Advisory
We advise where communications, judgement, and exposure are inseparable. Engagements range from urgent response to retained counsel and structured readiness work.
Response and Issue Control
We advise in live situations where the primary requirement is control: of the narrative, the flow of information, and the decision rhythm around the issue. Work typically begins with rapid orientation, message discipline, and a clear operating structure for how enquiries, stakeholder pressure, and internal decision points are handled. The objective is not visibility. It is containment, credibility, and continuity.
Response work commonly includes establishing a press-office function for the duration of the matter, setting routing and escalation for press enquiries, and defining a clear posture across channels. Messaging is developed as a working architecture, not a slogan: holding lines, scenario-aligned narratives, and approved positions that can be deployed consistently across media, stakeholders, and internal audiences. Where the situation demands it, we prepare principals and spokespeople for high-exposure moments, including broadcast interviews, press conferences, and other set-piece engagements.
Alongside external handling, internal communications are treated as operational. Leadership messaging, staff updates, and internal briefings are aligned with the external posture to prevent drift and maintain coherence under pressure. Monitoring supports the response rather than replacing it: media and social monitoring, plus sentiment and market-level readouts, are used to inform decisions, anticipate escalation, and adjust positioning as the situation evolves.
Strategic Readiness
We build readiness before it is needed. The work is designed to reduce improvisation under pressure by establishing a coherent response framework, defined roles, and decision pathways that hold when scrutiny intensifies. This is not training theatre. It is practical preparation that can be activated quickly, with clarity on who decides what, who speaks to whom, and how the organisation maintains control across jurisdictions and stakeholder groups.
Readiness work typically starts with structured threat and vulnerability assessment. Through interviews and targeted review, we map plausible pressure scenarios across governance, people, financial exposure, regulatory attention, customer-facing incidents, activist interest, and broader external risk. The output is a set of scenarios that are taken seriously because they are grounded in how scrutiny actually forms: what triggers it, where it lands first, and how it travels.
From there, we develop crisis strategy by scenario, including messaging architecture, internal and external briefing structures, and stakeholder protocols. This includes press-office readiness, enquiry handling rules, escalation logic, and continuity arrangements for higher-risk windows. Where appropriate, we run scenario exercises and simulations to test decisions, not slides. Media training sits inside this as a practical capability, focused on performance under pressure rather than polished presentation.
Public Affairs and Political Exposure
We advise where political attention, regulatory context, and reputational exposure converge. This includes periods when an issue moves from internal risk to external scrutiny, when policymakers take an interest, when regulators become active, or when a matter becomes politically useful to others. The objective is control of narrative, stakeholder alignment, and decision support in environments where facts alone do not settle outcomes.
Work in this area covers public affairs strategy, stakeholder mapping, and engagement planning across government, regulators, parliament, authorities, associations, and relevant third-party ecosystems. This can include preparing submissions, shaping the public-interest framing of a position, coordinating advocacy through credible external voices, and managing cross-jurisdiction exposure where issues travel between capitals. We treat this as a reputational discipline as much as a policy one: the question is not only what is said, but who can say it with authority, how it lands, and how it affects the wider operating environment.
Where needed, we support issue elevation and narrative shaping in longer-horizon situations. This includes coalition-building with aligned stakeholders, identifying pressure points and decision forums, and coordinating communications that operate indirectly rather than through client visibility.
Corporate Reputation and Governance Matters
We advise on reputation in the ordinary sense of corporate life, where visibility is not the point but consequences are. This includes board and leadership reputation, stakeholder confidence, and situations where governance sensitivity makes communications inseparable from decision-making. The work is often quiet, directional, and designed to prevent avoidable exposure before it becomes public.
This covers corporate transitions and market-facing moments that attract scrutiny: leadership changes, sensitive announcements, acquisitions and disposals, restructurings, and other change events where stakeholders, regulators, employees, investors, and counterparties interpret signals as much as statements. We support message architecture, sequencing, and stakeholder routing so communications reinforce control rather than create new risk.
Where financial and capital-markets dynamics apply, we advise on results communications, investor sensitivity, and credibility under pressure. When activist attention, pressure groups, or competitor provocation is a factor, we map the exposure, track signals, and shape responses that protect the organisation’s room to act. Internal communications are treated as part of the same system, because governance and culture failures tend to surface first inside the organisation, then outside it.
If you require confidential advice on a sensitive matter, you may contact us directly to request a callback.
Every engagement is handled with the utmost discretion.