Crisis and public affairs
When a company finds itself in a situation where what it says — and how it says it — will materially affect its reputation, its regulatory position, or its license to operate, the quality of the counsel it receives in those hours and weeks matters more than almost any other decision. We advise on the full spectrum: crisis preparation before anything happens, incident response while events unfold, and sustained public-affairs work over months and years.
The three modes of this work
Crisis preparation means building the muscle before you need it. That includes stakeholder mapping, scenario work to stress-test likely crisis pathways, message architecture for the handful of situations that actually occur, media-training the executives who will speak on camera, and establishing the decision chain — who escalates to whom, who approves what language, who has the final word. Most of the cost of a badly handled crisis is not the initial event but the chaotic response. Preparation is how that cost is avoided.
Incident response is the compressed window during and after an acute event. The priorities are factual accuracy, legal defensibility, emotional legibility, and timing. Every statement must be true, every sentence must survive a regulator's reading, every public appearance must convey appropriate weight without performing distress, and every pause must be deliberate. We work closely with in-house legal teams, PR counsel, and executive leadership, and we do not replace those functions — we bring a specific craft to the language itself.
Public affairs is the sustained work of shaping the policy and regulatory environment in which a company operates. This includes positioning on legislative consultations, testimony and submitted evidence, relationships with trade associations and policy institutes, briefings for regulators and elected officials, and the long-term narrative work that ensures a company's point of view is already understood when an issue arrives. This work is most valuable in regulated industries: aerospace, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, financial services, defense-adjacent technology.
Who this is for
Companies in regulated or reputation-sensitive industries, especially deep tech, aerospace, pharma, medtech, and finance. Organizations facing a specific, identifiable risk — a product recall, a data incident, a senior-leadership transition, a regulatory action, a media investigation. Executives and founders who anticipate that their company will one day be in a situation where calm, precise communication is the difference between a recoverable event and a lasting reputational injury.
How we engage
Preparation work is typically project-based over two to four months, delivering a crisis playbook tailored to the company's specific risk profile. Incident response is billed at day and hour rates at senior levels, mobilized within hours of notification, and sustained until the acute phase closes. Public affairs is almost always a multi-year retainer, because the value compounds with time and accumulated relationships.
- 01Crisis playbook with scenario-specific message architecture
- 02Stakeholder map and escalation chain
- 03Media-training for executives likely to speak publicly
- 04Pre-approved holding statements and response templates
- 0524-hour incident-response availability
- 06Ongoing public-affairs positioning and stakeholder engagement
- 07Post-incident review and playbook update
- Do you work with legal counsel?
- Always. Crisis and public-affairs work without tight coordination with legal counsel is malpractice. We bring the communication craft; legal brings the defensibility framework. The two fit together.
- Can we engage you only for a specific crisis, without a prior preparation phase?
- Yes, but with a caveat. Response without preparation is reactive, not strategic. If time allows, we work in parallel on containing the current event and building the playbook for the next one.
- How do you handle confidentiality?
- All engagements are covered by strict confidentiality agreements. Crisis and public-affairs work in particular assumes confidentiality as a given. We do not publish client names, case studies, or identifying details from this work.