In today’s interconnected world, reputation is everything. I specialize in advising companies, countries, professions, cities, executives, and individuals on how to build, protect, and minimize damage to their good names—also known as reputation risk, one of the top global risks according to many surveys.
Reputation risk is rarely a communications problem. It’s a leadership and governance problem that shows up in communications. I work directly with executives and boards on the strategy, protocols, and judgement calls that sit upstream of a crisis.
Crisis advisory
Preparedness decides the outcome more than the crisis itself does. I help organisations build the plan before they need it: crisis management plans, communication protocols, and rules of engagement, followed by coaching leadership through the decisions that come up once a crisis is live. Where a plan already exists, I audit it against what’s actually likely to happen.
Reputation risk governance
I diagnose where reputation risk sits inside an organisation and build the frameworks, policies, and procedures to manage it, integrated into existing risk structures rather than sitting apart from them.
Stakeholder Reputation Management
Stakeholders shape reputation through what they perceive, not just what actually happens. I work with clients on identifying and profiling stakeholders, researching their perceptions, and building strategies with measurable outcomes, including incident and issue management when a relationship comes under strain.
Proof in practice
I developed the reputation plan and protocols for Statistics South Africa ahead of the 2011 Census, and advised management directly through the process, before, during, and after. I worked with Vodacom’s Risk Committee to build a reputation risk management framework integrated into their enterprise-wide risk management system, drawing on executive interviews and research across the business. I’ve also run employee stakeholder perception audits in the mining sector, working alongside international consultancies.