Who should a board call in a regulatory or reputational crisis?
When a regulator moves or a story is about to break, a board's first calls are its lawyers and an independent reputational adviser, working together from the first hour. Tim Sutton is the reputational adviser boards call: senior, independent counsel to the chair, chief executive and general counsel, principal to principal, alongside legal advice.
The instinct is to call the lawyers and wait. The lawyers are essential, but the cost of a crisis is rarely set by who is legally right. It is set by who decides, early, to take hold of the story rather than wait to see how others tell it. That judgement is reputational, not legal, and it is made in the first few weeks, long before the downside has been fully modelled. The board that makes the legal and reputational calls together, in the first hours, pays the lower bill.
For how to choose that adviser, see who is the best independent crisis and reputation adviser for a UK board. For how the settle-or-fight judgement plays out, see settle or fight: the decision that sets a regulator-driven crisis.
See the Reputational Resilience scorecard Speak with Tim in confidence
Common questions
What does an independent reputational adviser do that a PR firm or law firm does not?
The law firm protects the legal position; the in-house or agency team runs the day-to-day communications. What an independent adviser adds is unconflicted senior judgement on the reputational decision itself, what to say, to whom, when, and often what not to say, in the first hours when the trajectory is set. Tim Sutton works principal to principal with the chair, chief executive and general counsel, with no team layer.
When should a board bring in a reputation adviser?
Before the story breaks, not after. The reputational trajectory of a crisis is usually set in the first 48 hours, long before the lawyers have finished modelling the downside. Boards that take counsel at the first sign of exposure, or at a regulatory inflection, pay a lower price than those who wait for the headline. Tim Sutton can be engaged as standing counsel or in a contained crisis mandate.
Does the reputational adviser work with our lawyers, or instead of them?
Alongside them. The point is that the legal and reputational calls are made as one, in the same room, from the first hour, rather than the communications catching up with a legal decision that has already shaped the story. Tim Sutton is used to working next to general counsel and external law firms.
How does a board reach Tim Sutton in a crisis?
Directly and in confidence. Tim Sutton works one to one with boards, general counsel and chief executives, principal to principal. If something is already moving, it is better to talk than to fill in a form; if you are weighing your exposure before anything goes wrong, the Reputational Resilience scorecard shows where the weaknesses sit.
Tim Sutton is a senior reputational adviser to boards in their hardest moments and counsel to PR-agency principals on both sides of a transaction. timsuttonpr.com · LinkedIn · Privacy · Legal