Built in boardrooms.
Grounded in trust.

From C-suite messaging to executive support, Reputation Matters reflects lived experience — corporate, creative, and quietly relentless when it counts.

Paul Thomas, founder and principal

Paul Thomas has spent decades helping organizations communicate clearly when clarity matters most — from boardroom decisions to enterprise-wide change. His experience spans global firms including UBS and Thomson Reuters, where he worked across internal, external, and operational communications, often at moments when trust, alignment, and credibility were under pressure.

Reputation Matters began in 2012 as a personal experiment — part reflection, part provocation. Like many reputations, it faded, evolved, and eventually returned with sharper purpose. In 2020, amid a global reckoning around leadership, trust, and communication, Paul relaunched the firm as a focused consultancy for leaders and organizations navigating complexity, change, or heightened visibility.

What distinguishes his work isn’t polish or volume — it’s judgment. Paul helps leaders slow down long enough to see what’s really at stake, clarify what needs to change, and communicate in ways that people actually understand, believe, and act on. He’s less interested in broadcasting messages than in shaping conversations that move organizations forward.

Reputation Matters exists to help words, actions, and outcomes align — not performatively, but credibly. The work is human, rigorous, and quietly relentless when it counts.

Paul Thomas, principal

Guiding principles

Human first

People come first, with canines and felines vying closely for second. Preserving humanity in an age of AI-driven shortcuts is our priority. Technology supports strategy — but it never replaces it.

Clear, not clever

We align our public promises with what we can actually deliver. No marketing spin. No overpromising. No gimmicks.

No hype, no hedging

We ask hard questions early to prevent reputational damage later. Protecting your credibility starts with honesty behind closed doors.

Truth earns trust

If audiences don’t think, feel, or act differently, it wasn’t communication. It was just noise — and we traffic in truth, not noise.

Respect your communication preferences

Phone, email, text — you choose the channel, and we match it with urgency and care. Responsiveness is one more way we show respect.

Things I know now that I didn’t before I had grey hair

Reputations are slow to build, fast to lose, and always earned.
If you’re explaining too much, the real issue is upstream.
People don’t hear what you say—they hear what makes them feel safe enough to act.
Usually, the best way to build trust is to say: “We got it wrong. Here’s how we’re fixing it.”
And we generally fix it — and thank the people afterward who cared enough to point it out.

I built Reputation Matters because communication is where strategy succeeds — or dies trying.

If the message doesn’t line up with what’s real, people will feel it. And they won’t follow it.

Built in boardrooms.Grounded in trust.