Reputation is your most valuable asset. It is also the one most organisations manage last.
They invest in strategy, operations, finance, and legal. Reputation — the thing that
determines whether customers trust you, employees stay, regulators give you the benefit of the doubt, and media treat you fairly — is left to chance, or addressed only when it is already under threat.
Wilkinson Group works with organisations that have decided to change that.
Senior Reputation Management Counsel — Australia
Wilkinson Group provides reputation management consulting to CEOs, boards, and general counsel across Australia. We are a small, senior firm. When you engage us, you work directly with experienced practitioners who know your business — not a rotating team of account managers.
Reputation is built slowly, across thousands of interactions and decisions. It can be
damaged quickly. Our role as your reputation management consultant is to make sure the organisation you are building matches the reputation you are claiming — and that when it comes under pressure, it holds.
What Reputation Management Actually Means
- Building: Reputation is the product of behaviour, communications, and culture working in alignment. Organisations that enjoy strong reputations have built systems, governance, and culture that generate trust over time.
- Protecting: Every organisation faces risks that could damage its reputation.
Protecting reputation means understanding those risks before they become events, and having tested responses ready when they do. - Recovering: When reputation has been damaged, recovery is possible. But it
requires honesty about what went wrong, visible change, and a disciplined
communications strategy. It takes longer than most organisations expect.
Who We Work With
- Under pressure now: A crisis has occurred, coverage is negative, and trust is eroding. They need a reputation management consultant who combines crisis expertise with a longer view of what recovery requires.
- Anticipating pressure: A major decision, transaction, regulatory process, or public controversy is coming. They want senior counsel in place before the event.
- Building for the long term: They recognise that in an era of AI-accelerated scrutiny and declining public trust, the risk of a reputational event is rising. They want a trusted adviser already embedded before anything happens.
The Trust Environment
The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer — 34,000 respondents across 28 markets — records a world in structural distrust. Only 32% of respondents globally believe the next generation will be better off. Boards and CEOs are expected to act as trust brokers.
Roy Morgan data confirms Australia is in its longest consecutive period of below-neutral consumer confidence this century.
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report identifies 2026 as the year coordinated AI disinformation becomes intentional, targeted, and market-moving. The organisations navigating this environment well share one characteristic: a trusted reputation management consultant already in place before an event arrives.
Online Reputation Management
Online reputation management is a specific and growing dimension of the broader discipline. A single media article, social media thread, or coordinated disinformation campaign can define how an organisation is perceived online — sometimes permanently, if not actively managed.
Wilkinson Group’s approach combines AI-powered surveillance across media, social, regulatory, and broadcast channels with senior human interpretation — distinguishing genuine threats from background noise, and responding strategically rather than reactively.
Wilkinson Confidante — Our Reputation Management Retainer
For organisations that want ongoing, embedded reputation counsel, Wilkinson Group offers Wilkinson Confidante — a retained advisory service built around Reputation Building, Crisis Preparedness, and Risk Intelligence.
Learn more about Wilkinson Confidante: https://www.wilkinson-group.com.au/#confidante
Reputation Recovery
If your organisation's reputation has already taken a hit, recovery is not simply a matter of better communications. The organisations that recover well acknowledge what went wrong honestly, make visible verifiable changes, and communicate those changes consistently over time.
Peter Wilkinson has guided organisations through reputation recovery following royal commissions, regulatory findings, media investigations, governance failures, and sustained activist campaigns across Australia.
About Peter Wilkinson — Reputation Management Consultant
Peter Wilkinson is one of Australia&’s most experienced reputation management consultants. As Managing Director of Wilkinson Group and Chairman of Wilkinson Butler, he has spent 24 years advising boards, CEOs, and general counsel on reputation management across Australia. Before moving into communications, Peter spent 30 years as a journalist.