In today’s world, businesses and organisations need to navigate more than the financial, legal and regulatory impact of a crisis.
They need to navigate social licence and meet the needs of shareholders, customers, staff and communities. Failure to do so can damage your brand, reputation and bottom line.
The need to get the strategy right has never been more important.
Acumen provides integrated strategies across all aspects of a crisis and crisis avoidance. Our team has spent decades in high-pressure environments including media, the law, business, politics and sport across Australia and overseas.
We have proven complementary skills for making good decisions at speed. We have the judgement and experience to help you balance the sometimes conflicting priorities of legal and reputational risk.
The best way to avoid a crisis is to manage the issue before it becomes a crisis. Professional issues management can minimise the impact of a crisis and sometimes avoid it.
A crisis may be triggered by internal factors within your control such as a product recall, fraud or an environmental mishap. Increasingly, in a globalised and hyper-connected world, it can strike from the outside through a cyber-attack or pandemic.
A crisis may be foreseeable or come from nowhere. While every crisis is different, they all have the potential to damage your brand, your credibility and the trust you’ve built over the long term. Put simply, your reputation.
When a crisis breaks, it unfolds at speed and making the right calls can be difficult.
There’s intense pressure not just to diagnose what’s gone wrong and fix the problem, but to inform everyone who is affected, understand and respond to complex legal and regulatory implications, maintain business continuity and communicate internally and publicly.
All of this happens in real-time.
We deliver expert advice and guidance, helping our clients to clearly and methodically navigate the stakeholder, communications, legal, media, government and regulatory aspects of the crisis.
We work with you in stressful and high-stakes situations to help you make the right calls at the right time.
We work at speed to not only protect your reputation but enhance it. Exemplary handling of a crisis – and a strategic recovery plan - can improve your reputation.
“Rodrigo is an outstanding and steady source of discrete advice on legal, strategic and reputational issues and a first-class corporate lawyer who has advised some of the most important companies in Australia and the United States. In my opinion, he is a strategic thinker of substance who always keeps his mind on the big picture.”
"Our newly elected Government inherited a number of very difficult and major legal issues and crises. These included the collapse of a $400 million prison project, gaming and transport ticketing issues. These matters were some of the most complex and important legal and reputationally sensitive issues we faced in Government.
With Rodrigo’s advice we successfully navigated our way through these challenges. Rodrigo’s analytical skills, his attention to detail and his exceptional strategic thinking were critical to those successes. Rodrigo is highly professional, demonstrates excellent judgement and applies the wisdom of the world with determination and clear thinking. He is not easily unsettled and attracts great trust."
"Nick played an integral role in establishing the brand and reputation of the AFL's 18th club, the Greater Western Sydney Giants, in Australia's biggest and most hostile market. His excellent judgement and communication skills means he can deal with any crisis in a calm, professional and highly effective manner."
"Nick was instrumental in helping to build a powerful narrative about the resurgence of basketball in Australia and its place on the global stage. His sound judgement and poise came to the fore when he skilfully managed a crisis involving the national team, the Boomers, in the Philippines in 2018. He is passionate about building brands and reputation and his varied skills and experience means he can be relied upon to offer trusted advice."
