Last week I had the fortune to be invited to speak on the topic of reputational risk management to MBA students and assorted internal auditors, risk managers, HR and communications executives at the Othman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business at the Universiti Utara Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.

Reputation risk may not be as high up the agenda of boards of directors and management teams in Malaysia as in some other countries, but it has gained importance in recent years due largely to two major crises:

• the 1MDB scandal that led directly to the overturning of the Malaysian government, the arrest and forthcoming trial of former prime minister Najib Razak, fraud investigations in 10+ countries, and criminal charges laid against Goldman Sachs and two of its former employees
• and the various woes befalling Malaysia Airlines (here’s my take on the mystery of MH370 from an online/social media perspective; if you haven’t already, I strongly recommend you read this in The Atlantic for what may well be the last word on the tragedy).

Whilst unresolved, both crises helped erode confidence and trust in institutions in Malaysia and raised (and continue to raise) legitimate questions about how Malaysia Inc – which is still largely dominated by a few family-controlled businesses – operates.

Accordingly, companies (especially government-owned or linked ones) and parts of government and civil society are actively considering the extent to which they are exposed to reputational risks, and thinking harder about how these should be minimised and managed.

The whys and hows of effective reputation risk management

Predicting and managing reputational risks poses a wealth of tricky questions and challenges – amongst them:

• How should reputation risk be defined?
• What are the primary drivers of corporate reputation?
• What forms do these risks take?
• Who is responsible for an organisation’s overall reputation?
• Who should own corporate reputation on a day-to-day basis?
• What role(s) should communications and marketing play in reputation risk management?
• How best measure, track and report reputational threats?
• Why can leaders be reluctant to get to the root of reputational issues?

I tackled these and other challenges in my presentation, setting out solutions based on my professional experience, research and observation.

Here are my slides:

Risky Business: The Whys and Hows of Effective Reputational Risk Management from Charlie Pownall

Fortunately, trust in Malaysia appears to have been restored to some degree over the last eighteen months.

However it is clear that organisations based in Malaysia – and elsewhere – continue to grapple with the strategic, governance and operational challenges reputation risk management inevitably raises.