Wilkinson Confidante | Reputation Management Retainer

Wilkinson Confidante is Wilkinson Group’s retained advisory service. It puts a senior adviser on call before a reputational event happens.

It brings under one umbrella crisis support, reputation management and deep risk awareness that, combined, are designed to build trust.

Most organisations only call a reputation management or crisis communications consultant once something has already gone wrong. Confidante is built for the client who wants that counsel already in place: continuous monitoring, tested crisis protocols and direct access to Wilkinson Group Managing Director Peter Wilkinson, on retainer, month after month.

Peter brings 24 years of crisis and reputation management experience to every retainer, alongside a senior team with backgrounds in investigative journalism, financial services, political communications and regulatory affairs.

What a Confidante Retainer Actually Includes

A retainer is not three distinct services bundled together. It’s one relationship, and each part of it sits with the senior adviser who actually does that work, the same person every time, not whoever is rostered on that week.

Ongoing Reputation Counsel

Peter Wilkinson applies the retainer personally. He brings 30 years as a journalist, including roles with ABC’s 7.30, Four Corners and Nine’s 60 Minutes, and 24 years advising Australian boards and CEOs through crisis and reputation management, to Wilkinson Group’s truth, transparency and traceability framework. He is a member of Reputation Advisors International and past-Chair of the Global Communications Alliance. Confidante monitors stakeholder sentiment continuously under his direct oversight, catching shifts in perception before they become reputational events, and Peter is on call for this personally, by phone and text, not handed off to an account team.

Peter Wilkinson, Senior Crisis Communications, Reputation Management Consultant and Managing Director and founder of Wilkinson Group, Sydney

Crisis Preparedness and Simulation

Crisis preparedness under Confidante means tested response protocols, a pre-drafted holding-statement library, and simulated crisis exercises, built before an issue reaches the media, not while it is already breaking. This discipline is shaped by Mark Abernethy, a journalist, speechwriter and political adviser who has written for The Bulletin and the Australian Financial Review and worked inside the political process itself as an adviser and lobbyist. His experience spans financial services, defence, infrastructure, property and resources sector communications, sectors where a mishandled first statement carries regulatory consequences as well as reputational ones. Mark brings a writer’s instinct and a political strategist’s judgment to every protocol he tests, so the holding statement is ready before the phone rings, not drafted while it is ringing

Mark Abernethy, Senior Crisis Communications and Reputation Management Consultant at Wilkinson Group, Sydney

Issues Intelligence

Confidante provides continuous, AI-powered monitoring across media, social, regulatory and broadcast channels, interpreted by senior counsel rather than left as a raw dashboard. That interpretation comes from Vessa Playfair, who spent 16 years as Head of Corporate Affairs and Communications for a Big Four professional services firm after ten years running her own financial PR firm through mergers, acquisitions and IPOs. She has been the trusted adviser to CEOs and chairs across 32 mergers and has guided organisations through high-profile insolvencies, work that depends on knowing which signal in a crowded market actually moves a stakeholder’s confidence, not just which one is loudest.

Vessa Playfair, Senior Corporate Communications Advisor at Wilkinson Group, Sydney

Judgment on What a Signal Actually Means

Any organisation can buy a media-monitoring subscription. What Confidante adds is the judgment to know which signal, among hundreds, is worth a phone call. That judgment comes from Duncan McNab, a former NSW Police Force detective who investigated anti-corruption and fraud before becoming an award-winning investigative journalist, documentary maker and the author of 13 books. He has served as director of communications to NSW Government ministers and managed public affairs for major regulatory bodies, giving him a working knowledge of how a regulator actually moves once a matter is referred, not just how it looks from outside. Policing, journalism and government affairs, held by one person, is an unusual combination, and it is exactly what separates an issue that will define an organisation from one that disappears by Friday.

Duncan McNab, senior crisis communications and reputation management advisor at Wilkinson Group, Sydney

Every retainer also includes ongoing CEO and executive reputation counsel, applied by Peter directly rather than sold as a separate line item, drawing on the same 24 years of boardroom-level experience behind the rest of the retainer. See reputation management for the full standalone CEO and executive reputation service.

Why a Standing Adviser Matters Now

Trust in institutions keeps falling. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer found only 32 per cent of people globally believe the next generation will be better off, and it expects boards and CEOs to act as trust brokers regardless. The full breakdown of the current Australian trust environment, including the Reuters Institute, Roy Morgan and OECD data, is set out on our reputation management page.

Organisations navigating this well share one trait: a trusted adviser already in place before the event arrives. That’s what a retainer buys, not the monitoring alone.

The Trust Environment

Organisations navigating this environment well share one characteristic: a trusted adviser already in place before an event arrives.

The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer (34,000 respondents, 28 markets) records a world retreating into an insular trust mindset. Only 32% of respondents globally believe the next generation will be better off. Boards and CEOs are expected to act as trust brokers. Most are failing.

The Reuters Institute Digital News Report, June ’26: “Within the news ecosystem, an apparent paradox emerges between behaviour and attitudes. There is continued change in news consumption in favour of social media, video networks and, more recently, AI. At the same time, concerns about trust in news, about misinformation, and about the wider impact of these platforms are all increasing.”

Roy Morgan data confirms Australia is in structural distrust: consumer confidence has remained below the neutral mark for over three consecutive years – the longest such period this century.

The OECD Framework identifies that public trust is fostered when institutions demonstrate competence, values-based decision-making, and good governance. Key drivers include reliability, responsiveness, fairness, integrity, and openness. Other factors include the perceived capacity to address complex global challenges and citizens’ sense of participation in decision-making. Importantly, the OECD’s Australia-specific analysis confirms these dynamics hold domestically.

Frequently Asked Questions

A Wilkinson Confidante retainer covers three ongoing disciplines: reputation counsel built on truth, transparency and traceability; tested crisis preparedness including simulation and a holding-statement library; and continuous, AI-powered issues monitoring interpreted by senior counsel. Every retainer is applied personally by Peter Wilkinson, not handed to junior staff.

A single-incident response is built from a standing start, on the day something goes wrong. On a retainer, the monitoring is already live, the protocols are already tested, and Peter already knows your organisation, so the response starts faster and holds up better under scrutiny.

Preparation, principally, but not exclusively. If an issue already being monitored under the retainer escalates, Peter moves straight into active crisis communications as the same adviser on the file, not a handover to someone new.

A retainer typically opens with a stakeholder-perception audit and a review of any existing crisis protocols, then moves to a holding-statement library and a first simulation exercise. Continuous monitoring and on-call access to Peter start from day one.

Every retainer is scoped individually, on a first call with Peter, based on the organisation's size and risk profile, not from a fixed package. Peter confirms scope and cost directly on that first call.

Yes. Every retainer includes ongoing protection of a leader's personal standing alongside the organisation's, applied by Peter directly. See reputation management for the full standalone CEO and executive reputation service.

Wilkinson Confidante: Retained Reputation Counsel for Australian Leaders