“Managing Your Greatest Asset — Your Brand Reputation”

Tony Langham co-founded Lansons in 1989 and has advised Governments, organisations and companies on their image and reputation for over 30 years. He has an active non executive career and has been named by Debrett’s as one of the 500 most influential people in the UK. Tony is Chief Executive and retains an active consultancy role across a range of Lansons clients. His work is split between building reputations for organisations growing rapidly in the market and protecting the reputations of those with a leading position to maintain. His specialisms include launches, M&A, IPOs and crisis and issues management. He also advises Prime Ministers, Chairs and CEOs on personal reputation. He was commissioned by the UK’s PRCA (Public Relations & Communications Association) and the global ICCO (International Communications Consultancy Organisation) to write their guide to Reputation Management, published by Emerald Publishing in December 2018. Tony has received three awards from the PRCA celebrating ‘lifetime achievement’ and contribution to the UK PR industry, in 2004, 2016 and 2019. He is regularly cited as one of the 500 most influential PR people in the UK and one of the 300 most influential PR people in the world, by PR Week.  Tony has an active non-executive career outside Lansons. He is Non Executive Chairman of Great British Racing, horse racing’s official marketing and promotional body, working with all of the sport’s stakeholders. He also Chairs British Champions Series, the owner of Britain’s richest raceday. He has been Non Executive Chairman of unbiased.co.uk, the UK’s leading site for finding financial, mortgage and legal advisers, since 2011.  Prior to co-founding Lansons he worked in financial communications with Dewe Rogerson in the 1980s, primarily on privatisations, having begun his career as a social, political and financial market researcher with MORI. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

Cheryl Krauss will join Barings in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 9 as Chief Communications Officer, a newly created position. A member of Barings' Executive Leadership Team, Cheryl will provide strategic direction and oversight for all global communications. Previously she was the Global Head of Communications for BNY Mellon Technology, Digital, Operations, and Client Communications for Incidents, Cyber and Resiliency. Prior to BNY Mellon, Cheryl was Worldwide Senior Director, Communications for Bain & Company and a Managing Director at Burson-Marsteller. She began her career in the news industry for CBS, NBC and ABC. She is a senior marketing communications leader advising boards and senior management having built and protected global brands and reputations in a digital 24/7 world. Her specializations include public relations, public affairs, investor relations, executive, client and internal communications for Fortune 500 companies, top management consultancies with deep knowledge of the private equity, retail and financial services industries. She is recognized for building multi-cultural, diverse teams and being a chief spokesperson managing high profile crises, complex mergers, restructurings, litigation, cyberattacks, tech outages and other reputational risks – including leading Bain & Company successfully through a tumultuous 2012 U.S. Presidential election.

Laura leads Prudential’s Corporate Communications team, spanning financial communications, policy communications, executive visibility, crisis/issues response and internal and external communications to support the Office of the Vice Chair and respective Enterprise Functions. Previously, Laura was an EVP at Edelman, where she led the U.S. Financial Services Practice and worked with brands like Citi, AQR Capital, Barclays, Allianz Global Investors, GE Capital, BNY Mellon, TIAA-CREF, Swiss RE and PayPal.  While at Edelman, Laura also served as the Client Relationship Manager for the Charles Schwab business which spanned eight office across India, Hong Kong, UK and the U.S. Prior, Laura served as Managing Director, Strategic Communications, at FTI Consulting working across Technology and Financial Services brands.  She also served in corporate communications roles at Hill & Knowlton, working on the HP business following the merger with Compaq, and BSMG Worldwide (now Weber Shandwick). Laura holds an MBA in Finance from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BA in Political Science from Tufts University. 

John Piecuch is Head of Divisional Communications at S&P Global, leading the internal and external communications teams for the four divisions of S&P Global. Most recently, he was Head of Regional Communications – Latin America with S&P Global, where he created the company’s first communications program across all company divisions throughout the region. Previously, John was Senior Director of External Communications – The Americas for Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, where he managed the team responsible for communications on S&P’s corporates, bank, financial institution, structured finance, state and local government, and sovereign ratings, its economic research, and corporate reputational issues. Prior to that, he had roles in Standard & Poor’s London and Paris offices, including as head of communications for French- speaking Europe, based in Paris, and communications roles in NY with both Ratings and equity research teams. Prior to joining S&P, John was in the business-to-business brand marketing practice at public relations firm Burson-Marsteller working on a range of financial services and corporate clients. Before that, he was U.S. Director at the economic development agency for Lyon, France. John is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with a degree in International Finance and Commerce. He also studied at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po.) at Université Lumière in Lyon, France.

Susan Siering is a 29 year PR veteran on Wall Street.  She currently serves as Head of Media Relations for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.   Previously she spent 28 years in communications and public relations at Merrill Lynch/Bank of America.  Amongst her many skills, she has extensive expertise in crisis communications and proactive media relations.  She is a graduate of Rutgers University and lives on Long Island with her husband and two mini-goldendoodle puppies.   She also has been doing mission work in  Haiti for the last 7 years,  where she has two sponsor children who she and her husband visit yearly.