGN aims to serve as both a thought leader and a proactive force driving positive change in the public relations industry.

Key Takeaways

1. Frédéric prioritizes combating fake news to preserve democracy and enhance the integrity of public relations practices.
2. Advancing digital-first strategies allows PRGN members to position themselves as leaders in digital communication, addressing potential gaps in digital proficiency.
3. The role of artificial intelligence in public relations is critical, with Frédéric advocating for a strategic but responsible use of AI tools.
4. Strategic external partnerships and internal collaborations within PRGN will be crucial to implementing Frédéric’s initiatives efficiently.
5. The 2nd annual Influence Insights survey will inform PRGN’s strategies with data collected from communication directors and industry leaders on global trends and challenges.

About the Guest

Frédéric François is the new president of the Public Relations Global Network and Founder and Managing Partner of Two cents, a communications agency serving the Benelux region (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg). Based in Brussels, Frédéric leads a team that supports clients with integrated PR, content and digital marketing, media buying and event-driven communication across sectors such as exhibitions, construction, interior design, tourism and ICT.

Early in his career, Frédéric served as PR assistant to Belgian Prime Minister Wilfried Martens, an experience that introduced him to high-stakes political communication and media relations. He then spent nearly a decade at Brussels Expo as an exhibition organizer, focusing on sales, marketing and public relations around major trade fairs and live events. This deep exposure to the event industry shaped his enduring passion for live communication and for creating memorable experiences that connect brands with their audiences.

In 2001, Frédéric founded Advanced Fair to organize trade fairs and support clients with logistics and PR across a variety of sectors. As the agency’s PR work grew, he spun off and branded its communications arm as Two cents, which has since evolved into a full-service PR and communications agency. Today, Two cents combines press relations, content and communications management, media planning and digital marketing to help brands build visibility and reputation across the Benelux region.

Alongside his agency leadership, Frédéric has a long-standing relationship with PRGN, one of the world’s leading networks of independent PR and communications firms. After serving in roles including Secretary of the network, he was elected President, succeeding Natacha Clarac and representing Two cents and the Belgian–Dutch market within PRGN’s global community. In this role he focuses on strengthening collaboration among member agencies, fostering cross-border campaigns and sharing best practices in integrated communications.

About the Hosts

Abbie Fink is president of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, Arizona and a founding member of PRGN. Her marketing communications background includes skills in media relations, digital communications, social media strategies, special event management, crisis communications, community relations, issues management, and marketing promotions for both the private and public sectors, including such industries as healthcare, financial services, professional services, government affairs and tribal affairs, as well as not-for-profit organizations.

Dr. Adrian McIntyre is a cultural anthropologist, media personality, speaker, and strategic communications consultant for PR agencies and marketing firms. He's lived in over 30 countries and spent more than a decade in the Middle East and Africa as a researcher, journalist, communications adviser, media spokesperson, and storytelling consultant. He earned a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Fulbright scholar and National Science Foundation fellow. Adrian helps agency leaders strengthen their positioning, sharpen their messaging, boost their visibility, and win new clients by replacing impersonal, intrusive and ineffective marketing tactics with authentic human conversations.

PRGN Presents is brought to you by Public Relations Global Network, the world’s local public relations agency. Our executive producer is Adrian McIntyre. The show is produced by the team at Speed of Story, a B2B communications firm in Phoenix, AZ.

Follow the Podcast

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow PRGN Presents in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other podcast app. We publish new episodes every other Thursday. To have them delivered automatically and free of charge, just choose your preferred podcast player from this list, open the app, and click the button to “Follow” the show: https://prgnpodcast.com/listen

Need to hire a PR firm?

Leading a business effectively in today's fast-paced world requires expert guidance and a strong communications strategy. No matter where you do business, PRGN has a member agency in your region with the deep industry expertise, international experience, and local market knowledge you need to connect with your target audience and achieve your goals. Find a PR firm near you »

From the Public Relations Global Network, this is PRGN Presents. I’m Adrian McIntyre.

And I’m Abbie Fink, President of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, Arizona and a founding member of PRGN. With public relations leaders embedded into the fabric of the communities we serve, clients hire our agencies for the local knowledge, expertise and connections in markets spanning six continents across the world.

Our guests on this biweekly podcast series are all members of the Public Relations Global Network. They will discuss such topics as workplace culture, creative compensation and succession planning, the importance of sustainability and environmental, social and governance programs, crisis communications, and outside of the box thinking for growing your business.

For more information about PRGN and our members, please visit prgn.com. And now let’s meet our guest for this episode.

I’m Fred, Frédéric François from Two cents in Belgium, and I’m the brand new president of PRGN. Happy to be, and happy to be for 14 months. So I’m happy to be here tonight also.

Well, first of all, congratulations and I think the Public Relations Global Network is under great leadership with you at the helm and as the newly appointed marketing committee chair. It’s an honor for me to serve with you and have you today on the podcast. And I think what is one of the things that has driven our agency to be an active member in the Public Relations Global Network — one of the founding members of the network — is really our knowledge and expertise on not only serving our clients in terms of the tactical things that we need to do in order to support their businesses, but in the aggregate, our understanding of the impact that we make as communications professionals in addressing those things that matter to public relations practitioners and then how we position the network as knowledge experts on those topics.

And at our meeting a few months back, when you took over the leadership role, you presented to the network your mission for your term, and you outlined some very important and very critical issues that I think are facing not only our industry, but really the larger business community. And I thought it would be very appropriate, as you take on that role, to share a little bit about your vision for the network and how as members and as agency leaders across the world, we’re going to impact some of these key initiatives. So if you could just, you know, you laid out two or three that were important to you and I think we can spend a little bit of time chatting about those. So if you want to share a little bit about your overall vision for the network and then why these, these particular topics are going to be the driving force for the network over the course of the next Year to, you know, year and a half under your term.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. The reason why I chose and I proposed a few thematics to the board, the executive committee and the membership was that I want to help the network, I want to help the members, but I want also PRGN to be able to serve our community and our democracies. So that’s why we came to three topics and the first topic talking about democracy is talking about fake news or misinformation or disinformation.

When, when, when in, in Europe we talk about fake news and, and these topics we, we think about the US or, or, or Russia. But it’s not only the US and, and, and Russia, it’s, it’s also in Europe. I think it’s all over the globe today. I think the new media that, that, that we work with all over the planet help that of course, but, but also politicians all over the globe, not only across the ocean but also in, in Europe are using it and misusing it. And, and we see also in, in Europe in, in Hungary, of course we know about it, but also in France, in Germany, in the Netherlands, and even in our really lovely and quiet country as, as Belgium, we see now politicians that are fighting against state television or state radio trying to cancel them, trying to get rid of them because they cannot control them and because they are televisions and TV or newspapers who are doing fact checking and they hate fact checking because they try only to disseminate their own truth.

And I think we have to fight that as a network. We have to fight that as companies, we have to fight that as human beings because it’s important for us, it’s important for our democracy and it’s in fact also very important for our business. So I think it’s really important to be there. Another topic that we have chosen was the digital way to do to handle things. We position ourselves as network and as member of PRGN Network as companies who are digital first companies.

I’m sure we are, but I’m not sure that we are all in the same way. I’m sure not everyone maybe for some companies being digital can mean doing social media, for other doing podcasts, for others producing websites or being active on SEO or GEO. But I would like to assess all of our members to see if we are really digital, and in which way we are, and to see if there are gaps — and if there are gaps, to fill these gaps.

So that’s more helping our members to achieve a digital-first mindset so that in the long term PRGN can not only position itself as a network of digital-first members, but that we really are credible about it, that it’s really true, worthy. And of course, when you are talking digital, that brings us to … like I said in Nairobi, next to the beautiful nature. We were there, you cannot forget about the elephant in the room, which is AI.

And there also, I think AI is so, so important today. So, so big, so all over the place, so vast, but also too vast. So there are too many tools, too many AI tools, too many possibilities and you can’t know them all. Our members cannot know them all. And maybe they don’t have to know them all, but they have to know the basics, they have to know the essentials. And there I would like to also be able to give our members a kind of toolbox where they can find a list of prompts, a list of policies that have to be taken into considerations, to have tips and tricks, to have a list of tools that are really interesting for our PR business. So also there to help our membership to be able to service their clients in an effective way using AI. Embracing AI but not losing themselves in AI.

Well, and what stands out for me in those three priorities that you’ve laid out, the combating mis- and disinformation. How are we going to accelerate the digital transformation? How we members are going to manage that and support it in a way that puts us at the forefront of the discussion? And of course, AI, which is impacting so much of what we’re doing. Those three priorities for me are very interconnected in that each one impacts changes the dynamic of the other.

And of course, with digital first and the fact that it’s such a common place now for us to be thinking about, whether we’re business individuals, whether we’re PR practitioners, just digital is everywhere. I mean, everyone with a phone now can be, you know, a producer of content and doesn’t have to necessarily have the background in that, which leads to things like mis- and disinformation because they can put out basically any, you know, anything they want without an ethical lens or an editor’s viewpoint of something.

And of course, AI allows us to create information at lightning speed and in whatever fashion we want. What drives this conversation for me and where I’m, where I’m most intrigued about is the, is the interplay of those three initiatives and how, you know, with our 50 – 55 agencies around the world. And as you said, each of us think about these things maybe a little bit differently based on where we are located in the world.

But as an organization, as leading public relations agency owners across the world, we have to be paying attention to the impact that these things are having in and with the clients that we support and in the way that we do what we do. It is troublesome to me when misinformation, disinformation, fake news is, well, not only that it is just out there because we know that it is, but that how believable it has become, right?

That it is only proliferating as quickly as it is because people start to believe what they’re seeing is true. It has gotten better at being better fake, more fake, better at being fake. And one of the things that we spend a lot of time talking about with our team and with our clients is how to be smarter about recognizing what is fake and what isn’t. Accurate information, not just not factually incorrect, but intentionally incorrect.

And that’s, to me, is a pretty important element of your initiatives and how PRGN is going to be leading in that conversation and really how the other two, AI and digital, are going to support how we combat disinformation.

Yeah, I really think the fake news things we have to try to do is to find good partners. Also, we are looking into partnering with some ONGs [NGOs] or other organizations to help us to fight, because it’s a real fight to see how we can help not only our members, but also the media and also the people, like you said, recognizing and helping them to recognize fake news and to make the distinction between what is real and what is not. Because if tomorrow no one believes anything anymore or, or at the opposite, everyone believes everything, then where is our role as PR specialists?

We don’t have any role anymore if we are in one of these two situations. So we have to avoid that. We have to work with our members, with our organization, with PRGN and with other organizations to try to avoid that we go in such a way. So we are hoping very soon to find good partners to be able to organize some actions there. And of course, AI will be a topic there, because AI helps fake news.

Like you said, today you can hardly recognize a video that is real or not, so that’s really a problem. So also there we will have to work on policies. We have to work on explaining to people how to be able to recognize fake news.

You mentioned that one of your tasks or outcomes is going to be the creation of a toolkit for our members in order to evaluate AI and its impact on the future of public relations. And that’s a very internal effort. Some of these other things have a more external effort. Combating disinformation and digital transformation. How will we as members of the network help you fulfill on these three missions? What is your intent for us as members and how we will carry forth out into the big bad world, those things that you’d like to see us put forward?

You will be asked for a lot of work to help me to achieve this, because I think it’s quite ambitious and maybe a little too ambitious. But in the 13 months that are still there, we have a quite good plan. During the month of December, we had the kickoff of three meetings. Each one of these meetings related to one of the three topics where we deployed our plan for the coming year and where we discussed the topics that we will work on first, also seeing who will do what.

Because we are a network of 55 agencies all over the world, and most of the people who are working within these task forces are doing it pro bono on top of their job. So it’s not always easy to advance quickly. But nevertheless, we have also set some hard deadlines. And the first really big deadline is our next live meeting in Istanbul, which will be held in the month of May. And by this month of May, on the three topics, we would like to have clear, advanced steps that will be taken.

We want to have a partner on the fake news. We want the partner to be present at the Istanbul meeting so that we can have a debate there. We want to have the assessment of all the members on the digital first by then, and to have analyzed it and to have determined which are the most important gaps so that we can deploy some programs to help some members to fill these gaps by then. And on the AI, we would really like to have the toolbox ready by then so that we have the next six months, the other part of my presidency, to be able to work on the fake news with the organization, to be able to really train the members who have some digital gaps and to be able to have a lot of interactions on the toolbox to help our members. So that’s the planning for the next 12 months to go well.

Last year, the Public Relations Global Network conducted what we refer to as the Influencer Survey. And we addressed a variety of different topics in that survey on what brands need to do and how are they influencing and what is influencing them. We are about to put into the field the second edition of that survey and we are incorporating some of your initiatives into that survey because it will be important, I think as the network starts evaluating and our role in the combating disinformation or the digital or AI.

But it’ll be important for us to also understand externally what communications directors and in-house communications directors, Chief Marketing Officers, CEOs at organizations around the world see these topics as well. Because again, if we’re, if as a network we are going to take on the responsibility of being a leading voice on these topics, we are better informed when we have this knowledge and expertise that’s coming to us from other like-minded individuals and you mentioned organizations and things that we are going to ask to join us in some of these conversations.

So there will be a lot of conversations internally with our network members and certainly we’re going incorporate the conversation from what we hear from our survey, which will set I think a real foundation for how we move forward your vision in the second half of your term after we launch some of these initiatives at our meeting in Istanbul. But the beauty I think of the network and one of the reasons that our agency has stayed involved all these years and why it’s easy to talk about it and what it has, you know, what it’s done for our business and our clients and why when we have the opportunity to meet with prospective agency owners that are interested in learning how they might become a member of the network is the varying perspectives on it on a particular topic and that we, we all might have a, you know, the same job description and that we run and manage public relations agencies. But our lived experiences and what is happening in our own individual markets truly do inform the way we approach these things.

And to have that global perspective on some of these really important topics I think is essential in its success for the network to be able to move that forward. And I’m assuming as you were developing this platform for your term, that was uppermost in your mind as well, is that this multiple amount of voices that we have and different perspectives really helps move these topics forward.

Yeah, I’m really looking forward to having the feedback and the input and the results of what’s coming up in January and February. And I really hope that we will be able to use this input from all these companies and CEOs and, and CMOs to help us develop our three pillars here. And I’m sure it will be really useful to have that.

Thanks for listening to this episode of PRGN Presents, brought to you by the Public Relations Global Network.

We publish new episodes every other week, so subscribe now in your favorite podcast app. Episodes are also available on our website, along with more information about PRGN and our members, at prgn.com.