Jonathan Hemus, director
Jonathan, the founder of Insignia, has over 20 years’ experience providing communication advice to world leading companies and brands including Disney, Gillette, Maersk, Procter & Gamble, Royal Mail, Duracell, Yahoo!, Novartis and Covidien. During his ten years at top ten international PR consultancy Porter Novelli, he was both UK leader of the consultancy’s corporate practice and global leader for its crisis and issues management specialty. As such he is an experienced crisis and issues counsellor having developed plans and delivered training to prevent and prepare for crisis, and provided hands on advice to organisations in the midst of a major incident or issue. He is an accomplished coach, having trained hundreds of executives around the world to communicate more effectively with their many stakeholders. As a proven communication strategist, his expertise covers reputation creation, promotion and protection, delivered to clients in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East.
As Insignia’s founder, Jonathan has advised on major corporate change programmes, helped organisations address challenges with their online reputation and provided communication coaching and training for many CEOs and other senior executives. In 2009, he co-authored a report into the role of the spokesperson in communicating about risk, an area of particular interest. Jonathan is an associate of the National Social Marketing Centre working with the Department of Health and NHS to help them achieve behaviour change around issues such as smoking, healthy eating and alcohol.
My perspective on communication
It’s impossible to over-estimate the importance of effective communication. At its best, communication can help good companies achieve greatness. In my experience, it’s only through communicating clearly, consistently and with purpose, that businesses can fully achieve their potential.
My proudest achievement
As a cricket lover, advising the International Cricket Council as it grappled with the issue of match-fixing was a once in a lifetime opportunity. To its credit, it followed the cardinal rules of crisis management – take action, be seen to care and communicate pro-actively. As a consequence, research showed that it enhanced its reputation at a time when it was facing its greatest threat – now that’s the definition of great reputation management!
My dream client
My dream client would be one who is passionate about business and also embraces the central role of communication in achieving their business objectives. Peter Jones seems to embody this attitude. Not only that, but one of the privileges of being a consultant is the opportunity to learn from one’s clients - and there’s no doubt that it would be stimulating to benefit from Peter Jones’s business acumen.
People you can trust with your reputation.