The state of CEO letters in 2025
Each year, our team reads hundreds of reports published by all types of businesses to understand trends in environmental, social and governance (ESG) communication. When we’re starting to get a feel for a company’s story, one of the first pages we turn to is the leadership message.
We’re not the only ones. Among clients for whom we produce digital reports (and can therefore track analytics by page), messages from chief executive officers (CEOs) and other leaders are consistently one of the most-viewed pages of a report.
These messages set the stage for the content that follows. And they can often be revealing: of the thinking behind a recent acquisition, the dynamics behind a strategy shift, or perspective on how they see their role within the zeitgeist.
How are leaders making use of this platform? To check in on the current state of leadership messages, we reviewed 50 sustainability reports published in 2025. Here’s a look at what we found.
Consistency in length, with a few exceptions.
Most companies devote a page or two of their reports — and approximately 400 to 800 words — to a message from their CEO or other leader. We saw a median word count of 585 words, while a few longer letters pulled the mean word count upward to 629 words. This length is generally more than enough for a compelling message that readers will take the time to absorb.
The clear outlier on the long end was NVIDIA at 1,587 words. It’s perhaps not surprising that the world’s most valuable company by market cap — and one that has likely spent more time in the headlines in 2025 than any year in its history — chose to use its CEO letter as an opportunity to answer some burning questions about AI, data centers and sustainability. On the short side is CBRE, with a 64-word note that invites readers to dive right in.
A combination of authors and formats.
There is no hard-and-fast rule that a leadership message must come from a company’s CEO — or even that it be from a single author. In 2025, companies in our sample mixed things up with a range of message styles and formats. For example, 30% of companies included multiple letters in their reports, such as one from the CEO and another from the chief sustainability officer (CSO). This approach helps keep messages focused but distinct. For example, in McCormick & Company’s 2024 Purpose-Led Performance Report, the CEO discusses how purpose guides the company’s focus on positive impact. An accompanying letter from the CSO calls out key programs and proof points that made a difference in the past year.
Other companies choose to publish messages from other leaders, including an executive chair (Ford); a joint message from multiple authors (Autodesk); a CSO message alongside a CEO quote (International Paper); or even a message from leadership with no named authors at all (Lockheed Martin). Of the reports in our sample, only Ulta Beauty published a message in the form of a Q&A. We encourage companies to explore these and other creative approaches for expressing leadership insights.
Steering clear of politics.
The days of companies taking a vocal stance on social issues, including racial injustice, LGBTQ+ rights and immigration, have waned. In reports published between 2020 and 2022, it was common to see company leaders speaking out on these topics. Today, businesses have decided that neutral ground is safer ground. None of the executives in our sample explicitly addressed the political environment or got specific about hot-button issues affecting their employees or other stakeholders.
About 12% of reports mentioned diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in their leadership messages. This is a notable decrease, however, from the 32% who covered such topics the previous year. We also saw a shift in focus from specific goals and demographic groups to a more general nod to diversity of experience.
What we are seeing as we dive deeper into these reports, however — and what we are hearing anecdotally from our clients — is that these shifts amount to not an abandonment of DEI, but rather a recalibration or a rebrand. Given external pressures shaping disclosure, the relatively long shelf life of ESG reports, and a desire to connect DEI initiatives to business outcomes, many businesses seem to be determining that they can better keep up this work if they do so out of the spotlight.
Missed opportunities to connect the dots.
Leadership letters tend to fall into two camps: those that provide a summary of key points from a report, and those that use the letter as an opportunity to offer a point of view. Messages in the latter group might explain how a company is positioned to address key societal challenges (such as in the NVIDIA example above) or use an anecdote to show why a specific issue matters to the business. We believe that these types of letters are the strongest because they humanize and contextualize report content, making readers more likely to engage.
That said, less than half (40%) of the leadership messages in our sample used this method. A larger number (44%) summarized key points covered in the report — what we call the “greatest hits” approach. The remaining 16% used a combination of these tactics, listing some highlights paired with broader context. Because many reports already contain content designed to summarize — think executive summaries or at-a-glance pages — we see doing more of the same in a leader’s message as a missed opportunity.
A leadership message is also an ideal place for an executive to explain the connections between ESG topics and their company’s business strategy. In 2025, 56% of messages did just that, often mentioning the integration of sustainability considerations in their business strategy or the financial impacts of sustainability issues on long-term value creation. We see an opportunity for more businesses to use this tactic. At a time when ESG programs are being questioned, reports are scaling back to initiatives that are most strategically important. In this environment, CEOs and other leaders have an important role to play as advocates for company priorities.
As you start gearing up and gathering content for your next reporting cycle, consider this your reminder of the untapped communications potential of a leadership message. Chances are it’s one of the most visible pages of your report, so take the time to make it count.
