Africa’s Reputation Economy Has No Room For Slow Responders

Every executive I speak with across Africa agrees that a crisis could strike their organisation. Far fewer can tell me what happens in the first sixty minutes if it does — who speaks, what they say, on whose authority. That gap, between acknowledging risk and being ready for it, is where reputations are lost. And in today’s African information environment, it is widening at exactly the moment it can least afford to.

The arithmetic is stark. Global executives estimate that reputation drives an average of 63% of their company’s market value, according to Weber Shandwick’s State of Corporate Reputation survey of over 2,200 executives — a figure that has climbed steadily from roughly 25% a decade earlier. Separate research using hard market data puts the number lower but still substantial: reputation accounted for 28% of total S&P 500 market capitalisation in 2024, or $11.9 trillion, according to Echo Research’s Reputation Dividend report. However it’s measured, the thing that carries most of a company’s value is also the thing that can be destabilised fastest.

The New Physics of a Crisis

Crises now ignite in hours, usually on social media, before they reach headlines. The gap between a story breaking and an organisation’s response is filled by others — with speculation and, increasingly, fabrication. That fabrication has become far cheaper to produce: the volume of deepfake content circulating online grew roughly sixteenfold between 2023 and 2025, from an estimated 500,000 files to about 8 million, according to cybersecurity firm DeepStrike’s analysis. Across Africa specifically, documented disinformation campaigns targeting the continent’s information systems have nearly quadrupled since 2022, with 189 campaigns mapped as of early 2024 — a figure the Africa Center for Strategic Studies…