Cognito Media (France)

Four people are standing outside a pub near Monument on a Thursday evening, about to take the first sip of their third Helles. “What do you do?” one says to the rest. “I work in tokenisation.” “Oh,” says the man next to him, “so do I.” And unbelievably, the other two say the same. “Well, this is awkward,” the first man says. “We must be competitors.” Two rounds later, after a fair amount of exposition and a couple of trips to the toilet, that same man finally says: “Wow.

The PR and communications function has never mattered more to an organisation. Running one well has never been harder. The technology and media landscape is more fragmented and more powerful than at any point in my career advising financial services and technology companies. Stories, issues and markets move faster. Social media accelerates it even further. At the same time, channels have multiplied, which means there are more opportunities to build reputation and more places it can be damaged.

ran on 3 and 4 September at Crown Promenade in Melbourne. Cognito’s Jonathan Buxeda and Denise Foo were on the ground across both days, working with clients and media. We put six questions to them afterwards. What felt different about this year’s Intersekt? Jonathan: The venue change was a big one. Intersekt moved to Crown Promenade after previous years’ events ran at the Grand Hyatt, and the way the exhibitors were laid out made it far easier to engage with the businesses holding booths.

Politics is an increasingly sensitive topic everywhere, from family dinner tables to global boardrooms. When it comes to China, that sensitivity adds another layer of complexity for foreign companies trying to establish themselves in the world’s second-largest economy.

What a ride the first half of 2026 was. I had the pleasure of attending ten industry events across Amsterdam, Berlin, Monaco, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt. As well as meeting friends and making new ones, I now have a pretty good overview of what’s coming up on the industry’s agenda in the months and years ahead. And while there is a lot about AI, the actual change might come from another direction. From AI experimentation to implementation AI is clearly moving from experimentation to implementation.

Founders come with loud voices. Through the process of refining their elevator pitch until it is as a diamond, they develop a battle-tested way of discussing their companies that no one else is going to be able to replicate. As companies grow, founders themselves and the people around them begin to wonder exactly how to deploy this. I see a temptation to run toward one of two poles.

Below the Fold is the monthly newsletter from Cognito’s Australian team based in Sydney, an independent PR and communications agency specialising in financial services and technology. Most advertising loses 95% of its impact within a couple of weeks of running. The best of it, the emotional and expensive television work, might hold on for a month or two.

New service provides rich reputational intelligence for communications, investor relations and public affairs teams Strategic partnership brings together DeepSeer’s Network Intelligence model and Cognito’s financial services communications expertise New Predictive Intelligence service helps financial services and technology firms spot emerging risks and conversations Combines proprietary AI, network analysis and data science to map narratives before they reach mainstream media London, July...

Below the Fold is the monthly newsletter from Cognito’s Australian team based in Sydney, an independent PR and communications agency specialising in financial services and technology. Hey, it’s Jonathan- “Unfiltered. Unscripted. Uncensored. I’ll go there. Why not?” That was Karl Stefanovic in January, launching the independent podcast that, six months later, would end his run at Nine. He’d already found the perfect self-description.

Reputational risk is not just a communications problem. It can affect regulatory and client relationships, investor confidence, and recruitment. The challenge is most organisations only see reputational issues after a narrative has formed and gone mainstream. These are the narratives shaping brand perceptions, market direction and audience opinion. By the time they are mainstream, the chance to influence the real conversation has already moved on.