“Don't Be Fearful, Be Prepared”: Clarity Launches Global Crisis Council

(MENAFN- PRovoke) LONDON - Strategic communications and digital marketing agency Clarity has formed the Clarity Global Crisis Council, made up of Clarity's own crisis specialists and a panel of external experts, to provide an expanded, follow-the-sun crisis and reputation management service.

The move follows Clarity's 2023 Acquisition of Australian crisis and reputation management agency Sefiani , and is in response to demand from clients, according to CEO Rachel Gilley. She told PRovoke Media:“The reputation of C-level execs has always been key but now they know how powerful it is – they are less arrogant and much more open to the notion that they can succeed or fall based on having a crisis recovery service in place.

“CEOs are realising the importance of what they've said, where they say it and how it gets picked up and they are terrified. There is an awful lot of fear, but we say – don't be fearful, be prepared. Get your C-suite and comms people in a room to ensure this is something you can mitigate against when you are faced with the inevitable.

The Clarity Global Crisis Council is led by the agency's senior crisis and reputation specialists Robyn Sefiani and Nicholas Owens in Sydney, Michael Gonzalez in London, Kristen Ingraham in New York and Jason Wakeford in Los Angeles.

Also appointed to the Clarity Global Crisis Council are a number of independent crisis and reputation specialists who will work alongside the agency crisis team on projects:

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  Catherine Colloms, who has over 25 years' of crisis management experience with an background in corporate, agency and government affairs in the UK and Europe. She was most recently director of corporate affairs and brand at Openreach.
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  Laetitia Gruwel, who was the crisis and reputation lead at Edelman Amsterdam, before founding her own firm in the Netherlands.
• Bob McNaney, who has over a decade of experience as a crisis counsellor in the US and before that was an Emmy-award-winning investigative journalist.
• ·James Brasher, who has led agencies in Asia for over two decades, advising clients on proactive and defensive reputation management. He is managing partner of RICE, a Clarity affiliate in Singapore.
• Patrick O'Neill, who is based in Brazil and co-founded Sherlock Communications, Clarity's affiliate agency in Latin America, with over two decades of crisis counselling experience.

The agency also works with global online crisis reputation management and digital communications risk specialist Digitalis, and global crisis simulation company Polpeo.

Gilley said:““We've had approaches from clients who wanted to follow the sun, and also from clients with crises where we had to call in experts in-market from specific sectors, so we decided to make it a more formal set up so brought in someone from each market to support us. These people are extraordinary, these are people who have done crisis on a huge scale.

“We're seeing clients wanting that crisis simulation piece. What Polpeo do is superb, and Digitalis are in a league of their own.”

Sefiani, Clarity's president ANZ, added:“The Clarity Global Crisis Council is ready to address any reputation risk whenever and wherever it emerges. Our follow-the-sun service can extend to crafting a 360° crisis response, designing a crisis preparedness workshop, auditing digital footprints for reputation risk, tackling social media disinformation, preparing for forthcoming legal action, building resilience across digital, Wikipedia and media platforms, and curating a bespoke approach to reputation challenges on the horizon.

“As many of the clients and brands seeking our crisis and reputation management counsel are global, it is reassuring for them to know we have a seamless team of communication, digital, intelligence and analytics specialists around the world to deliver a holistic, follow-the-sun service, to protect and defend their reputations when needed.”

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