A few months ago, I had never heard of something called an “International Tumor Board” (ITB), nor for that matter did I know the phrase “immunotherapy” and “targeted therapy”. My lexicon of healthcare terminology has grown as a caregiver. I love connecting the dots between different worlds. In fact, I wrote a piece ‘what is your UI & UX?’ a while ago about the fractal fringes of two disciplines, and how bringing them together can create something new and interesting. This got me thinking “What can I learn from the way an International Tumor Board is run and how can that be of use in the world of Public Relations consulting.
In an AI age of complexity, fragmentation, and unpredictability, the role of PR has evolved from media relations and message delivery to strategic orchestration. Today’s clients are not just seeking communications partners, they’re seeking problem solvers, crisis navigators, and reputation architects. As PR firms strive to deliver best-in-class consulting in this landscape, perhaps inspiration can be drawn from an unlikely source: the world of oncology.
The ITB as a model exemplifies cross-border, cross-disciplinary collaboration to tackle some of the most complex cases in medicine. It offers a compelling framework for how PR firms can raise the bar on strategic consulting. The board is a virtual, multidisciplinary panel of experts including oncologists, radiologists, surgeons, pathologists, and geneticists from around the globe, who convene to review and discuss complex, rare, or high-risk cancer cases. They leverage collective intelligence to arrive at better, more tailored treatment decisions, especially when individual expertise may not be sufficient or when a second opinion could save a life. They are patient-centric, evidence-driven, and deeply collaborative. And at their core, they embody a principle that PR agencies would do well to adopt: When the stakes are high, no single voice holds the answer. You need a council, a leadership collective that can be the bee hive brain.
Imagine if agencies built their own version of an ITB, a high-caliber, cross-functional panel of experts that could be convened around key client challenges. Not as a standing team, but as a modular, curated “braintrust” designed to unlock fresh thinking for complex, high-stakes moments. This Interdiscplinary Thinking Board (ITB) wouldn’t be limited to traditional communications experts. It could include: Behavioral scientists to decode audience mindsets ; Crisis managers to anticipate reputational landmines; Cultural strategists to bring nuance to storytelling; Digital futurists to see around the curve of tech trends; ESG specialists, policy advisors, internal communications experts and domain experts from different industries, depending on the client need. Rather than relying solely on internal teams or standard playbooks, this approach would create a bee hive like intelligence system, pulling the best thinking from across disciplines and geographies.
Three Powerful Ways This Model Can Elevate Agency Consulting
1. Unlocking Bespoke Strategy Through Multidisciplinary Insight: Traditional agency models often segment talent by service line—corporate, digital, creative, public affairs. But client problems don’t come packaged that way. They are messy, hybrid, and deeply contextual. A multinational consumer brand grappling with AI regulation in Asia needs legal insight, policy foresight, tech fluency, and local narrative control—all at once. An Interdisciplinary Thinking Board mirrors this complexity. By gathering diverse voices in one (virtual) room, it helps decode problems from multiple vantage points. This leads to sharper strategy, bolder ideas, and more resilient solutions.
2. Positioning the Agency as a critical issues Co-Pilot, Not a Vendor: Clients are seeking more than execution, they’re looking for strategic partnership. By offering access to an on-demand board of experts, the agency elevates its positioning. It’s no longer just a service provider. It becomes a reputation custodian, a co-pilot in uncertainty, and a co-author of solutions, not just stories. This model shifts the narrative from “agency team” to “client advisory ecosystem” moving PR up the value chain within client organisations.
3. Future-Proofing Internal Talent and Building IP: Every time the ITB is activated, the internal team isn’t just delivering—they’re learning. Exposure to cutting-edge thinkers and unconventional perspectives helps build intellectual muscle inside the agency. Over time, these sessions become a source of institutional IP, helping develop white papers, frameworks, and toolkits that can be reused or refined. This creates a virtuous cycle: the more the board is used, the smarter the agency becomes. It’s like an open-source university inside your consultancy.
Operationalising the Idea: Five steps that could make it work.
1. Curation First: Build a living database of experts across disciplines, internal and external. Think of it as having access to collaborators on call.
2. Trigger Moments: Identify use cases where the board can be activated, high-stakes pitches, reputation-threatening crises, ESG pivots, or major public policy shifts. When not to use the board is also important to specify.
3. Board Sessions: Structure virtual boardrooms to resemble clinical tumour board meetings, case presentation, rapid insight-sharing, cross-examination, and consensus-building.
4. Output Delivery: Translate the board’s insights into a clear, client-facing strategy document or advisory deck.
5. Capture Learnings: Document insights not just for the client, but for training and future reuse.
Caveats: What This Model Is Not: As powerful as this model sounds, it’s important to recognise its limits and potential pitfalls.
It’s Not a Shortcut to Strategy: Calling in experts should amplify internal thinking, not replace it. The best results come when internal client teams frame the problem well, ask the right questions, and synthesise the insights into actionable strategy. The board is an accelerator, not a substitute.
It Can’t Be Overused or Overpromised: Clients don’t want to feel like they’re paying for access to an academic debate. The board should be used judiciously, for meaningful moments, not routine decisions. Frequency should be balanced with impact.
It Requires Serious Orchestration: Managing egos, facilitating dialogue, and ensuring relevance is no small feat. Someone senior must play the role of “board chair,” steering the discussion, aligning expectations, and turning insight into outcome.
As communicators, we are increasingly being asked to help solve problems that are outside our traditional lane, from AI ethics to sustainability disclosures to political risk. And rightly so, because reputation is no longer just about what you say. Reputation is about what you do and how you lead. To meet this moment, and rise to the demands of the occasion, our methods must evolve. By borrowing from the wisdom of the International Tumour Board, agencies can create a more flexible, intelligent, and multi-disciplinary approach to consulting, one that helps clients not just react to the world, but reimagine their place in it.
I know the Tumour Board helped our family find some answers. Maybe the wisdom and counsel of the collective when properly channelised might just be the next frontier in the business of influence. The bee hive brain trust, ‘The Interdisciplinary Thinking Board’ could become the sounding board for ‘best practice’ and ‘next practice’ in PR.L
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A trusted coaching and communications professional, Nikhil Dey is a certified life and leadership coach (International Coach Federation - ICF). Nurturing talent and helping clients achieve their goals is what makes him happy. He loves learning from students of communication, teaching courses and guest lecturing at various educational institutions. When he is not working you will find him on the tennis court or out for long walks with his family and four legged friends.
Previously he has held senior leadership positions at Weber Shandwick and Genesis BCW.
He can be reached on twitter @deydreaming
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