Reputational Risk Management

Define reputation and risk to explain reputational risk as the threat to a good name or public perception, with origins in direct, indirect, and external actions.

Reputational risk threatens a company's survival by damaging the good name that undergirds market capitalization and intangible assets like brand value, lowering cost of capital and driving premium pricing.

Identify common reputational risk types, including operational failures, legal and regulatory breaches, marketing, social media and online presence issues, ethical misconduct, governance lapses, accounting errors, and IT security breaches.

Explore how reputational risks cause financial losses, regulatory scrutiny, lost market share, higher cost of capital, and talent retention challenges, illustrated by Wells Fargo and Volkswagen scandals.

Identify the components that shape a company's reputation—consumer trust, employee trust, leadership, customer experience, product quality, online presence, privacy, and diversity and inclusion—and learn to earn trust through transparent practices.

Develop a proactive crisis management plan by forming a crisis team, defining who leads and who serves as spokesperson, and implementing monitoring and testing to protect reputation and revenue.

Explore reputational risk management by examining types of reputational risks, their impacts, and examples; learn about reputation components, auditing, building a small business reputation, and crisis management.