Despite the differences in these cases, they share one glaring flaw: a total lack of a strong crisis management strategy.

The Novo Nordisk Soap Opera: A Masterclass in Strategic Inconsistency

How does a company that created a cultural phenomenon like Ozempic see its market cap plummet fourfold from its peak in June 2024? While most point to market conditions, evolving regulations, and new drug trials, a closer look reveals a man-made PR crisis. The issue isn’t just the product; it’s the erratic strategy that has turned professional distribution into a daytime soap opera

The Hims & Hers Saga: A Timeline of Confusion

The relationship between Novo Nordisk and Hims & Hers (HIMS) is the perfect example of how not to manage strategic alliances.

• April 2025: A high-profile partnership is announced.

• June 2025: Just two months later, Novo abruptly terminates the deal. Reuters reports a “war of words,” with HIMS accusing Novo of bullying and undue pressure.

• February 2026: HIMS strikes back, launching a $49 compounded alternative to Wegovy. Novo responds with a massive patent infringement lawsuit.

• March 9, 2026: In a stunning reversal, they “make up” again to sell obesity drugs together.

Mixed Signals and Market Anxiety. What does this tell the stakeholders? It screams that Novo Nordisk has lost control over its distribution channels. When a global leader flips from “strategic partner” to “legal executioner” and back to “partner” in less than a year, it sends a wave of uncertainty through the market. Consistency is the bedrock of big pharma. If you decide to go to war to protect your intellectual property, you go all the way. If you decide to embrace the telehealth revolution, you commit. Doing both simultaneously makes the company look reactive rather than proactive.

The “Eli Lilly” Contrast. Look at their closest rival, Eli Lilly. They faced the exact same challenges with compounders and patent trolls, yet they managed to avoid the public scandals and the messy “breakup-to-makeup” headlines. The result? Their stock price reflected market confidence, while Novo’s narrative crumbled. While drug efficacy is the engine, reputation is the steering wheel and right now, Novo is driving in circles.

The PR Vacuum. Perhaps the most telling detail is the lack of crisis management. In major Reuters reports where HIMS CEO was openly accusing Novo of pressure, Novo’s side was conspicuously absent “No comment.”

If you’re a multi-billion dollar entity picking a fight, you don’t leave the floor to your opponent. A “no comment” in the middle of a public feud isn’t “staying above the fray” - it’s a total absence of a crisis strategy.

In Big Pharma, you can’t have it both ways. You either play the “Fortress” and defend your IP with consistent, unwavering legal force from day one, or you lean into the new ecosystem and build stable, long-term alliances. Trying to do both is exactly how you lose a massive chunk of your valuation. This strategic flip-flopping isn’t just a PR hiccup; it’s a red flag that leadership lacks a unified vision. If you’re going to pick a fight, finish it. If you’re going to partner up, stand by it. Anything in between is just expensive noise.

But Novo Nordisk isn’t the only giant fumbling its narrative. If you want to see what happens when a company ignores systemic “red flags” until they explode, look at Super Micro Computer (SMCI).

Just last week the US Department of Justice unsealed a massive indictment against SMCI’s co-founder, Wally Liaw, and other top executives. The charge? A sophisticated $2.5 billion scheme to smuggle restricted NVIDIA AI chips (including the high-end Blackwell and Hopper series) to China using “dummy” servers and hair dryers to swap serial numbers. The stock fell 33% after this news.

The Pattern of Toxicity For seasoned investors, the SMCI collapse wasn’t a “black swan” event, it was a predictable train wreck. It’s worth looking at the chronology, which has been surprisingly packed with events. As one of the standout phenomena of the AI trade, fueled by its deep partnership with NVIDIA, the stock consistently bounced off local lows, often propped up by fresh “Buy” ratings from analysts who ignored the rot underneath.

The Hindenburg Signal: In August 2024, Hindenburg Research exposed “accounting manipulation” and sanctions evasion

The Smoking Gun: Shortly after, also in August, 2024, SMCI did the unthinkable, they delayed their annual 10-K report. In the world of finance, a delayed annual report is the ultimate warning sign.

September 2024: The DOJ Enters the Room Following the Hindenburg report, the situation moved from “short-seller allegations” to a federal reality. On September 26, 2024, reports surfaced that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had officially opened a probe into Super Micro. The investigation was in its initial phases, but the stock still plummeted 12% in a single afternoon. Investors realized this wasn’t just a PR headache, it was a formal inquiry by federal prosecutors.

October 2024: The Auditor’s Exit Strategy If the DOJ probe was a warning shot, October was the knockout blow. Ernst & Young , the company’s auditor, didn’t just resign, they issued a statement that should have sent every investor running for the exits. EY stated they were resigning due to information that led them to “no longer be able to rely on management’s and the Audit Committee’s representations” and were “unwilling to be associated with the financial statements prepared by management.”

The “Short Memory” Trap

The market has a notoriously short memory. Investors are quick to forget negative signals, especially when a stock that hit $20 looks like it could bounce back to $50, showing enviable strength. And why wouldn’t it? Very few companies have the privilege of selling NVIDIA servers, and Jensen Huang hasn’t officially turned his back on his partner. To my knowledge, Huang himself has remained silent on these allegations, letting the hardware do the talking.

But did SMCI actually try to flip the narrative? Not really. Beyond a few sparse, robotic official statements, there was no real crisis management. It seems the leadership decided that analyst upgrades and “Buy” ratings would do the heavy lifting for them.

This is a fatal mistake.

Reputation is a Leading Indicator

You cannot look at the numbers in a vacuum; you must look at the company’s reputation. When you see a field littered with red flags, you don’t keep running, you stop. The stock market is risky enough as it is. Taking on reputational risk on top of market volatility is simply unnecessary. The issue isn’t just the mountain of negativity, it’s the fact that the company made zero effort to fix it. Every company will eventually face a crisis; the only question is how they navigate it.

My advice is always the same: Have a crisis consultant in your corner before the storm hits. Because when the indictment is unsealed or the auditor resigns, it’s already too late to start looking for a parachute.

I promised to break down real-world cases, and I’m doing just that. Subscribe to my newsletter, and we’ll continue discussing not just how these disasters happen, but how to fix them before they burn everything down.

This analysis is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or legal advice.

The most fundamental question you need to ask yourself is this: How much of your own time are you actually willing to sink into this to get results? If you don’t have that clarity - if you don’t realize that this is going to demand your personal time, honestly, don’t even bother starting. Sometimes this realization only hits during interviews with agencies or consultants. The founder suddenly realizes, in total shock, that they actually have to do the work. They lose interest immediately. But this is the cornerstone of the entire story.

Let’s be real: in most cases, you haven’t discovered a new cure for cancer, you didn’t invent a revolutionary smartphone, and you didn’t come up with some groundbreaking cooling system for data centers. Your product doesn’t just “explain itself” to the world. Lately, I’ve seen way too many stories where an agency bills tens of thousands of dollars over six months and doesn’t land a single placement. It’s pathetic. You can’t work like that - spending months writing a “strategy” that’s destined for the trash can.

But a huge chunk of the blame for that kind of failure lies with the founders. I once had a client, a medical company, that could have generated high-quality news hooks almost every single month. But they produced none. Why? Because the founders simply weren’t ready to put in the effort.

So, here’s my advice: Don’t rush to hire. First, ask yourself how much you’re willing to participate in the process. Even the most expensive agency won’t do the work for you. Even the highest-paid consultant doesn’t know the product better than you do.

The New Role: Chief Context Officer

This is where the founder’s first new role comes in: Chief Context Officer. An agency cannot manufacture insights, hard data, or those specific “battle stories” from the field that actually sell a story to a journalist. If you don’t respond to a request on time, you’ve effectively burned a month’s budget.

The agency must be deeply integrated into the life of the startup or company. There is no such thing as “useless detail”—every single piece of information has the potential to sell. When I worked with a logistics startup, we built a “news factory” where we could pitch journalists multiple times using the same product. First, you “sell” the launch. A few months later, you tell the story of how much money customers actually saved using the new features.

That’s the ideal case. In reality, I’ve seen group chats with 10 people sitting in dead silence. These are people who walk down the hall checking their phones every minute, yet they ignore a question from a journalist who has a line of your competitors waiting at their door. This is how an agency shifts from being a “provider of strategy and meaning” to just a firefighter.

It shouldn’t be this way. This lack of engagement destroys the trust that the entire partnership is built on. As a founder, you have to accept a simple truth: you and your team must spend time on PR. It is a core business function, not an outsourced chore.

Personal Brand as an Icebreaker

Journalists write about people, not logos. If you aren’t ready to provide sharp, sometimes controversial quotes under your own name, your PR will turn into white noise that no one notices.

A founder is an Icebreaker. In the modern media landscape, “corporate news” is dead. No one cares about your new office opening or your “synergistic partnership” with another faceless entity. Media outlets are looking for voices - people who are willing to take a stand, challenge the status quo, or provide a unique, human perspective on complex industry issues.

If you hide behind a corporate brand, you’re asking your agency to do the impossible: to sell a shadow. The moment you step forward and say, “The industry is moving in the wrong direction, and here is why,” you give the agency a weapon. Suddenly, they aren’t just pitching a product; they are pitching a visionary.

Being a “human icebreaker” means:

• Owning your opinion: You cannot be “neutral” and expect to be famous. If your quotes are so safe that even your legal team finds them boring, you have failed.

• Accessibility: You must be the one to pick up the phone when a top-tier journalist needs a 5-minute reactive comment. If you delegate this to a mid-level manager, the story dies instantly.

• Vulnerability and Truth: Real reputation is built on transparency. If you only talk when things are perfect, you aren’t a leader—you’re a PR brochure. Journalists value founders who can talk about market crashes, pivots, and the hard lessons learned in the trenches.

Stop Asking for “Forbes”: Setting the Right Objectives

Forget the phrase “I want to be in Forbes.” It’s the ultimate sign of a founder who doesn’t understand their own business goals. PR isn’t a vanity project; it’s a tool to solve specific business problems.

You must formulate your PR objectives in terms of business outcomes, not publication counts:

• Building Trust for Enterprise Sales: You need deep, technical op-eds in trade publications that potential CTO clients actually read.

• Visibility for Investors: A high-frequency strategy where you comment on every market trend to show momentum.

• Hiring Top Talent: Opening up your “kitchen” and letting the agency talk to your lead devs.

The Bottleneck: Why Your Strategy Might Still Fail

This looks like a perfect plan, right? You’ve accepted the “tax,” you’re acting as the Chief Context Officer, and you’re playing the Icebreaker. But even in this flawless setup, there is one fatal bottleneck.

That bottleneck is you.

When the entire reputation of a company rests on one person’s shoulders, it’s not an asset—it’s a liability. If the company cannot generate meaning without your direct involvement, its value drops. You haven’t built a business; you’ve built a prison.

The Demotivation of the “One-Man Show”

There is another hidden cost to being the sole voice of the company: the slow death of internal motivation.

When a founder monopolizes the spotlight, the rest of the team starts to see PR as “the boss’s hobby.” They stop seeing the value in helping the agency. Why should a busy CTO spend two hours explaining a complex architecture to a PR manager if the final article will only feature the founder’s face and a generic quote?

When only the founder is involved:

• Interest drops: Your top talent feels invisible. They stop feeding the “news factory” with insights because they don’t see themselves in the narrative.

• Zero incentive: There’s no drive for experts to stay sharp or develop their own public profiles, which ultimately weakens the company’s total intellectual authority.

Multi-Dimensional Media Exposure: The Power of the Bench

Imagine instead a culture where “being in the media” is seen as a badge of honor, a professional reward for those who are genuinely interested in it.

When you empower your team to become independent speakers, everything changes:

1. Recognition as a Perk: For a high-level engineer or an operations lead, being featured as an expert in a Tier-1 trade publication is a massive professional validation. It’s a way of saying, “We don’t just value your code; we value your mind.”

2. Expanding the Journalist Pool: A single founder usually appeals to one type of journalist—business or general tech. But when your CTO talks about infrastructure and your COO talks about logistics efficiency, you suddenly unlock multiple pools of journalists. You are no longer fighting for one spot in the morning news; you are present in the tech sections, the operational journals, and the niche industry newsletters simultaneously.

3. The Redundancy Shield: This is about “key man risk.” Investors and acquirers look for it. To build a sustainable brand, you need a “Council of Experts.” If you go on vacation or get tied up in a deal, the company fall silent.

True PR maturity is when your CTO is the go-to person for tech trends, your COO is the authority on scaling, and you are free to be the visionary or to simply be silent when needed.

Let me know what you think below!

Disclaimer: The information provided in this publication is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute professional PR, legal, or business advice. While we strive for accuracy, results may vary. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior written permission.

This is the first edition of The Reputation Playbook. In this newsletter I’ll be writing about real cases from crisis comms, reputation management and, of course, traditional PR. I know exactly what you won’t find here. There will be no “33 tips” on how to get a journalist on the phone, no guides on writing press releases that get picked up without even being opened, and no advice on how to push CEOs to post on LinkedIn non-stop.

My goal is simple: to keep things practical – to look at real situations, examine the decisions companies make and try to understand what worked and what didn’t. Why do I talk so much about crisis comms? It’s where the profession shows what it’s really about. In a crisis you have to rely on judgment, creativity and the ability to make unconventional decisions under pressure.

PR pros often complain that it’s difficult to measure their work. In crisis comms that problem rarely exists – the outcome is usually very clear. Over the course of my career I’ve heard two completely opposite things. Some people told me I was too eager to jump into the fight. Later, those same people told me I was too cautious. The reason is simple: I’ve always tried to put the client’s interests first.

So today we’re going to talk about one of those situations – when the smartest move in PR is simply to stay silent. Let’s get started!

When silence is the best strategy

Saying nothing does not mean doing nothing. Behind that invisible touch there is usually a lot of internal work: discussions, pressure from management, and constant evaluation of different scenarios.

I once worked with a large retailer whose orders started to shift just before the holidays because of weather-related logistics problems. The first complaints were already appearing on social media, and I was facing a real dilemma: should we apologize and announce delays immediately, or should we take the risk and bet on the logistics team managing to catch up and keep the situation contained?

An early apology could have triggered a much bigger wave of frustration. Customers might have started cancelling orders, and competitors could easily have used the situation against the company. The costs would not only have been financial, but reputational as well. In the end, I decided that the best move was to say nothing and managed to convince the management team to go along with that decision.

The weather was on my side, the logistics team managed to catch up, and only a handful of orders arrived late. We never had to go public with a statement, and in the end we avoided a storm far bigger than the one outside.

Choosing to stay silent is not a passive decision. In many cases it requires more responsibility than speaking. Someone has to take ownership of that choice and convince the management team that waiting is the better strategy. Silence, when it is deliberate, can be a form of communication in itself.

However, silence is not always the right strategy.

Take the case of Peloton Interactive , which declined to comment on a Bloomberg story suggesting that even recruiters were uncertain about the company’s future. It’s hard to understand how a company can choose not to appear in a story like that, and it raises a fair question about what the communications team is there for.

Meanwhile, job candidates who have interviewed with the company over the past year say that the recruiters often didn’t seem confident in Peloton’s future. Some applicants worried that they would be joining the business for only a short period of time before they, too, would be laid off. Aside from the rank and file, Peloton has been losing top executives. Its chief financial officer, Liz Coddington, is leaving this month, while its marketing chief departed last year as part of a larger shake-up. Bloomberg

At the time the article was published, the stock was down nearly 40% year-to-date, and the story itself questioned confidence in the company’s future. In situations like that, the absence of a response says a lot about how decisions are made inside the company and, more broadly, about how it treats its own reputation. I covered the Peloton situation in more detail here

Smear Campaigns in the Algorithm Era

A PR agency can damage its own reputation as well. The Agency’s Group (TAG) has been accused of creating websites aimed at discrediting producer Amanda Ghost. She is quite a colorful figure: a former director at Epic Records and a co-writer of James Blunt’s song “You’re Beautiful.” She is now involved in a legal dispute with actress Rebel Wilson over a film.

I can’t say I had heard much about any of them before, except for Epic Records, but I would recommend reading the coverage in The Hollywood Reporter to understand how smear campaigns can work. Fake websites filled with allegations are not created so that major media outlets will quote them. They are created to influence search results.

If you are a public figure with a strong media presence and plenty of reputable coverage, it is very difficult for such sites to dominate search results. But if you are someone who usually works behind the scenes and very little has been written about you before a legal dispute, people who start searching your name may find something quite different.

For companies that run these kinds of campaigns, knowing journalists is not even necessary. It is enough to understand how SEO works. But there is an interesting twist here: when high-level officials constantly claim that the media spreads fake news, it raises an obvious question - who exactly are people supposed to trust?

This is where the rhetoric of politicians sometimes plays right into their hands. When we constantly hear claims that the media spreads “fake news,” the line between real reporting and fabricated content becomes blurred, and reach begins to matter more than credibility. Even completely absurd claims can start to gain traction.

The recording bolsters the appearance that Nathan’s The Agency Group — a top PR shop in the entertainment industry whose clients have included Drake and Johnny Depp, and has frequently worked with Freedman — deployed websites featuring character-assassinating claims about Ghost. The conversation was originally recorded in order to relay instructions from Wallace to former TAG vice president Katie Case, who was not on the call. THR

What is particularly striking in this case is that the voice instructions discussing the plan to discredit the producer were recorded and later entered into the court record. The next stage will likely be the discussion moving into social media. This case also highlights a broader shift in how smear campaigns work. It is often enough to influence an algorithm and shape what appears in search results.

There is also a certain irony here. Agencies that are hired to protect reputations can sometimes end up creating a reputational crisis of their own.

For today, that’s all. I’m glad I managed to finish my very first newsletter, and I’d be very curious to hear your thoughts - if anyone actually makes it to the end. Crisis communications is a fascinating field, and I’m glad that a small community around these topics is already starting to take shape.

See you next week,

Mark

Note: This analysis is based on publicly available information and represents my personal professional opinion. It is not financial or investment advice.