Ep 131: The Intelligence Behind Reputation - Daniel Munslow

Welcome to the Monocle Banking Podcast brought to you by Monocle Solutions.

The old crisis comms plan was simple.

Break glass, call legal, issue holding statement and pray.

That playbook is toast.

In a world of deepfakes, social media pylons and real-time reputational risk, Daniel Munslow from Absa joins us to ask, how do you spot the fire before everyone else smells smoke? Well, for years, corporate crisis communications could more or less be kept in a red folder.

Something goes wrong, you assemble a crisis team, then legal comes into the room, someone drafts the holding statements, you brief the CEO, nominate a spokesperson, update the Q&A, monitor the hostile media, and hopefully contain the damage.

It wasn't necessarily a bad system, but it was designed for a far different world.

Because today, the crisis may already be several million impressions old before the crisis committee has found a meeting room.

A customer posts something, an employee leaks something.

A geopolitical event changes the meaning of a business relationship overnight, where a deep fake of your CEO starts circulating.

Now, the world is absolutely changing, and it raises concerns.

An uncomfortable question about whether the traditional crisis communications playbook is becoming obsolete.

There's also a rather interesting parallel here with South Africa's FATF experience.

And someone who's had his fair share of dealing with crises is Daniel Munslow, managing executive for Group Communications and Reputation at Absa Group.

He joins us now on the Monocle Banking Podcast.

Daniel.

Welcome.