Phil Riggins founded the Brand & Reputation Collective (the BRC) to bring research-led rigour to the way organisations manage reputation in complex, high-stakes environments. After more than 25 years advising some of the world's most well-known brands on reputation, issues management and communications strategy, he saw a consistent gap: organisations were making high-stakes strategic decisions based on assumption rather than evidence, without a systematic understanding of what their most important audiences actually think — and why.

Phil has particular expertise in helping organisations navigate sensitive, politically charged environments — designing and conducting large-scale opinion research across multiple markets, translating those insights into narratives and strategies that engage policy audiences and the public, and advising on issues management in regulated and politically sensitive sectors. He has fielded multi-market quantitative research programmes across more than 40 countries, developing audience segmentation approaches that reveal how different publics — from general consumers to key opinion influencers and policy stakeholders — actually form and hold their views.

He believes that effective reputation strategy starts with listening — rigorously, systematically and at scale — before it starts with messaging. The organisations that manage their reputations best are those that understand what their audiences actually think, not what they assume them to think.

Phil regularly publishes and speaks about corporate reputation, communications strategy and brand management. He brings deep insight, creative thinking and senior counsel to his clients' brand and reputation challenges.

Prior to creating the BRC, Phil worked at senior levels with the world's leading communications agencies, including the Brunswick Group, Weber Shandwick, APCO Worldwide, and Leidar, advising clients on reputation, brand and issues management. He has worked across sectors and around the world for organisations such as AESGP, Airbus, Abbott Nutrition, Amazon, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Booking.com, BT, Chemours, The Coca-Cola Company, Danone, Diageo, G4S, Google, Inditex, Itau, Kellogg's, Nestlé, Novartis, OPEC, Pfizer, Renas, Rexam, Sanofi, Schroders, Smith & Nephew, Telenet group, The US Department of State, and Zurich Insurance.

Phil is a dual national (US/UK) and started his career at the United States Information Agency — now part of the US Department of State — where he helped policy makers understand and manage one of the world's most complicated brands: the United States of America.