May 2026 Group Learning: Scrutiny-Ready: Reputation Engineering in the Age of Skepticism
Watch our May session,“Scrutiny-Ready: Reputation Engineering in the Age of Skepticism” with Cheryl Overton.
Many teams still design communications for attention when the real requirement today is examination by consumers, journalists, regulators, investors, and employees who are actively looking for gaps and gotchas. In this session, Cheryl Overton reframes earned media as a strategic stress test and shares an experience-driven approach to designing communications that hold up when questions are skeptical, facts are incomplete, or the story isn’t favorable. We’ll cover:
- How to build scrutiny-ready narratives that maintain credibility under questioning
- A practical pressure-test approach to identifying where messaging breaks under examination before it becomes public, politicized, or reputationally costly
- How senior communicators can guide leadership through unfavorable moments, distinguishing real reputational risk from discomfort, noise, or short-term criticism
Your instructor: Cheryl Overton is an Emmy and Cannes Lion–winning impact strategist and founder of Cheryl Overton Communications, where she helps enterprise brands turn cultural shifts into commercial growth. With more than 30 years of experience leading earned-first, audience-driven communications and brand positioning, she advises organizations on how to anticipate change, sharpen positioning, and compete in markets where assumptions about consumers are outdated. A frequent industry juror, speaker, and media commentator, Cheryl brings a clear, commercial lens to the evolving role of communications in driving relevance, reputation, and revenue.
About Group Learnings: These sessions will take place via Zoom nearly every month and will be 60 minutes long. In addition to a presentation from a credentialed instructor, there will be an interactive/Q&A portion toward the end of the session. If you are unable to join the live program, an on-demand recording will be made available post-event (along with presentation slides).