Reputation & Narrative Strategy

Reputation
is the only
asset that
precedes you.

Everyone Knows helps founders and the capital behind them earn credibility, control narrative, and convert trust into measurable outcomes — blending irreplaceable human judgement with the speed of AI.

We use AI to compress the time between situation and decision — monitoring narrative risk, stress-testing messaging, and moving from analysis to action in hours, not days.

Built for moments that change company trajectories.

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Built on experience inside hyper-growth tech, IPO & M&A comms, venture capital and the family office world From global public companies to early-stage founders raising their first round Communications across 3 continents, 20+ countries
How we work

Reputation isn't a comms function.
It's a constraint or a multiplier.

At scale, the narrative around your company either accelerates every outcome or silently taxes it. We work where attention is consequential — raises, hires, partnerships, market entries, scrutiny, leadership change.

The goal is simple: create clarity in the market, confidence among stakeholders, and momentum you can measure. Human judgement leads every decision. Data and AI sharpen the edge and compress timelines.

Discreet by default. Decisive when it counts. Relentlessly commercial in impact.

01

Protect

Control narrative and eliminate downside before it becomes expensive. Because the story that escapes you is always the most costly.

  • Narrative guardrails — the lines you hold and the proof you lead with
  • Stakeholder risk mapping across investors, board, customers & media
  • Scenario playbooks for issues, leaks and competitor moves
  • Rapid-response discipline with tight approvals and message integrity
  • Crisis readiness built before the spotlight arrives
02

Grow

Build credibility that survives scrutiny — and a platform that compounds over time, not a content treadmill that exhausts itself.

  • Positioning architecture with proof points that hold up under pressure
  • Founder profile strategy — voice and formats that build genuine authority
  • Earned media and analyst strategy that shapes third-party validation
  • A moments engine: announcements, data, stories, events
  • Asset library — bio, FAQs, narrative deck, reusable story modules
03

Convert

Turn trust into commercial outcomes — not vanity metrics. Reputation only earns its seat at the table when it closes the gap.

  • Inbound quality: partners, enterprise, talent, investor interest — engineered
  • Messaging that supports pricing power, hiring and fundraising cycles
  • Transaction comms: fundraises, acquisitions, leadership transitions
  • Amplification with intent — right message, right people, right time
  • Measurement tied to real objectives: pipeline, deal momentum, hiring pull
Where we're most useful

You don't need more visibility.
You need the right visibility.

Everyone Knows is most valuable when the stakes are real and attention is consequential. We work with founders operating at scale and investors in the private market — where credibility, trust and narrative discipline materially affect outcomes.

01

Fundraising

The narrative that reaches the room before you do determines the terms you walk out with.

02

Market entry or expansion

New markets have existing narratives. Arriving with the wrong one costs months and trust.

03

Leadership change

The most fragile moment in any company's story. Handled well, it becomes a proof point.

04

Scrutiny or reputation risk

When attention turns hostile, the quality of your narrative preparation decides the outcome.

05

Step-change in visibility

Growth exposes everything. The companies that scale well are the ones who got their story right first.

"The earlier we're involved, the more control we can build — guardrails, narrative clarity, and amplification that reaches the people who decide."

We work best at the front end of high-stakes moments, not in the wreckage of them. When we have time to build the architecture — the messaging, the playbooks, the stakeholder map — the outcomes are categorically different.

What changes

What clients
typically see.

We don't measure success in coverage or impressions. We measure it in the outcomes that matter to your business — the conversations that get started, the ones that get prevented, and the trust that converts.

◈

Positioning that sticks

Repeatable internally, believable externally. Narrative that survives the scrutiny of sceptical investors and demanding journalists.

◎

Clarity in days, not months

Clear messaging and narrative alignment — fast. Because the moment rarely waits.

◇

Fewer unforced errors

Across public, investor and internal communications. The guardrails prevent the errors that don't have to happen.

◉

Calmer crisis response

Faster, cooler decisions under pressure — without creating more noise or handing the narrative to someone else.

◆

Stronger inbound quality

Better partners, more senior hires, higher-quality investor interest — engineered, not accidental.

◐

Control over what travels

Deliberate amplification that reaches the right people. Equally deliberate restraint that keeps the wrong things private.

▣

A moments pipeline

Credible, executable hooks — not a content treadmill. Momentum you can see on a calendar.

◫

Stakeholder confidence

In high-stakes phases — fundraising, launches, leadership change — the people who matter believe your story.

◭

Amplification with intent

The right people hear the right message at the right time. Not broadcast. Targeted.

Track record

Work that has
moved the needle.

Reputation strategy is only worth something if it produces outcomes you can point to. Below is a selection of the communications work that has shaped companies, supported founders through their defining moments, and landed in the publications that matter.
Coverage secured in
The Irish Times Business Post Silicon Republic EU Startups RTÉ HBR Entrepreneur The New York Times The Washington Post NYSE · TSX CNN The Sunday Times Sunday Independent Inc. CNBC TechCrunch The Associated Press Financial Times
Acquisition · Legaltech
~$50M
Cross-border acquisition, Ireland → US
Acquisition · Healthtech
Tier-1
Irish healthtech acquired by US genomics company
Fundraise · AI / SaaS
€1.1M
Seed round announcement, Dublin-founded AI company
IPO · Global CX / Tech
$1.06B
Dual-listing on NYSE & TSX — record-breaking
Executive Visibility · Founder
100K+
Organic LinkedIn impressions per post, sustained
M&A Comms · Multiple
$1B+
Multiple billion-dollar acquisitions, global tech company
"

Dave was in the room with us figuring out the strategy. The narrative architecture he built protected us through a complicated few months and positioned us for the outcomes we needed. I wouldn't have wanted to do it without him.

Founder, fintech scale-up
01

Diagnose

We start with a sharp diagnostic — mapping your current narrative, stakeholder landscape, reputational risks, and the commercial outcomes that matter most. No assumptions. No templates.

Narrative audit · Stakeholder mapping · Risk assessment
02

Architect

We build the architecture — positioning, messaging, guardrails, scenario playbooks, and a moments engine calibrated to your situation. The foundation everything else runs on.

Messaging framework · Crisis playbooks · Moments pipeline
03

Activate

We execute with precision — earned media, stakeholder communications, founder visibility, amplification. Fast, discreet, and aligned to the moment. Human judgement leads. AI sharpens the edge.

Media strategy · Stakeholder comms · Founder visibility
04

Compound

Reputation builds over time. We measure against real objectives — not vanity metrics — and adapt the strategy as your situation evolves. Ongoing counsel, rapid response, continuous narrative discipline.

Outcome measurement · Ongoing counsel · Rapid response
About

Reputation as an asset class,
managed deliberately.

Everyone Knows is a reputation and influence consultancy for tech and the private market. We help founders and investors navigate high-stakes moments with clarity, discretion, and control — building credibility that holds up and amplification that reaches the people who decide.

Our work has been shaped inside fast-growth tech, venture capital, family office environments, and public-company environments where outcomes are real, timelines are compressed, and reputation risk is never theoretical.

That experience shows up in how we operate: calm counsel, sharp judgement, clear guardrails, and a cadence that compounds over time. We bring senior communications expertise across executive positioning, narrative strategy, media and stakeholder management, and issues and crisis readiness — with data and AI as the engine behind speed and precision.

Taste. Narrative judgement. Timing. Trust. And the ability to make things look inevitable.

Dave McCadden
Founder, Everyone Knows

Dave has spent 15+ years building and protecting the reputations of founders, investors, and organisations at the moments that define them — across tech, fintech, SaaS, AI, healthtech, entertainment, sport and the arts.

His career spans global public companies navigating IPOs and major acquisitions, hyper-growth startups scaling across multiple geographies, and a venture and family office environment where he led narrative strategy across a portfolio of early-stage tech companies. He has managed communications in environments where the margin for error is thin, the stakes are real, and discretion is non-negotiable.

Executive education at MIT and Yale. A Harvard Business Review byline. And a track record built on the belief that reputation, managed deliberately, is the most durable commercial asset a founder can own.

Dave McCadden, Founder of Everyone Knows

Expertise

  • Executive positioning and founder narrative
  • Investor and stakeholder communications
  • High-stakes issues and crisis readiness
  • IPO, M&A and transaction communications
  • Thought leadership and credibility platforms
  • Reputation risk scanning and narrative monitoring
  • Amplification engineered for commercial outcomes

What you can expect

  • Discreet execution
  • Fast response
  • Clear boundaries
  • Proof, not hype
  • Senior judgement in the room
Perspectives

Sharp thinking on
reputation, narrative
and what's changing.

We publish occasional, pointed pieces on reputation strategy, narrative discipline, and the moments that define companies. Not content. Not thought leadership for its own sake. Perspectives that earn their place.
Fundraising

The narrative that reaches the room before you do

Why the story investors hear about you in the six months before a raise matters more than your deck — and what founders can do about it.

Read article →
Strategy

The difference between PR and reputation strategy

Most founders think they need PR when what they actually need is reputation strategy. Here's the distinction that matters — and why it's expensive to get wrong.

Read article →
AI & Reputation

What AI changes — and what it doesn't — in reputation strategy

AI compresses timelines and sharpens precision. But narrative judgement, discretion, and the ability to read a room remain stubbornly, irreplaceably human.

Read article →
Contact

If you're entering a
high-stakes moment,
talk early.

The earlier we're involved, the more control we can build. If you're heading into a fundraise, leadership change, market entry, scrutiny, or a step-change in visibility — let's talk before the moment demands it.

We work with a small number of clients at any time. That's deliberate — it means you get senior attention, not a team that scales to meet the brief.

All initial conversations are confidential. We don't broadcast who we work with unless there's a reason to.

We'll respond within 24 hours. If the timing isn't right, we'll tell you — and tell you why.