The time for stakeholder capitalism has come. There is growing evidence that companies that take a long-term view perform better – companies with strong ESG norms record higher performance and credit ratings.

From one of the world’s oldest general medical journals – the prospect of vaccines avoiding the harm and misery of extended restrictions is a cause for optimism, but we are far from ending COVID-19 as a public health issue. The vaccine trials’ results were announced via press releases, leaving many scientific uncertainties that will dictate how the vaccines will affect the course of the pandemic. Peer-reviewed publication should resolve these issues, but other questions will not be answerable for some time.

Previous studies suggest that the risk community continues to struggle with reputational risk and with reputation as an intangible asset. This paper puts forward frameworks for risk professionals to work strategically with others within their organizations to measure and tackle reputational risks.

Paul Merrey and Arturs Kokins of KPMG discuss trust and reputation, the role of the risk professional in this area and the insurance options already available and currently in development, while Christopher Magee of AIG in the UK addresses the key areas of most concern to risk professionals in the areas of governance, laws and regulation.