Strategy | Sustainability | Resilience
Wim Vermeulen helps organizations turn sustainability, resilience, and reputation into strategic advantage. With experience across London, New York, and Moscow, he guides companies through climate, geopolitical, and economic challenges while building trust, growth, and long-term impact.
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Wim Vermeulen is an award-winning strategist, author, researcher, and keynote speaker who helps organizations integrate sustainability, resilience, and reputation into their core strategy. With professional experience across London, New York, and Moscow, he advises companies on navigating climate challenges, geopolitical tensions, and economic disruptions, while driving growth, operational robustness, and stakeholder trust.
As a Partner at Bubka and guest lecturer at multiple business schools, Wim focuses on sustainability and resilience strategy, corporate reputation, and responsible leadership. He co-developed the Responsible Growth Model and the Responsible Business Index, which enable organizations to measure societal impact, benchmark credibility, and anticipate reputational risk.
Drawing on research in reputation and strategic communication, Wim emphasizes evidence-based approaches over short-term controversy, summarized in his maxim: “Trust the signal, not the noise.” His recent book, Speak Up Now! Marketing in Times of a Climate Crisis (2022), explores how organizations can act and communicate credibly in an era of radical transparency. Earlier works examine the cultural and behavioral dynamics shaping values-driven business and adaptive leadership.
In addition to research and advisory work, Wim produces documentaries such as The Decade of Action and We, The Hopeful, translating complex sustainability and resilience challenges into accessible stories that inspire collective action. He holds degrees in management and marketing strategy from the University of Cambridge and Oxford, and studied corporate sustainability at London Business School.
How Responsible Businesses navigate the thin line between politicized transitions, cultural? backlash, and ecological urgency.
In an era where climate action is politicized, cultural divisions shape perception, and the planet’s boundaries are under threat, brands face a dangerous paradox: speak up and risk backlash, or stay silent and lose relevance. This keynote explores how brands can cut through the noise by focusing on truth, credibility, and value creation that resonates across a divided landscape. Using real-world examples and signal-vs-noise thinking, we’ll unpack how to build desire without distortion, how to lead without polarizing, and how to become the brand that people trust in a time of transition.
Why your reputation is your most valuable asset in today’s volatile world.
With rising expectations around climate, justice and transparency, a responsible reputation has become a strategic advantage. This keynote is grounded in original scientific research into how corporate communication shapes your reputation as a responsible business. It unpacks how consumers define responsibility, why greenhushing undermines credibility, and what the key perception and value drivers are. Through practical frameworks and real-world cases, you will learn how to build, protect and grow a reputation that earns loyalty, attracts talent and drives sustainable growth.
And how AI can help businesses to speak up again
AI creates the opportunity to break from greenhushing and avoid the cost of staying silent. While fear of backlash, political apathy, and consumer fatigue deter communication, AI can uncover hidden proof points in data, monitor sentiment to prevent backlash, tailor sustainability messages for different stakeholders, and automate credible reporting at scale. By reducing cost, complexity, and risk, AI enables companies to confidently speak up again.
How to engage teams, stakeholders and consumers in a shared responsible transition
No business can lead on responsibility without its people behind it. This keynote explores how to activate internal and external audiences around your sustainability mission in ways that are meaningful, credible and energising. Drawing on research into organisational behaviour and communication effectiveness, we examine what makes people care, commit and contribute to change. Whether you’re building internal momentum or creating consumer belief, this session helps you turn responsibility into a rallying cry, not a compliance checklist.?
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