What is reputation management?

Reputation management is the discipline of understanding how an organisation or leader is perceived by the audiences that matter, and acting deliberately to build, protect or recover that perception. In our practice it covers risk assessment, positioning, issues management and post-crisis recovery, delivered across government, media, and stakeholder audiences together.

How is reputation management different from crisis management?

Crisis management is the acute response when something becomes public and time-compressed: the first 24 hours, the first statement, the spokesperson. Reputation management is the standing work before and after — knowing where you stand, building standing you can draw on, and rebuilding it when it has been spent. We do both. They are separate services because they are separate engagements with different tempos.

Do you remove negative search results or online reviews?

No. We do not offer search suppression, review removal, or review generation. Firms that do exist and some are reputable. We work on what people believe, and on the conduct and communication that shape it.

Do you work with individuals as well as organisations?

Yes — where the individual's reputation is bound up with an organisation, an office or a public role: chief executives, chairs, founders, elected and appointed officials. We do not take personal reputation work unconnected to a professional or public position.

Is reputation management only for large companies?

No. Our case studies range from a community football club to a state-owned utility, and a multi-national corporate organisation. Reputation matters wherever government, media or community opinion can change an outcome — at every scale.

Do you work outside South Australia?

Yes. Counsel is delivered nationally, by phone, video and on the ground. We hold relationships in Canberra and in every state and territory government. We also support clients to operate across international jurisdictions.

Reputation Management

Reputation is the currency of trust. It shapes decisions long before you enter the room.

Start the
Conversation

Reputation

Reputation Management — Australia-wide

Ace Strategies provides corporate reputation management to organisations across Australia. We advise boards, chief executives, and leadership teams on how their organisation is perceived by the people who decide its future — ministers and advisers, regulators, journalists, communities, customers, investors, and staff — and what to do about it.

Reputation is not a communications output. It is the accumulated result of what an organisation does, what it says, and whether the two match — as judged by audiences who talk to each other.

Managing it means working across all of those audiences at once. That is why our reputation counsel draws on specialists across government relations, stakeholder engagement, strategic communication, and media management. That team includes award-winning journalists who have led newsrooms and government offices across Australia, and former political advisers who have watched reputations made and lost from inside government.

Key Service Areas

What our reputation management service covers

radar

Reputation risk assessment

Where does your reputation actually stand, with whom, and what could move it? We map the stakeholders who matter, the issues already in motion, and the gap between how you see yourselves and how they see you. Where the question needs numbers rather than judgement, our research and polling service measures it.

Research and polling

trending_up

Building and positioning

Reputation built deliberately holds better under pressure than reputation that accrues by accident. We help organisations and leaders define what they want to be known for, earn it through visible action, and communicate it consistently to government, media, and community over time — so that when a difficult moment comes, there is trust in the bank.

shield

Protection

Most reputational damage is foreseeable: a regulatory change, a community campaign, a project attracting opposition, a competitor briefing against you, a misinformation surge. We watch for these, assess their trajectory, and manage them while options still exist. When something does break into the open, our crisis and issues management team takes the acute response while reputation work continues underneath it.

Crisis and issues management

healing

Recovery

Coverage ends. Belief lingers. After a crisis, a failed project, a leadership change, or a regulatory finding, we rebuild standing with the audiences that matter — systematically, audience by audience, on a realistic timeline. Rebuilding reputation is deliberate work. Trust returns gradually, audience by audience, as actions and messages align over time. We will give you a realistic timeline before you engage us, so you know what can be achieved and how the recovery will progress.

Who engages us

When organisations call

A board wants an independent view of reputational exposure before a major decision, transaction, or public commitment.
A project or development is attracting organised opposition, and the facts are losing to the narrative.
A leadership team has come through a crisis and needs to know what it cost — and how to recover.
A company is entering the Australian market and needs to arrive with a reputation rather than build one from zero.
An organisation well regarded by customers is poorly understood by government, or the reverse.

Engagements range from a single day of counsel to a standing retainer. Most begin with a conversation and a short assessment.

Proof

When the North Adelaide Golf Course redevelopment was targeted by a campaign built on false claims about park lands, fencing and tree removal, our Strategic Counsel publicly corrected the record on the project's history, ecology, ownership, and future — reputation protection work, done in the open.

Central to this move is the investment we are delivering in North Adelaide, a world-class public golf course uniquely located in our stunning Park Lands overlooking the CBD.

Peter Malinauskas — South Australian Premier
Read the case study

At short notice, the Ace team stepped in to provide reputation management advice — it brought clarity and calmness during a chaotic time.

Doug Phillips — Chief Executive Officer, BIORG
Read the case study

Read the op-ed by our Strategic Counsel, Kevin Naughton.

Much of our reputation work is confidential by nature and does not appear on this site. Published case studies show the breadth of the practice it sits within.

Common questions

What is reputation management?: Reputation management is the discipline of understanding how an organisation or leader is perceived by the audiences that matter, and acting deliberately to build, protect or recover that perception. In our practice it covers risk assessment, positioning, issues management and post-crisis recovery, delivered across government, media, and stakeholder audiences together.
How is reputation management different from crisis management?: Crisis management is the acute response when something becomes public and time-compressed: the first 24 hours, the first statement, the spokesperson. Reputation management is the standing work before and after — knowing where you stand, building standing you can draw on, and rebuilding it when it has been spent. We do both. They are separate services because they are separate engagements with different tempos.
Do you remove negative search results or online reviews?: No. We do not offer search suppression, review removal, or review generation. Firms that do exist and some are reputable. We work on what people believe, and on the conduct and communication that shape it.
Do you work with individuals as well as organisations?: Yes — where the individual's reputation is bound up with an organisation, an office or a public role: chief executives, chairs, founders, elected and appointed officials. We do not take personal reputation work unconnected to a professional or public position.
Is reputation management only for large companies?: No. Our case studies range from a community football club to a state-owned utility, and a multi-national corporate organisation. Reputation matters wherever government, media or community opinion can change an outcome — at every scale.
Do you work outside South Australia?: Yes. Counsel is delivered nationally, by phone, video and on the ground. We hold relationships in Canberra and in every state and territory government. We also support clients to operate across international jurisdictions.

Related insights

Our published analysis on this work.

opinion North Adelaide Golf Course: What You Might Not Know announcement Ace Strategies and Grant Law PR Partner

18 published case studies Adelaide-based, working nationally

Know where you stand.

Most engagements begin with a short, confidential assessment. Start the conversation — or if it is already urgent, call 0408 207 256.

Start the conversation