Stop treating reputation as a PR problem – it's a strategy problem

There's a question I've been asked more times than I can count, usually after a crisis or reputational challenge has taken hold: "What do we do now?"

The leaders asking it are invariably very capable, experienced, and well-prepared for everything except this. And that's not a reflection on them. It's a reflection of how rarely communications is built into leadership thinking – before it's needed.

I've led a PR agency as MD for nine years, and worked in PR and comms for thirty. I've sat across from CEOs, CFOs, and Chairs at some of the most pivotal moments of their organisations' lives – product failures, leadership scandals, data breaches, and  social media storms. What I've repeatedly seen is that the companies who weather those moments aren't the ones with the best lawyers or the deepest pockets. They're the ones who had communications thinking embedded into their leadership before the crisis arrived.

And yet, despite everything we know about the speed at which reputations can unravel, communications and PR remains one of the most underrepresented disciplines at board level. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) previously analysed the boards and executive management teams of the FTSE 100 and found almost half have no director of communications or director of corporate affairs. This is in contrast to the 80% of FTSE 100 firms that have a dedicated HR professional on their boards or executive management team.

I believe this senior structural gap, in today's environment, is a genuine business risk.

The trust deficit is real and it's getting worse

We are operating in one of the most challenging trust environments in living memory. The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, surveying 33,000 people across 28 countries, found that seven in 10 people now believe business leaders deliberately mislead them. And distrust in business leaders has increased from 21% to 68% since 2021 .

So, more than two-thirds of the public are starting from a position of scepticism about the organisations they buy from, work for, or invest in. This is not a marketing problem. It is a business-critical leadership challenge.

Reputations break businesses

The commercial cost of reputational failure is clear. The case studies are written in billions. Volkswagen's emissions scandal cost the company more than $33 billion (around £26 billion). Facebook lost 66% of user trust after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. And who can ignore the example of Tesla who faced reputational backlash linked to Elon Musk's political role which saw sales drop by 13% – the largest decline in the company's history.

Boston Consulting Group's November 2024 report "From Crisis to Comeback: The Long Road to Rebuilding Corporate Trust” covered how a breach of trust can be damaging to a company's revenues, its culture, its chances of future success, and how businesses can recover. It analysed 177 of the world's largest publicly traded companies over a three-year period and found that nearly 30% have experienced a major trust crisis and in almost every case, recovery has been slow, difficult, and challenging.

Aon's Global Risk Management Survey sees reputational risk consistently ranked among the top concerns for senior executives, yet just 12% of organisations have formally quantified that risk. Most know the danger is real but far fewer are treating it with the rigour they'd apply to financial or operational risk.

The C-Suite is starting to understand, the boardroom needs to follow

Here's the encouraging news: the direction of travel is right. The 2025 Cision and PRWeek Global Comms Report, which surveyed over 400 senior communications leaders worldwide, found that 84% of communications leaders agreed the C-suite had sought their counsel more in the preceding 12 months than in previous years. There is growing recognition that communications is strategic, not just tactical.

Communications professionals are also increasingly reporting directly to the CEO, with nearly half (47%) doing so. A significant shift from 2020, when the majority sat within marketing. The function is moving up the organisational chart but there is a difference between being consulted and being embedded, between being called in when things go wrong and being part of the decisions that prevent things from going wrong in the first place. That is the gap the boardroom still needs to close.

The speed of comms has changed everything

The pace at which reputations can be made or broken has fundamentally changed the reality of communications leadership. What once played out over days or weeks now unfolds in minutes. A single post can reach millions before a comms team has had its first call. A video can go viral before a holding statement has been drafted.

A communications leader who is only brought in when things go wrong is structurally set up to fail. The speed required to protect a modern business reputation cannot be achieved through ad hoc consultation. It requires someone already in the room, informed and trusted who can move at the pace the environment demands.

This was reinforced recently when one of the Speed team attended a Roxhill event with The Times’ Assistant Business Editor, James Hurley, and investigations reporter, George Greenwood. They relayed that once scrutiny begins, perceptions are shaped by how an organisation responds, not just by the original issue itself. In those moments, transparency, clarity, and factual accuracy matter. A direct three-line clarification on what has not been taken into account is more likely to be considered than a generic 500-word statement. By contrast, an evasive or overly defensive response can deepen scrutiny and create new angles, further prolonging a story.

If communications is close enough to the business to understand the facts quickly, and embedded at a senior level to be able to confidently advise, I truly believe the crisis response will take care of itself.

What "a seat at the table" actually means

When I talk about communications being represented at board level, I'm not arguing for a PR person in every boardroom for its own sake. I'm arguing for what it can deliver:

• Reputation as a standing board agenda item. Not crisis response – proactive reputation monitoring, stakeholder sentiment, and narrative alignment reviewed with the same regularity as financial performance. And a consequent business risk matrix that firmly includes reputation.

• Scenario planning that includes communications. Every major strategic decision – whether that’s an acquisition, a restructure, a new market entry, or a leadership change – has a reputational dimension. That dimension needs to be assessed before the decision is made, not communicated afterwards.

• A clear chain of authority in a crisis. The speed and quality of a first response determines the trajectory of a reputational crisis. When communications thinking is embedded at the top of the organisation, that response is faster, more coherent, and more credible.

• Stakeholder intelligence informing strategy. Public sentiment, media narrative, employee trust, investor perception – this is intelligence that should shape business decisions, not follow from them.

Having sat on boards, I understand that they operate on evidence and return. So, here is the business case:

A company with strong reputation management practices is better positioned to attract talent, retain customers, access capital, and manage crises when they arise. It is indisputable that the organisations that navigate reputational challenges most effectively are those that are actively building trust equity before they need to draw on it. That requires communications to be an embedded strategic function. It needs to be funded properly, led by people with genuine seniority, and represented at the level where the decisions that shape reputation are made.

Brand perception also plays a major role in valuation, and even market leaders can see sharp swings if consumer sentiment shifts. The bottom line is that brand is no longer a soft marketing concept, it’s a hard financial asset that can materially affect acquisition price, future cash flows, risk profile, and post-deal performance.

A final thought

I started this piece by talking about the question I get asked most in the aftermath of a crisis. The leaders who ask it are capable, driven seniors who have spent their careers focused on the things that business has always rewarded: financial performance, operational efficiency, customer retention, product quality, and growth.

But the landscape has changed. In an age where trust is key and authenticity all-powerful, reputation is not a communications problem. It is a business strategy problem. And like every other strategy issue it deserves to be addressed at the top.

The question for every leadership team is simple: is communications embedded in how you lead or is it waiting in the wings for when you need it?