Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society.

In this episode, Justin interviews Jeff McKissack about participating and speaking at RIMS events, and his upcoming RIMS Texas Regional Conference session on August 11th in San Antonio, on the increasing overlap between reputation management and risk management. Jeff shares the critical impact of reputation risk and the growing threat of AI-generated content. He explains how even executives have caused reputational damage to their organizations, and he reveals a practical step that risk managers can take immediately to reduce the likelihood of reputation-related incidents and subsequent litigation. Justin and Jeff discuss the RIMS Texas Regional Conference, and how you can connect with Jeff after his presentation.

Listen for ways to implement reputation management strategies in your organization.

Key Takeaways:

[:01] About RIMS and RIMScast.

[:16] About this episode of RIMScast. We will be joined by Jeff McKissack of Defense by Design to talk all about reputation risk management. But first…

[:39] RIMS-CRMP Workshop. We are delighted to announce that on August 27th and 28th, RIMS President Manny Padilla will be leading the two-day in-person workshop at St. John's University at 101 Astor Place in New York City. A link to the registration is in this episode's show notes.

[:59] RIMS-CRMP Virtual Workshops. The next RIMS-CRMP Exam Prep with PARIMA will be held virtually on July 21st and 22nd. Registration links are in this episode's notes.

[1:11] We have a summertime webinar. On July 16th, Zurich will present "Too Hot to Ignore: Heat-Related Injuries and Workers' Compensation." Register at RIMS.org/webinars and via the link in this episode's show notes.

[1:25] Also on the webinars page, you will see a two-part series hosted by the RIMS Membership Department. The "Classroom to Career" webinar series highlights how RIMS equips students with the knowledge, skills, and connections needed to thrive in risk management careers.

[1:41] Participants will gain insights into industry trends, career pathways, and practical tools that help them confidently step into the evolving world of risk management after graduation. These sessions will be hosted on September 1st and 9th.

[1:55] These sessions are member exclusives and are complimentary for RIMS members, of course. So, if you are interested in becoming a member, this would be the time. Visit RIMS.org/membership.

[2:04] You can enroll now in the Virtual RIMS CRO Certificate Program in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management hosted by the famous James Lam. Beginning July 15th, workshops will be held bi-weekly from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET. The registration link is in the show notes.

[2:28] The RIMS ERM Conference 2026 will be held on November 19th and 20th in Columbus, Ohio. Registration will open in July. Be on the lookout for the call for nominations for the RIMS ERM Global Award of Distinction. Visit RIMS.org/ERM2026 in July for that announcement.

[2:49] RIMS is back on YouTube. Our handle is @RIMSOfficialChannel. We've got plenty of videos there, including RIMScast, RIMScast Canada video podcasts, and other informative and entertaining content from RIMS. Subscribe to the channel today!

[3:08] On with the Show! Our guest today is the Founder of Defense by Design, Jeff McKissack, a noted authority in the fields of threat assessment and the prevention of violent crime, with over 35 years of experience.

[3:22] Jeff provides continuing education seminars for those in the educational, medical, legal, financial, real estate, human resources, and risk management sectors. He is one of the favorite speakers in the RIMS Texas Chapters.

[3:36] You can find him at the RIMS Texas Regional Conference 2026 on August 11th at 1:45, when he will present "How Reputation Management is Impacting Risk Management."

[3:46] As you will hear in this interview, his session at the RIMS Texas Regional will dovetail with the Risks of Physical Harm and Violence. He's here to provide a preview of his session.

[3:55] We talk about the Risk Management impact of social media, AI, and deepfake technologies on operations and profits, and how employee activity online and off the clock can ripple through staffing, operations, morale, productivity, profits, and brand image.

[4:10] This episode is a year in the making. Let's get to it!

[4:12] Interview! Jeff McKissack, Welcome to RIMScast!

[4:29] Jeff has a strong history with RIMS and the RIMS Texas Chapters. He has spoken at DFW RIMS on several occasions. Jeff Strege brought Jeff down to speak at Houston RIMS. He spoke at a couple of conferences co-hosted by South Texas RIMS.

[4:59] Last year, Jeff was at the Inaugural Texas Regional RIMS Conference in San Antonio. He's there again this year.

[5:15] Jeff loves RIMS, in general, because he doesn't have to explain himself. When he speaks to HR or risk management, his two favorite positions, even above the C-Suite, risk managers and HR directors totally get what he does and why.

[5:34] Jeff says the common response he typically gets is they've never met anybody who does what he does or speaks the language he speaks. He's heard it for 39 years. He loves speaking to people in risk and insurance companies because he speaks the language of liability.

[5:54] Jeff does a lot of work with attorneys, as well, on both sides. He tells folks he's trilingual because of all these different industries. He's multifaceted.

[6:06] Jeff talks about years of working with risk professionals and feeling their pain points. He reverse-engineers many of those scenarios. He asks, Where are the points where this could have been prevented, or at the bare minimum, mitigated?

[6:43] A president of an association of independent electrical contractors called him for help. He asked, You have people working hours, in isolated locations, with expensive equipment on their trucks? What could go wrong? Without much of a push, he's able to jump in and help.

[7:20] Jeff says there are only three types of businesses: businesses that have internal employees, businesses that have external employees, and businesses that have both. The risks for those three categories are very different from each other.

[7:40] Jeff explains some of the differences in risks between having internal employees operating equipment and external employees in trucks on the road with equipment. There are different security concerns, risk concerns, and liability concerns. Address all the concerns.

[8:16] Jeff recently saw a police video of a dump truck plowing through an intersection, with its brakes out, into a ravine. Fortunately, no one was killed. Why did the brakes give out? Who was responsible for checking them? They dodged a major bullet by nobody being injured or killed.

[9:11] Jeff says he has three wheelhouses: physical risk, data risk, and reputational risk. He doesn't do active shooter training. He deals with factors that can lead to an active shooter before the shooting happens. He deals in prevention, not in reaction.

[9:42] Jeff doesn't deal in cybersecurity but in data. He doesn't talk about people who hack your computers; he talks about people who hack your people. That bleeds over into reputation management.

[9:57] Reputation management, with the internet and social media, has taken on a different dynamic.

[10:07] Either your employees go online and self-incriminate themselves by putting something out there to the world that reflects upon your company, or they do something off the clock that can still have an impact on your company and its reputation.

[10:22] Jeff mentions two courtrooms that we want to avoid: an actual courtroom, and the court of popular opinion.

[11:01] Jeff says some things before social media still ended up being headline stories in the traditional media that reflected negatively upon employers. Social media has massively amplified that dynamic.

[11:31] Jeff's talk is about how reputation management is impacting risk management. It will be held on August 11th at 1:45 p.m. during the RIMS Texas Regional Conference 2026. It examines how reputation management and risk management increasingly overlap.

[11:53] Jeff says risk management and HR management often think that whatever happens off the clock is not on them — until it is. There was an Assistant District Attorney some months ago who walked out of a bar "two out of three sheets to the wind."

[12:17] The cops wanted her to get an Uber and go home. She made a huge scene about it, captured on the bodycams. She ended up being arrested. "You don't know who I am. You can't do this to me!" The next day, not only was she fired, she lost her license.

[12:33] There are YouTube channels devoted to police bodycams. People and companies suffer the reputational consequences of those videos. Once they're on YouTube, they go viral.

[12:54] A lot of channels have hundreds of thousands to millions of views, reflecting on a company's public image, eve...