Australia's Senior Crisis and Reputation Advisory Team

Wilkinson Group is one of Australia’s most experienced crisis communications consultants and reputation management consultancies. We provide senior counsel to CEOs,internal PR, boards, and general counsel across Australia. We are small by design and senior by necessity. The work we do cannot be delegated to a junior team.

Wilkinson Group was founded in 2002 by Peter Wilkinson, after 30 years as a journalist on the ABC’s 7.30 and Four Corners, and Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes and A Current Affair. That career shaped a firm built on direct senior access, not junior teams on retainer, a model that has held for 24 years. Read Peter’s full background here.

Every engagement at Wilkinson Group has oversight by Peter Wilkinson. Sydney-based, with national reach across Australia, there are no layers, no account managers, no junior intermediaries. When you call, you speak to the person doing the work.

For our limited number of retained clients, this means Peter is already across your business, your board, your risk profile, and your stakeholder landscape before anything happens. Whether the issue involves crisis communications, reputation management, or broader issues management across Australia, when an event occurs there is no briefing delay, no learning curve. The adviser who needs to move immediately is already in place.

Continuity does not stop at the boundary between the two services. Crisis communications and reputation management are not split between separate retainers or handed to different people within the practice. The same senior counsel who manages an acute crisis is the one who carries the reputation work once the immediate pressure passes, so nothing needs to be relearned and nothing gets handed off partway through.

For crisis clients, this means the same crisis communications consultant in Sydney who takes your call at midnight is the person who sits with your board the next morning, shapes the strategy, and drives the response, whether the issue is local, national, or cross-jurisdictional.

Wilkinson Group is a small, senior team. Each member brings a specific and complementary expertise.

Peter Wilkinson is a member of Reputation Advisors International, a curated global network of senior crisis PR and reputation management consultants. As a Sydney-based crisis communications consultant with reach across Australia and internationally, this network provides clients access to the most experienced practitioners in the field worldwide when issues cross jurisdictions.

Wilkinson Group is also part of the Global Communications Alliance (GCA), connecting senior independent corporate affairs and public affairs agencies across international markets.

Wilkinson Group’s sister agency is Wilkinson Butler, a Sydney corporate affairs agency with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Peter Wilkinson was the former Chairman.

Wilkinson Butler specialises in three pillars: Crisis and Reputation Management; Sustainability and Energy Transitions; and Digital. As a full-service crisis PR agency across Australia, Wilkinson Butler serves clients requiring media relations, government relations, community engagement, and digital strategy, complementing Wilkinson Group’s senior crisis communications and reputation management counsel for Sydney and national clients.