Two SCMPs in a unique co-leadership structure

Benoit Laplante and Marie-Soleil Pepin:

A global business bets not on one, but two Strategic Communication Management Professionals to accelerate and grow organizational impact.

Marie-Soleil Pépin and Benoit Laplante are co-leading Brand, Marketing & Communications at CPCS, a global infrastructure advisory firm working on some of the world’s largest transportation and energy initiatives.

What makes their co-leadership especially noteworthy is reporting to co-CEOs, likely making this “co-co” model a rare, yet instructive case.

Why CPCS chose two, not one

After Laplante built and scaled CPCS’s function, team, and organization capabilities, his mandate grew alongside the company’s ambitious growth objectives. So rather than ask one leader to simply take on more, CPCS decided to bring in a co-chief.

“The combination of SCMP and MBA credentials establishes a shared framework for leadership and decision-making,” Pepin says. “Whatever our perspectives, we are aligned on what matters: strategy, ethics, measurable impact, and organizational value.” 

For recruiters and CEOs building their own leadership or functional teams, the lesson isn’t “hire two people.” It’s that certified, business-literate communications expertise has become a genuine competitive asset, one worth actively recruiting for, rather than treating it as optional.

What the certification proves

The SCMP certification signals something harder to fake: that a leader has been independently tested against a global, ISO-accredited standard, and must keep proving it. Unlike credentials earned once and never revisited, the SCMP requires ongoing learning and annual recertification to remain in good standing.

“The value of the designation isn’t the letters after your name,” says Laplante. “It’s the discipline that comes with maintaining it. Strategic communication is evolving too quickly for leaders to rely exclusively on what they learned years ago.”

Pépin sees a similar connection between professional standards and leadership effectiveness.

“High-performing organizations recognize communication leaders as strategic advisors whose insights influence business success,” she says. “Maintaining an internationally accredited certification reflects our commitment to staying at the forefront of the profession and delivering excellence with credibility and rigor.”

Two heads are better than one

CPCS has embraced co-leadership since 2018. Most of its executive team now operates under this structure, which runs counter to the conventional wisdom that clear accountability requires a single chief.

The firm, which is employee-owned, does things differently. Co-leadership, its executives say, has proven its value in several ways: sharper decision-making, more fulfilling work, greater resilience, and more ways for employees to access and engage with senior leadership.

“We don’t view co-leadership as dividing a role in two,” says Pépin. “We view it as a force multiplier that benefits the organization.”

Neither leader is a substitute for the other, and that’s by design.

“Our experiences overlap in important ways but are not interchangeable,” says Laplante. “That is one of the model’s strengths. It gives the organization access to two leaders who can work across different opportunities, markets, time zones and priorities while staying aligned around one strategy.”

Two different paths to the same Global Standard

Pépin brings expertise in marketing communications, culture, engagement, and transformation, helping organizations align people and strategy to drive meaningful business outcomes. A former President of IABC Québec, she serves on the IABC Canada East Board as Director of National Awards and was named a 2024 IABC Canada Master Communicator, the association’s highest individual honour and a distinction held by only a select group of Canadian communicators.

Laplante’s experience spans the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, with roles in sales, public relations, marketing, brand strategy and organizational transformation. From 2020 to 2021, Laplante sat on the IABC international taskforce that helped shape the Global Communication Certification Council credentialing program and exams that he would later have to sit himself. In 2020, the council’s Communication Management Professional designation became the first communications credential in the world accredited under ISO/IEC 17024. A year later, its advanced designation, Strategic Communication Management Professional, received the same accreditation. He has also served on the board of IABC Ottawa and previously held volunteer leadership roles with the Ottawa-Gatineau chapter of the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) and its Quebec counterpart, the Société québécoise des professionnels en relations publiques (SQPRP).

Laplante had no way of knowing, at the time, that he’d eventually be measured by the very standard he helped build, or that he’d end up sharing the top job with someone else who was too.

The bottom line: Not every organization needs a co-leadership model, and not every capable pair could sustain one. But companies increasingly compete on the depth of their workforce, and the need for communicators who can prove their judgment against an independent, globally recognized standard is only growing. For CPCS, the formula is working.

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The Strategic Communications Management Professional certification is offered by the Global Communication Certification Council, a Strategic partner.