Brand Integrity & Ethics

How do you prevent an ethical crisis?

Introducing Brand Integrity & Ethics

We are helping clients worldwide walk the talk​ and do the right thing, mitigating risks and building competitive advantage.

Interbrand, the world’s leading brand consultancy, and Principia Advisory, ​the world’s leading advisory on organisational ethics, have come together ​to establish the global best practice in Brand Integrity & Ethics.

Together, we work with business leaders to align their decisions ​and their organisation’s conduct to its purpose, commitments ​and stakeholder expectations.

At a time of deep social, political and environmental crisis, people are looking to business as the institution to drive societal change – and to their brands as powerful acts of leadership. Quite simply, the business of business is no longer just business. 

As a result, leaders are expected to make tough calls on complex issues and take uncompromising stances on a near daily basis – doing the right thing and ensuring their organisations “walk the talk”. 

Increasingly, brands are judged, celebrated or undone as a result of acts not ads: it’s what they do, rather than what they say, that shifts attitudes. This entails considerable risks, but also significant opportunities. Integrity and ethical leadership are not only moral imperatives, but also the foundation to mitigate risk as well as build competitive advantage. 

To address these challenges, Interbrand, the world’s leading brand consultancy, and Principia Advisory, the world’s leading advisory group on organisational ethics, have come together to establish the global best practice in Brand Integrity & Ethics. 

Together, we are helping our clients do the right thing and walk the talk. We work with business leaders to align their decisions and their organisation’s conduct to its purpose, commitments and stakeholder expectations. 

Interbrand and Principia join forces in the shared belief that strong brands have the power to shape ethical organisations, and that ethical organisations are essential to shaping strong brands.  

Brands that lead with integrity earn the permission to play a bigger role in their customers’ lives, setting the foundation for sustained and sustainable business growth.


Your Challenges

We help leaders future proof their brands and organisations by addressing complex questions. These are some of the questions we are addressing with our clients worldwide. If you feel you do not have an answer to one of these questions, your organisation is facing risks or missing out on opportunities.


Our Approach

Using ethical decision making to achieve brand integrity


Our Offer

How to meet the brand integrity and ethics challenges of today?

RISK & OPPORTUNITY MAPPING

Integrity & Ethics Rapid Diagnostic

A rapid diagnostic to pinpoint opportunities for competitive advantage and risk mitigation through adopting a leadership position on integrity and ethics, looking at four areas: Context, Leadership, Organisation and Constituents.

CONTEXT FOCUS

1. Ethical Futures

What issues are you likely to face?

Identify and anticipate the issues that will shape your future environment, and define the priorities and decisions required to translate purpose into impact.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS

2. Ethical Leadership

How do you make the right decisions?

Develop the leadership thinking and skills required to address complex tensions and trade-offs, and build frameworks to navigate ethical decisions and dilemmas.

ORGANISATIONAL FOCUS

3. Culture & Capabilities

How do you empower everyone to do the right thing?

Pinpoint risks to brand integrity, assess existing capabilities, and align Beliefs, Behaviours and Systems to act with consistency, transparency, and integrity.

CONSTITUENTS FOCUS

4. Societal Impact Strategy

What impact can and should you ultimately have, on whom?

Connect purpose with ESG to enhance societal impact, and target the “Generosity Dividend” of aligning philanthropy with values and brand.

END-TO-END

Purpose to ImpactTM

The Purpose to ImpactTM programme is our flagship offer. Bringing together the world’s leading specialists in brand strategy, ethics, and societal impact, we work with C Suite leaders through an end-to-end programme that translates purpose and strategy into measurable impact.

How do we develop an ethical decision-making framework to navigate difficult issues?


Perspectives

Our Experts

Sarah Miller

Chief Executive Officer,
Principia Advisory

Read Profile

Sarah is the Chief Executive at Principia. Much of her career was spent working on issues such as immigration, refugee resettlement, homelessness, and mental health; and she continues to be actively engaged in these issues as a board member. Sarah has twenty years’ experience in global leadership roles across the Americas, Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

She specializes in organizational development, strategy and governance, ethical decision making, diversity and inclusion and speak-up culture.

Sarah holds a Masters in International Affairs from the University of Edinburgh.

Christopher Nurko

Group Executive,
Brand Integrity & Ethics,
Interbrand

Read Profile

A creative strategist and innovator, Chris has over 35 years of experience in the field of brand strategy and innovation leadership. Chris leads the global practice of Brand Integrity & Ethics for Interbrand. Advising C Suite leadership on how to leverage their brand as an organizational asset to align Purpose, Culture and Systems for Impact – Chris brings a high level of strategic understanding and collaboration to helping organizations ‘to keep their promises’ and ‘improve the world’. Advisory work includes identifying how leadership teams across sectors can achieve high performance through a purpose-led approach to strategy; an understanding of E.S.G from the non-financial audience perspective; and how to mitigate Brand risk through an ethical decision-making framework.

His passion for helping leaders define competitive advantage and differentiation combines with his experience in ethics and critical thinking.

Having worked with and created some of the world’s most iconic brands, Chris offers expertise in combining stakeholder insights with organizational strategy. He leads the Interbrand Ethics Council and has been instrumental in defining the  ‘All in for All’ program of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Interbrand worldwide.  

Chris is a global Involve LGBTQ+ role model and has served as an advisor to the World Health Organization on branding. Chris participates in the Disruptive Innovation program of Higher Education at Rutgers University; is a guest lecturer at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design), Georgetown University, George Washington University and Bournemouth University in the faculties of business and design management. A graduate of  G.W.U. and the London School of Economics.