January 5, 2026

Reputation Crises Remind Boards of Culture Oversight Responsibility

Questions swirling since a a story broke about a Campbell’s executive disparaging the company: (1) Can a reputation crisis be averted through better compliance? No, although the American Law Institute suggests that reputation insurance can help mitigate a compliance crisis; and (2) Should a board oversee culture? Yes, because the ideas, beliefs and practices of a company—its culture—shape stakeholder experiences and set the expectations that raise reputation value.

The failure at Campbell’s is neither one of compliance nor enterprise risk management, but rather one of reputation risk governance. The question is therefore how did reputation resilience become so impaired that a one-year old stupid comment by an allegedly impaired senior executive, then into his 5th month of employment, could expose weak governance, reputation risk management, and reputation crisis management?

Factually, a lawsuit exposed a plethora of issues. According to Agenda, Campbell’s crisis response had mixed reviews. Board member Sheila Hooda was not impressed. Board consultant Doug Chia thought it was “pretty good.” I thought it completely missed the mark, and I told Agenda that it would leave stakeholders disappointed resulting in a furtherance of Campbell’s reputation crisis and going forward revenue and equity value losses.

I suggested to Agenda last month, heads would likely roll. Steel City Re’s analysis indicates that the chances of the board facing an activist investor in the next 12 months is very high.

Steel City Re’s Resilience Monitor for Campbells indicates a potentially critical level of reputation risk. Increased pre-emptive reputation risk and crisis management as of December 26, 2025 are strongly indicated

Strategic Risk Management and Governance Environment. “Reading the room,” stakeholders’ mood appears significantly agitated thus making the likelihood that a shock would trigger an outsized reaction high. (See Note (a)) The Campbell’s Company-specific “Fear Index” peaked in value on January 3, 2025.

Operational Enterprise Risk Management. Data indicate material expected changes in stakeholder behaviors or operations. See full report for guidance regarding each of the four operational risks.

Intelligence for Auditing Reputation Value and Risk Controls. Campbell’s Company’s reputation value is underperforming its historic range at some period this past year (see accompanying graphic).

Intelligence for Reputation Value and Risk Benchmarking. With one (1) being the highest rank, Campbell’s Company’s reputation value benchmarked at 31 among 66 Food: Specialty/Candy industry peers. Named peers for a custom/bespoke benchmarking cohort are available; with bespoke benchmarking to a custom cohort, the company ranked at 20 out of 22.

Historic Values. Food: Specialty/Candy industry historic rankings are available for 4 prior period(s). Over the past 1, 4 , 8 and 13 weeks, the rankings were 27, 26, 37, and 43 respectively. Named peers for a custom/bespoke benchmarking cohort are available. Over the past 1, 4 and 13 weeks, the rankings among peers were 18, 14, and 18 respectively. One year ago, the ranking was 20.

Click on the image above to read more (Agenda Paywall).

About Steel City Re. Reputation risk is now less predictable, manageable, or governable. It is also increasingly personal. With reputation risk forecasting, management, and insurance, Steel City Re helps companies build and prove to stakeholders their thoughtful reputation risk management and dutiful governance over all that is mission-critical. The benefits include financial protection for corporate leadership and an insurance-authenticated story stakeholders can appreciate and value.

Reputation is Mission-Critical

Today’s sophisticated risk managers are strategic corporate talents, helping the C-suite and board meet stakeholder expectations for resilience. They know that enterprise damage from reputation risks might be their greatest and longest lasting peril, so they monitor for red flags. They foster a culture that respects those warnings and facilitate processes to mitigate those risks. Their diligence strategically builds enterprise-wide resilience that informed stakeholders can appreciate, and they use insurance two ways: operationally, to foster resilience; and strategically, to authenticate their thoughtful risk management and dutiful governance systems.

The results of strategic reputation risk management are evident in reputation resilience. More than crisis recovery, they include customers buying, not boycotting; employees working, not fleeing; investors buying, not selling; lenders adjusting interest rates down, not up; regulators deferring, not enforcing; and social license holders acquiescing, not protesting.

Having a robust Reputation Resilience Program in place offers, amongst other benefits:

• Protection for the company, its staff, executives, and board from litigation and regulatory challenges
• Improved governance processes and better enterprise risk management protocols; i.e., measuring reputational risk
• Establishment of an agile operating, communications, and decision-making team, with clear roles and responsibilities, trained and ready to handle all reputational threats; i.e., a reputation risk management framework
• Proactive management of risks that could give rise to delays or derailing concerns around new product and strategic partnership launches
• Captured behavioral economic value from stakeholders; i.e., value of reputation
• Reduced costs of debt and risk transfer while boosting equity value; i.e., boosting reputational value

A hazard of reputation risk is a lurking gap between stakeholder expectations and reality. Another hazard is the emotional intensity associated with expectations. The expected surge in litigation in 2024 around environments, social and governance issues reflects both that emotional intensity and is one manifestation of the anger from disappointed stakeholders. This video explains the behavioral economic features of the many perils of reputation risk.

Mitigating risk strategically through expectation management and operational adjustments evinces thoughtful management and dutiful governance. Financing such risks evinces prudence, and doing so publicly enables stakeholders to appreciate and value the effort.

One Question

Reputation risks are prevalent, material, and place both corporate viability and profitability at risk. Is enhancing and promoting the quality of your risk management program part of your strategy?