corporate jesternoun.
An employee, consultant, or third party who uses humor to point out a company's flaws and to suggest solutions.
Example Citation:
"It was also the case that groups or localities ... would collectively appoint a jester — and in this less one-to-one relationship he still exists and is, if anything, in the ascendant. When British Airways appointed a Corporate Jester, he was jester to the company, not to the chief executive; similarly a number of cities are starting to appoint municipal jesters-in-residence — such as Salisbury, Leicester, Oxford, Bristol and Wellingborough."
—Beatrice K. Otto, "Fools are everywhere," History Today, June 1, 2001
Notes:
The following citation contains a hint about the first use of this sense of the phrase corporate jester:
"A conservative interpretation of the safety-valve role of the court jester has been outlined by Kets de Vries (1990) who argues that by operating as a critical and questioning truthsayer, the fool is able to moderate leaders' tendencies towards unbridled narcissism, arrogance and hubris. The fool's transgressive critiques are less threatening and more easily accepted because they are articulated through a self-deprecating kind of humour and teasing. ... Kets de Vries suggests that management consultants could act as 'corporate jesters' using humour in their role of change agents."
—Suzana B. Rodrigues, David L. Collinson, "'Having Fun'?," Organization Studies, December 22, 1995
The article the authors are discussing is "The organizational fool: balancing a leader's hubris," by Manfred F. R Kets de Vries, which appeared in the journal Human Relations in 1990.
A different sense of the phrase — a comedian who performs at corporate functions — is a bit older:
"There was no goof shortage at the Anheuser-Busch booth either, where the Budweiser people's official corporate jester, Rick Gerber, was twisting balloons into little animals and pulling cards out of concealed places."
—Judi Dash, "Looking for a dreamboat," The Record, January 15, 1985
