04.12.2025|
In the Beginning Was the Consultant
Kaspar Silberschmidt’s book “Meinungsmacher” (The Opinion Makers) offers a national history of Swiss public relations – diligent, fact-rich, but chronologically narrow. A pity, because PR is more than associations, agencies, and interest politics. It follows the ancient pattern: human communication as the staging of power. Its origins go back to the Old Testament. PR fosters the belief that more is possible than reason suggests. Then, as now.
Swiss PR has more “fathers” than children – the field knows no true inventor. Even the title doyen is contentious: it means little more than “the most senior,” yet it sounds reverential. That Klaus J. Stöhlker once awarded himself this title suits a profession full of alpha personalities endlessly vying for interpretive supremacy.
In my twenty years in the industry, I have met many who prefer centre stage to the substance of their work. Still, it’s worth remembering: the first PR consultant had nothing to do with Zurich, Bern, or Basel.
Let us start with the first person who called upon “our” services. His name was Moses. For those unfamiliar with him – he is the man from the Bible who not only “downloaded” the Ten Commandments from God, but was also tasked with leading the Jewish people out of slavery from Egypt to freedom. The entire operation would not have worked without a consultant.
The First PR Miracle
Moses was a pessimist and a fatalist. That, too, sounds familiar. He believed he had zero credibility among the people he was supposed to lead through the desert. As with us PR consultants and our clients, God took pity on him. To boost his self-confidence, He let him perform a few miracles: Moses turned his shepherd’s staff into a snake – and then back again. When we build someone’s public image, we do not always go about it the same way, but often in a similar minds.
Still, the miracles didn’t really help Moses. He had another tangible problem: communication didn’t come easily to him – he stuttered. “I am not a man of words, and I have a heavy tongue,” he told God. So he asked someone else to take over his job.
Turning Doubt into Belief: Convincing the Impossible
But God does not negotiate. He sent Aaron, Moses’ brother, into the picture. Aaron’s role was to put the right words in Moses’ mouth, secure his authority, and make him the leader who would bring the Jewish people to the Promised Land.
Aaron’s success was to convince Moses to attempt the seemingly impossible: the parting of the Red Sea. He achieved precisely what remains at the heart of our profession today – inspiring the belief that more is possible than one dares to imagine.
Baits tend to work well in such situations, according to experience. What Aaron promised Moses is not recorded. I would certainly have offered him a chapter in the Bible.
Behind Every Prophet Stands a Consultant
As so often, behind every successful figure stands an influential consultant. Granted, a touch of divine intervention helped in the execution – after all, we communication consultants cannot do everything on our own.
Our task, as I see it, is to inspire people to believe in themselves, to rise beyond their limits, and step off their well-worn paths. That can be done without divine support.
Even if some of us like to present themselves as fathers, theorists, or doyens of PR, the fact remains: the pioneer of the industry was Aaron – the first communications consultant in history.
Everything else is post-biblical storytelling.
Amen.
This article was first published on September 25, 2025, on persoenlich.com
About the Author
Philippe Welti didn’t invent PR either – PR found him. As with many things in his life, it was thanks to cosmic coincidence. And for the record, he is not nearly as biblically literate as he might seem.