January 6, 2024
Southwest Airlines reputation crisis. At crisis day 375, Southwest equity is under performing the S&P500 index by 41.4%. Steel City Re’ Resilience Monitor warned that an operational failure was likely to trigger a reputation crisis.
Southwest Airlines reputation crisis. At crisis day 375, Southwest equity is under performing the S&P500 index by 41.4%. Steel City Re’ Resilience Monitor warned that an operational failure was likely to trigger a reputation crisis.
In the past six months, more than $130 billion in shareholder value was lost by 39 banks due to reputational risk—the risk of unmet stakeholder expectations resulting in incinerated business value–flawed stakeholder intelligence.
Steel City Re CEO and former Los Angeles County deputy coroner on what derailed the ESG movement & what boards expect from risk management in the aftermath.
Qantas cost of reputation damage mount There is a long, costly tail to reputation risk from stakeholders claiming pounds of flesh.
In a world of polycrisis, […] risk managers need to… market the elevated quality of their risk management processes. The author thanks for their contributions to this article:
Courtney Davis Curtis, University of Chicago; Deyna Feng, Cummins, Inc.; Mary C. Friedl, Redbox; Kathleen A. Graham, The HQ Companies; Chris Hammond, Stepan; Enya He, Blu Clarity PBC; Carnell R. Jones, Trinitas Ventures; Christy Kaufman, Zillow Group; John C. Kline, Discover Financial Services; Manuel Padilla, MacAndrews & Forbes Incorporated; Soubhagya Parija, FirstEnergy and New York Power Authority; Kristen Peed, CBIZ; Theresa Severson, Kite Realty Group; Seung Yoo, Regal Rexnord Corporation; and Denise Williamee, Steel City Re.
We help risk managers manage risk and add value across Boardrooms, C-Suites, and operational silos through reputation resilience.
Southwest Airlines (LUV) equity returns at 193 days normalized to the S&P500 returns are -10.3% (predicted based on historic reputation risk for LUV: -7.0%). It is under performing the Dow Jones US Airlines Index (DJUSAR) by 28.7%. The implied loss to shareholders is $2bn.
Lead enterprise-wide strategy. Risk management is surely broken. Ambitious risk managers committed to upgrading risk strategy and creating enterprise value with better enterprise intelligence, strategic packaging and a unified organization can fix it.
Panic and stock share dump. Thriving in a tornado corridor or flood plain demands fortitude and a reliable risk strategy. The same goes for investing in equity markets. In times of panic — think Southwest Airlines, Norfolk Southern and Silicon Valley Bank — investor moxie may give way to stock share dumps. […] Integrated processes, timely intelligence and good risk communications will help investors appreciate and value risk strategies and not panic.
Mission critical risk denial can be costly. A holiday flight cancellation fiasco by Southwest Airlines crushed the company’s market capitalization and caused the company to take an $800 million dollar write-down for Q4 and record losses three times greater than analysts had expected. Equity returns 42 days into the crisis show Southwest trailing the Dow Jones U.S. Airlines Index by 18.4%. Had it merely kept pace with that index, Southwest’s market cap would have been more than $3.3 billion higher.