Reputation risks statistics from Rod Cartwright's 2026 annual report
The numbers might not be pretty, but they are surprising. Rod Cartwright’s Reputation, Risk and Resilience report shared some interesting findings from this year.
- £730 billion of FTSE market cap rests on reputation.
- Only 14% of organisations can quantify their exposure to their own top-10 risks.
- Employee engagement has hit its lowest level since COVID.
- Only 11% of senior Corporate Affairs professionals think their AI governance is adequate.
As a Silver Sponsor of this report, we’ve compiled ten numbers worth paying attention to by every communicator, risk professional, and business leader.
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Reputation risk statistics worth knowing
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Market cap attribute
£730bn of FTSE 350 market cap attributable to reputation
According to the latest UK Reputation Valuation Report, reputation contributed 29% of FTSE 350 market capitalisation in 2025. In financial words, this means £730 billion in value, up £11 billion year on year. For the S&P 500, reputation accounts for 26% of market cap: $13.8 trillion in shareholder value.
The takeaway
Here's something most organisations don't want to sit with: reputation is likely their largest uninsured asset. Not a fluffy brand metric. An actual financial one, it just doesn't show up on the balance sheet until something goes wrong.
Reputation economy
$7 trillion the size of the global Reputation Economy
That’s the estimated scale of the added and unexpected annual shareholder returns delivered by strong reputation across publicly traded companies worldwide, according to Burson’s 2025 research. For the S&P 500, reputation accounts for 26% of market cap: $13.8 trillion in shareholder value.
THE takeaway
Reputation isn't just the cost of keeping the lights on. It actively generates returns and these are measurable ones. So, start treating it like it does.
Exposure of risks
Only 14% of organisations quantify exposure to their own top-10 risks
According to Aon’s 2025 Global Risk Management Survey, which draws on nearly 3,000 leaders across 63 countries, only 14% of organisations actively quantify their exposure to their own top-10 risks. For cyberattacks, the risk ranked #1 for three consecutive years; that figure has since dropped to just 13%.
THE takeaway
You can't manage what you haven't measured. Knowing something exists isn't a strategy. Without the data to back it up, it's just awareness with nowhere to go.
Concern and preparadness gaps
38pts average gap between CEO concern and CEO preparedness
Fleishman Hillard’s research reveals a 38-percentage-point gap between CEOs who are concerned about the EBITDA impact of a specific risk and their belief that their organisation is ‘very prepared’ for it. Across twelve global reports, this pattern repeats consistently.
THE takeaway
Knowing your risks and doing nothing about them isn't a neutral position. That's a choice, and it's one that leaves you deliberately exposed.
Global employee engagement
20% global employee engagement – lowest since COVID
Global employee engagement has fallen to 20%, its lowest level since the pandemic and the second consecutive year of decline. Manager engagement has collapsed nine points since 2022. The estimated annual cost of global disengagement to the world economy: $10 trillion. (Gallup, 2026)
THE takeaway
This isn't a welfare issue that happens to affect productivity, but rather the opposite: . a productivity crisis that started with welfare. Get the origin right, or the solution won't stick.
AI deepfake
233% rise in social engineering and fraud claims linked to AI deepfakes
AI-driven deepfake attacks contributed to a 53% increase in social engineering incidents year-on-year, with social engineering and fraud claims rising 233%. Ransomware attacks reached 2,593 worldwide in 2024, that is a 15% annual increase. The average cost of a single data breach now stands at $4.88 million. (Aon, 2025 Cyber Risk Report; International SOS Risk Outlook 2026)
THE takeaway
Cyber risk keeps getting handed to the IT team. But when it goes wrong, it's your reputation on the line and your communications team scrambling. The technical side is just where it starts.
AI governance
Only 11% of senior Corporate Affairs professionals rate their AI governance as adequate
According to the Ipsos Reputation Council 2025 report, only 11% of the world’s most senior Corporate Affairs professionals believe their AI governance is adequate. Meaningful use of AI among CCOs has fallen 15 percentage points in a single year to 43%. Despite ~$40bn in enterprise AI investment, 89% of global executives report no measurable impact on labour productivity. (Gallup, 2026)
THE takeaway
Pouring money into AI without governance in place is just exposure. The accountability gap is real, and it's closing faster than most organisations are moving.
Social division
70% of people unwilling to engage with those who differ from them
Edelman’s 2026 Trust Barometer finds that 70% of global respondents describe themselves as hesitant or unwilling to engage with those who differ from them. Only 10% believe their country shares common values. 7 4% of risk experts see social division as deep and worsening. (AXA, 2025)
THE takeaway
Being able to communicate clearly with people who have different backgrounds and perspectives is becoming an increasingly valuable skill, and one of the sharper edges of strategic capability.
Share price recovery
427 days average time for a share price to recover post-crisis
SenateSHJ’s research finds that the average major reputational crisis hits share prices by over 35% and EPS by 68%. Recovery to pre-crisis share price levels takes an average of 427 days. Nearly a third of affected companies have yet to recover.
THE takeaway
Crisis preparedness isn't something you build and hope to never use. Done right, it's a return on investment, one that pays out precisely when everything else is failing.
Employee disengagement
$10 trillion annual cost of employee disengagement to the global economy
Gallup’s 2026 data puts the annual cost of employee disengagement at $10 trillion. Human-centred risks top the actual disruption data in every major report in Rod Cartwright’s 2026 synthesis — and are almost entirely absent from most organisations’ preparedness agendas.
THE takeaway
Somewhere along the way, human judgement, human relationships and human resilience quietly became some of the scarcest assets an organisation can hold. That's worth pausing on.
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Reputation, risk and resilience
Rod Cartwright’s report synthesises more than 800 pages of data from 12 major global publications.
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