Reputation has long been described as an asset that takes years to build and moments to destroy. Yet for decades, communication, corporate affairs, and risk professionals have lacked a universally accepted, data-driven way to demonstrate how much a crisis truly costs - financially, operationally, and in lost trust. Too often we have relied on instinct, experience, and persuasion to justify investment in crisis preparedness or to guide leaders through the chaos of a live issue.

The Crisis Index 300 (CI300) is a step change. Developed over four years by SenateSHJ with data scientists and app developers, and now available globally, it is the first quantitative system to measure the real financial impact of a crisis across 27 stock exchanges, eight crisis types, and more than 300 listed-company case studies - a number that will exceed 1,000 this year.

The findings are sobering. On average, a crisis wipes 35.2% off share value, cuts 68.6% from earnings per share, and requires 427 days for share price recovery - if recovery occurs at all.

For IPRA and its mission to advance ethical leadership and professional standards, tools like the CI300 are not simply helpful; they are essential. They provide the evidence base needed to influence decision-making, anchor ethical conduct, and elevate reputation counsel to the strategic level it has long deserved.

When viewed alongside SenateSHJ’s global research report, Future of Reputation 2030, the CI300 signals a decisive evolution: reputation management is no longer a narrative discipline, but an organisational performance system grounded in evidence.

1. Reputation has entered the age of proof

A central insight from Future of Reputation 2030 is that reputation is now shaped less by words and more by behaviour, governance, and systems. Trust is earned through verifiable conduct, transparent decision-making, and alignment to purpose and values.

Reputation has become a performance system and communication must increasingly reflect proof, not promises.

The CI300 is built for this new reality. It delivers:

• Evidence over assertion: It quantifies crisis impacts using real market data.
• Accountability: It shows the financial consequences of delayed, opaque, or unethical responses.
• Benchmarking: It compares how organisations in the same sector facing similar crises have fared.

2. From ethical frameworks to ethical performance

IPRA’s Thought Leadership emphasises that public relations is an ethical profession before it is a communication function. In an era of societal fragmentation, AI disruption, and volatile stakeholder expectations, ethics is no longer theoretical - it is measurable.

The CI300 translates the human, governance, and cultural failures that underpin so many crises into hard financial consequences that Boards cannot ignore.

The CI300 strengthens transparency by providing clear insight into the cost of poor behaviour, creates the need for a stronger governance case for preparedness and investment, and delivers great integrity in counsel i.e. independent, verifiable data to support recommendations.

Ethical behaviour is no longer only morally right; the CI300 demonstrates it is economically essential.

3. The rise of reputation intelligence

One of the most significant findings in Future of Reputation 2030 is the emergence of reputation intelligence - the capability to connect listening, data, and decision-making in real time. Many organisations drown in signals but starve for sense-making - the CI300 is one of the first tools to operationalise this new chapter. It strengthens three pillars of reputation intelligence:

1. Data literacy and informed decision-making: Boards increasingly require measurable reputation metrics. The CI300 provides indicators comparable to cyber risk, financial risk, and operational KPIs, enabling communications leaders to participate credibly in enterprise-wide risk discussions.
2. Predictive insight rather than reactive response: By mapping crisis outcomes across markets, sectors, and crisis types, the CI300 helps practitioners anticipate the likely severity, trajectory, and recovery expectations of a crisis.
3. A shared evidence base for preparedness: The CI300 enables alignment between communications, risk, legal, and executive teams, creating organisational coherence when it is most needed.
4. Crisis preparedness becomes strategy, not insurance

Historically, crisis planning has often been treated as an insurance policy - important but easy to defer. The CI300 reframes preparedness as a strategic investment with measurable return.

By quantifying typical financial losses per crisis type, the cost of slow or inadequate response and the recovery path over time, the CI300 allows professionals to defend crisis preparedness budgets with the same rigour used for cybersecurity, data governance, and operational resilience.

This aligns with IPRA’s longstanding view that communication counsellors must elevate organisational integrity, not simply manage messaging.

5. A tool built for a more complex, polarised, AI-driven world

The forces identified in Future of Reputation 2030 - from polarisation and misinformation to AI-enabled manipulation and rising stakeholder expectations - create an environment where crises escalate faster and hit harder.

The CI300 equips practitioners to navigate this complexity by offering:

• Comparative benchmarking across crisis types, markets, and sectors.
• Insight into recovery expectations.

In a world where silence is no longer neutral and stakeholder scrutiny is relentless, the CI300 gives advisors the clarity and confidence necessary to guide leaders through disruption.

6. Preparing for 2030: communicators as system architects

The Future of Reputation 2030 research points to an evolution in the role of communicators from storytellers to system architects and who embed reputation considerations into governance, behaviour, operational systems, and decision frameworks.

The CI300 is emblematic of the tools required for this shift. It:

• connects insight to action
• positions reputation as a Board-level risk
• fosters cross-functional alignment grounded in evidence.

7. Evidence is the new authority

The Crisis Index 300 does more than quantify crisis impact; it reflects the profession’s deep transformation. Reputation leadership is entering an era in which performance determines trust, behaviour determines credibility and evidence determines influence

For communication professionals, this shift is a responsibility and opportunity. The CI300 equips us with the insight to guide leaders through complexity, the data to support difficult decisions, and the authority to shape reputation in the decade ahead.

With tools like the CI300, our profession is better equipped than ever to lead ethically, intelligently, and backed by evidence.

The Crisis Index 300 app can be accessed here: SenateSHJ - Crisis Index 300 · Streamlit