• When companies, execs, and celebrities face crises, they call on PR experts to control the damage.
• CEOs keep these pros on speed dial to influence press coverage and keep their businesses humming.
• Insider identified 18 PR execs who've handled some of the biggest controversies in recent years.

Brands once sought crisis PR for one-off incidents like an airplane crash, a product recall, or a scandal. Now, in a deeply polarized world grappling with labor unrest, online misinformation, and cultural conflicts, crisis communications have become an everyday need.

Crisis PR has also grown to encompass risk assessment and mitigation, and clients are relying more on PR pros to advise on potential outcomes of regular events like product launches, marketing campaigns, and even executive hires.

Insider identified 18 top crisis-PR pros across the US, based on their clients, influence, and impact. To choose the people on this list, we spoke with journalists, clients, and in-house PR staff who often work with crisis firms.

Featuring both boutique firms and global agencies, our list includes crisis veterans including the CommCore founder and CEO Andy Gilman, who counseled Tylenol through its 1982 poisoning scare; The Levinson Group's senior managing director Kaye Verville, who worked with E. Jean Carroll during her lawsuit against Donald Trump; and Second Floor Advisors' cofounder Thomas Isen, a former Biden White House advisor.

Scroll down to read the list, in alphabetical order by last name.

Maryam Ayromlou, Ruder Finn

Ayromlou joined this global firm in 2010 after decades in broadcast journalism. She has led responses to situations including Cardinal Health's 2020 recall of 9 million surgical gowns, during which Ruder Finn managed internal and external comms.

Subway has also been a crisis client. When a national news network used a faulty lab results to report that Subway's oven-roasted chicken contained soy protein, Ayromlou's team oversaw rapid-response media monitoring, trained Subway executives, and even purchased full-page newspaper ads sharing Subway's side of the story.

Ayromlou, whose television experience included stints at CNN and MSNBC, won a Daytime Emmy for her work on CBS's "The Early Show."

Sarah Berman, The Berman Group

Berman's specialty is communications for commercial developers, building owners, landlords, and proptech companies, and crisis management has become a significant part of that work, she told Insider.

Among the clients she and her teams are advising: Nightingale Properties, whose CEO has been accused of multiple financial misdeeds, along with headline-making construction accidents for client firms including Lendlease, Hunter Roberts, EJ-Electric, and the Italian-owned Pizzarotti LLC. "We handled the high-profile crane accident in the East 50s many years ago, and it really solidified our reputation as the national crisis-PR leader when it comes to unfortunate job-site accidents around in the country," Berman told Insider.

"We have handled a number of more confidential situations, including indictments and serious charges against real-estate and construction executives, organizations, and unions," she said.

Scott Bisang, Collected Strategies

Bisang was part of the supergroup that launched this financial-comms firm in 2023, along with Joele Frank executives Jim Golden and Jude Gorman, and the Bloomberg reporter Ed Hammond.

He counseled Twitter through the Elon Musk transaction and Jack Dorsey transition, advised Vice Media through its recent restructuring, worked with Monsanto through an SEC investigation and settlement, and helped guide First NBC Bank during its 2017 FDIC seizure.

In shareholder activism and hostile transactions, Bisang led teams representing Allergan in its hostile defense against Valeant, Newmont in its hostile defense against Barrick Gold, and Athenahealth in its activist engagement with Elliott Management and subsequent sale. Bisang has also helped "a number of companies plan for and navigate litigation issues, including complex class-action lawsuits and patent infringement cases," he told Insider. Early in his career, Bisang was a comms specialist for IBM and the Federal Reserve.

Richard Dukas, Dukas Linden Public Relations

Crisis is a key component of comms work for this 20-year-old financial public-relations firm, Dukas told Insider. Dukas Linden has advised clients through regulatory-enforcement actions, litigation, activist-shareholder situations, bankruptcies and restructurings, DEI issues, and other challenges.

While nondisclosure agreements prohibit Dukas from naming crisis clients, he told Insider his firm has handled responses to a cybersecurity breach for a large credit union, a "major personal reputational issue" for a global asset manager, and allegations of racial discrimination against customers by a community bank.

The New York firm's clients have included BlueMountain Capital, at the time a $20 billion AUM asset manager, since sold to Assured Guaranty; Muddy Waters Research and founder Carson Bloch, a headline-making activist investor; and BlockFi, one of the largest crypto platforms before FTX's collapse, and now in bankruptcy.

Andrew Friedman, BerlinRosen

Friedman leads the dedicated legal affairs and crisis communications practice at BerlinRosen, a sprawling firm whose specialiaties include healthtech, travel, real estate, media, and political campaigns. A one-time broadcast journalist, Friedman was the deputy communications director of the New York State attorney general's office before joining BerlinRosen in 2015.

A spokesperson for the firm told Insider that Friedman "helps a wide range of clients — from global technology companies and AmLaw 100 law firms to Sandy Hook families and international philanthropies — plan for and manage communications around reputational threats, high-stakes legal battles, corporate challenges and organizational conflicts."

In a 2020 essay on crisis comms for the PR trade publication O'Dwyer's, Friedman recommended identifying a "validator wrangler" — a person who can identify outside sources to validate key points to reporters and other constituencies.

Chris Giglio, Rubenstein

Giglio's experience as a Kroll private investigator and NBC "Dateline" investigative journalist "helps me stand out and helps me in my work" as head of Rubenstein's crisis group.

Client sectors of the group span the corporate, nonprofit, museum, academic, healthcare, and financial worlds. Giglio and his eight-person team often partner with law firms. "What's striking now is how many clients are coming to us with no problems on the horizon but serious concerns about the state of the world," he told Insider.

A managing director at Rubenstein, Giglio also built the crisis practice at HL Group (now part of KWT Global) and "handled high-profile situations" at Kekst CNC. Today, "the political climate and advances in AI" are among the top worries for clients; issues also include corporate security, internal investigations, and global regulatory concerns. "You can't prevent things from happening, but you can prevent the damage," he told Insider.

Andy Gilman, CommCore Consulting Group

Gilman, who launched DC's CommCore nearly 40 years ago, has counseled clients through some of the most pivotal crisis situations of the past few decades. He advised Johnson & Johnson during the 1982 Tylenol poisoning crisis; consulted Canada's government during the 2003 SARS outbreak; and has trained executives at GM, PepsiCo, and several pharma companies.

"With the Tylenol crisis, there was no internet or social media," he told Insider. "Today, every crisis has a factor of everyone chiming in on minute one, and getting their news from a million sources."

Four themes now dominate CommCore's crisis practice, Gilman said: cybersecurity, gun violence, labor, and healthcare. Situations have involved a ransomware attack on a medical-device company, active-shooter crisis-response plans for a manufacturer, and corporate comms counseling through labor negotiations.

Gilman, who is also a lawyer, leads a full-time team of 10. Key to their work is "what to do, once you've learned your lessons, to prevent the situation from happening again." 

James Haggerty, PRCG | Haggerty

Haggerty's 25-year-old firm represents "a handful of Fortune 100s, several financial institutions, heavy industry, and one of the world's largest food manufacturers," he told Insider.

A practicing attorney, Haggerty's books on crisis PR include 2009's "In the Court of Public Opinion," a primer on public relations during lawsuits, and 2019's "Chief Crisis Officer," which advises companies on leadership during crisis situations.

"You need structure and leadership more than media contacts or creative approaches," Haggerty told Insider. "It's also about risk mitigation — identifying sensitive issues that could become a crisis." His firm is part of a "global network of crisis communicators that can come together as needed," he said.

The defining element of crisis comms today is "speed," Haggerty noted. "For some organizations, every media call or social post is a crisis. But you must understand the context and ultimate impact before reacting."

Risa Heller, Risa Heller Communications

Heller's work for celebrity and corporate clients has earned her profiles in outlets like New York Magazine and The Wrap — rare recognition outside the industry for a PR pro.

Heller has advised the former CNN president Jeff Zucker, the disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, and Arcade Fire's Win Butler.

High-stakes transactions involving clients like Activision Blizzard and Barstool Sports have also been a specialty of the 23-person firm, and Heller has counseled brands including Airbnb, DoorDash, Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp., and Match Group.

Heller started her career in public service, as the comms director for Sen. Charles Schumer and David Paterson, then the governor of New York State.

Thomas Isen, Second Floor Advisors

Isen and Alex Yudelson, both former Biden White House advisors, founded this "impact engagement and strategic communications" firm in July. "We specialize in the area where issues intersect with politics," Isen told Insider.

In 2023, "we've seen politics arrive at the doorstep of our clients," Isen said. "Speaking out on every issue in the news cycle is the wrong approach. Instead, building an authentic and meaningful social-impact platform has served as our clients' best defense."

Rather than just respond to crisis situations, Isen said his mission is to "help companies and individuals be proactive to avoid a crisis in the first place," he said. "We had an NFL team reach out to us about whether or not to advocate for a gun-control bill in their state legislature."

Nick Kalm, Reputation Partners

Since launching Chicago's Reputation Partners two decades ago, Kalm has counseled more than 700 clients through litigation, media investigations, regulatory actions, cyber issues, workplace violence, and other challenges.

This year has seen a particular emphasis on labor-union issues, he told Insider. "Unions are enjoying unprecedented support," Kalm told Insider. "We're developing comms strategies both internal and external to convey what management is putting on the bargaining table, and why it's attractive."

Before founding his own firm, Kalm headed Edelman Chicago's reputation-management practice and led Ketchum Chicago's corporate practice. "The difference today is the speed at which things play out. There are fewer journalists and many more individuals writing or posting without editing, fact-checking, or supervision," he said. "At the same time, I've never seen this level of dissatisfaction or disdain for corporations and institutions. It's much more challenging to communicate for these clients when there's a built-in bias."

Ray Kerins, Next Solutions Group

Kerins is a crisis-comms veteran whose experience includes advising British Airways through a rival airline's Concorde crash; counseling Bridgestone/Firestone during congressional investigations in 2000 over faulty tires; and working for Merck during a Vioxx recall. He also headed global comms for Pfizer and Bayer.

As CEO of the two-year-old Next Solutions Group, Kerins focuses "on reputation management, cybersecurity, public affairs, and a lot of legal issues" for healthcare and defense-industry clients, among other sectors.

His talent lineup includes the former Bloomberg News and Washington Post editor Justin Blum; Dan Childs, who ran ABC News' health and medical news desk; Lauren Pearle, an attorney who worked the legal beat at ABC News; and Michael Harley, an Air Force veteran who worked for the NSA.

"Our job is not to sweep things under the rug," Kerins told Insider. "We'll only work with clients who are willing to make appropriate adjustments to fix the challenges they have."

Barbara Laidlaw, Allison+Partners

A partner at the global comms firm Allison+Partners, Laidlaw launched and led crisis and reputation practices at the PR giants FleishmanHillard and Edelman. At Allison, her work "blurs the lines between reputation and issues management, including product recalls, changing jurisdictional elements for international clients, and situations around consumer packaged goods," she told Insider.

Crisis work "is where we come in and fix a problem, look around corners to identify issues before they happen, or find strategies to get a client from point A to point B," Laidlaw said. "The best work I've done, no one has ever seen." Laidlaw also counsels on "risk profiles" for new campaigns and potential issues around new products.

Social media "plays a huge role now" for the 10-person practice she leads. "We have to help clients understand that just because people jumped on social to comment, it doesn't necessarily mean damage. Are the comments influential and the people important?"

Lauren Nussbaum, Sloane & Company

As a senior managing director, Nussbaum "has helped her clients navigate numerous inflection points in a year marked by cyberattacks, union negotiations, complex societal issues, and a banking crisis," Sloane & Company's co-CEO Darren Brandt told Insider.

Nussbaum helped lead the firm's work for the multibillion-dollar Lehigh Valley Health Network through a cybersecurity attack and when it nearly terminated its relationship with Aetna. She advised the financial-services client TruStage through a CEO transition during union negotiations and right after an organization-wide rebrand. With a team of 55, the firm has also advised clients like UPS, Centrus Energy, and Live Nation.

Before joining Sloane & Company, Nussbaum was part of the governance team at the financial-comms firm Joele Frank and led media relations for the global law firm Paul, Weiss, counseling senior partners on comms around "high-profile situations."

Scott Powell, Skyline Corporate Communications

A financial-comms firm based in New York and Boston, Skyline handles mostly corporate-crisis situations, Powell told Insider. Those issues have included hostile takeovers, federal lawsuits, misinformation, short sellers, earnings misses, executive departures, and union strikes, he said.

"A lot of CEOs will come to me personally and say they have a problem, but they don't know the best approach," he said. "We're seeing so much more anonymous, patently false information in efforts to drive share prices down. It's difficult, but sometimes it involves telling clients not to respond — they may embolden the person behind it. It's a reflex reaction, just like human behavior." 

The biggest change in crisis comms is the use of social media to communicate corporate information, he said: "Fifteen years ago, we never would have considered it. Now, everyone does it."

Atalanta Rafferty, RF Binder

Crisis comms has been a focus for RF Binder since the firm's launch in 2001. The firm has counseled clients including religious organizations, corporations, and retailers through challenges from lawsuits to criminal and ethics accusations to labor-management issues.

Rafferty, a cofounder and the senior executive managing director, has been the firm's lead on crisis situations that run the gamut. Most recently, she's counseled clients on cybersecurity attacks, ransom requests, and data breaches, along with food-safety issues and product recalls. She's now working with a client on "the spread of misinformation in the media and on social about health claims," an RF Binder spokesperson told Insider.

"Understanding the rapid and fragmented nature of social media's role in the dissemination of misinformation, Atalanta has helped leverage key stakeholders and relationships to shift conversations," the spokesperson said. Rafferty's PR career started with stints at Cohn & Wolfe and Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

John Schiumo, Global Strategy Group

Schiumo joined this high-profile research and public-affairs firm in 2018 after two decades as a broadcast anchor for NY1 News and a reporter for CBS.

A GSG spokesperson told Insider that most of Schiumo's work is under nondisclosure. But his campaigns have included guiding a "world-class" cultural institution through a crisis scenario involving an "internationally renowned artist" and working with three NYC-based nonprofits, all of which faced state or city investigations for alleged wrongdoings.

As a journalist, Schiumo's assignments included reporting live from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and from Nova Scotia after the crash of Swissair Flight 111.

Kaye Verville, The Levinson Group

The Levinson Group has counseled clients through headline-making situations, and senior managing director Verville has led many of those initiatives.

Among them: supporting the journalist E. Jean Carroll throughout her legal proceedings and the defamation and battery trial against former President Donald Trump; counseling plaintiffs and legal counsel challenging Florida House Bill 1557, also known as the "Don't Say Gay" law; and, most recently, advising the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers during the ongoing strike negotiations with WGA and SAG-AFTRA.

"Clients get to know and trust Kaye in a crisis and then refuse to stop working with her, even when crises are resolved, narratives are changed, and businesses are back on course," The Levinson Group founder and CEO Molly Levinson told Insider.

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