Must Reads
There is so much to read, so much to know, so many sources to follow. And the volume of news and information just keeps growing exponentially. How to keep up? Even more, how to rediscover the serendipity of learning something new and interesting for its own sake?
Here, for your enjoyment and interest, are the articles Temin and Company considers “must reads.” They are primarily on the topics of reputation and crisis management, the media, leadership and strategy, perception and psychology, self-presentation, science, girls and women, organizational behavior and other articles of interest.
They are listed below with the most recent articles first, and to the side, by category.
We hope you enjoy them and would appreciate your comments. And whenever you have any favorite articles for us to add, please let us know so that we might include them for other readers to enjoy.
There is so much to read, so much to know, so many sources to follow. And the volume of news and information just keeps growing exponentially. How to keep up? Even more, how to rediscover the serendipity of learning something new and interesting for its own sake?
Here, for your enjoyment and interest, are the articles Temin and Company considers “must reads.” They are primarily on the topics of reputation and crisis management, the media, leadership and strategy, perception and psychology, self-presentation, science, girls and women, organizational behavior and other articles of interest.
They are listed below with the most recent articles first, and to the side, by category.
We hope you enjoy them and would appreciate your comments. And whenever you have any favorite articles for us to add, please let us know so that we might include them for other readers to enjoy.
How a Massive KitKat Heist Turned Into Crisis PR Gold
Natasha Khan and Kelly Cloonan, The Wall Street Journal, March 31, 2026
Just how much are 12 metric tons of stolen KitKat bars worth? A lot of promotional gold, it turns out.
It was the brazen chocolate heist heard around the social-media world: Over the weekend, Nestlé confirmed that thieves had swiped 413,793 units of KitKats somewhere along their way from a factory in central Italy to Poland. Both the chocolate bars and the truck carrying them remain missing, though no one was hurt in the theft, it said.
What the Swiss company lost in chocolate, though, it gained back in a public-relations coup—as did multiple other companies quick to hop on the meme bandwagon….
Trying to juice a rival’s bad news for buzz isn’t advisable if it’s something as serious as an oil spill or a plane crash. But weighing in on an international chocolate-bar caper is pretty low-risk, said Davia Temin, the founder of reputation and crisis management consultancy Temin and Company.
“It’s chocolate, it’s Easter,” Temin said. “I don’t think you can go too wrong.” […read more]
CEO Food Fight Breaks Out Online — but Who Wins?
Frederic Lee, Agenda, March 13, 2026
It all started with a burger.
Specifically, what began as an innocent Instagram promotion of McDonald’s most recent new menu item, the Big Arch burger, by CEO Chris Kempczinski, quickly ballooned into a full-fledged Burger War over who can claim the best bite….
Kempczinski’s video was the match that lit the Burger War flame, prompting copycat, one-upper videos from executives at Burger King, Wendy’s, A&W Canada and more — all vying to present their burgers as the most delicious in a true viral moment….
Broadly, the Burger War offers a reason to laugh at a time when there’s so much “not to laugh about” going on in the world — including metastasizing war in the Middle East, rampant inflation, rising oil prices and the continuous unraveling of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s misdeeds, wrote Davia Temin in an email to Agenda. Therefore, holistically, the Burger War is a reminder to corporate leadership to “focus on what we can handle,” wrote Temin.
“The more telegenic the CEO, I suspect the more impact they will have on their bottom lines,” wrote Temin. That’s especially since these short videos have created “buzz” in boardrooms and might urge executive search professionals to add “one more trait” to their list of CEO must-have skills. […read more]
Ring’s Founder Knows You Hated That Super Bowl Ad
Jordyn Holman, The New York Times, February 19, 2026
Jamie Siminoff, the founder and chief inventor of Ring, the ubiquitous doorbell camera, was excited for the company’s first Super Bowl television commercial. The 30-second ad presented its product helping with a task as unassailable as apple pie: finding lost dogs.
But since the ad aired, instead of a victory lap, Mr. Siminoff has been on an apology tour.
Or maybe an explanation tour. Whatever you call it, he is responding to a genuine public relations crisis.
The commercial showed a new Ring feature called Search Party, which uses artificial intelligence and images from its cameras to trace a lost pet’s wanderings across a neighborhood. Critics said the feature felt dystopian, showing the potential for far-reaching invasive surveillance….
This week, Mr. Siminoff has made the rounds on TV news shows, trying to allay users’ concerns….
Davia Temin, a longtime corporate crisis strategist, said Mr. Siminoff was emphasizing the most important point in this particular maelstrom.
“A C.E.O. who acknowledges that his company wants to give as much control to the consumer as possible — that is as healthy as it gets,” Ms. Temin said. “Privacy will always be contested until we get to the next step.” […read more]
‘Polycrisis’: How to Govern Amid Seismic Geopolitical Shifts
Frederic Lee, Agenda, February 9, 2026
The beginning of 2026 has seen unprecedented actions from the White House that redefine the United States’ geopolitical posture, most notably President Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on European countries that don’t back the U.S.’s acquisition of Greenland.
Although the president eventually walked back his threats, the behavior itself represents a sea change in the U.S. geopolitical status quo. It also points to large economic impacts that corporate directors have to address in real time, sources tell Agenda.
The Greenland situation wasn’t the only flashpoint taking place in the early days of this year. Regime change in Venezuela and new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence products have upended some companies’ strategic plans.
Currently directors are living through “polycrisis,” given the confluence of technological, geopolitical and economic concerns facing the corporate world today, Davia Temin, president and CEO of management consultancy Temin and Company Inc., told Agenda.
“Everybody is concerned with the speed at which change is happening,” she said, adding that business leaders don’t want to be “left behind.”
Because everything is moving so fast in the world, it can be challenging to find specific expertise to help advise business leaders on a particular subject at a moment’s notice, said Temin. Boards should consider ramping up geopolitical briefings and walk through various scenarios as they game out strategic plans, sources said.
“Imagine if you were on the board of an oil company right now,” she said, referencing the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and subsequent takeover of the country, including certain oil revenues. […read more]
The Devil’s Advocate In The Boardroom: Leading Most Effective Meetings
Leadership, “Reputation Matters,” Forbes, February 8, 2026
New ways to lead productive, powerful meetings are surfacing, adapted from the Church, Corporate Boardrooms, British Parliamentary Procedure, the Military, Politics, the Intelligence Community and Futurists.
Informed by ever-more-sophisticated AI, these ideas can supercharge your meetings at every level, from board governance and strategy to task-oriented committees; from in-person Executive Committee meetings to Zoom remotes.
Group think, blame games, dissension for its own sake, and reticence to commit to a point of view are just four destructive behaviors you can find in poorly led board or meeting rooms.
Finding experienced new leaders and CEOs who can deal with such dysfunction is more difficult than ever. Megan Poinski, writer for Forbes C-Suite CEO Newsletter, tells us that in 2025 86% of all new CEOs were first-timers. Moreover, decision-making today has gotten so complex that, even with great leaders, organizations are looking for new solutions to handle so much complexity, such as becoming more team-led — witness the crop of Co-CEOs at Oracle, Comcast, Netflix, KKR, Spotify etc.) And a whole new wisdom around group decision-making — in person and remote — is emerging.
Be it operational, strategic, or governance-related, these new and newly adapted ideas on how to run transformative meetings are being championed by new sets of leaders. […read more]
Agentic Age Demands New Oversight Framework
Frederic Lee, Agenda, February 2, 2026
As advancements in artificial intelligence technology progress at a rapid clip, business leaders fear being left behind technologically.
Companies are regularly rolling out new tools developed from AI technology, lately including agentic AI, which can autonomously perform tasks and make decisions with minimal human intervention. As a result, directors need to meet the new oversight demands that these new AI developments call for, which includes taking advantage of the new technology themselves, sources tell Agenda. That will allow them to understand the advantages — and the drawbacks.
Agentic AI refers to an AI system where the AI doesn’t just take orders but is programmed to generally run itself as an “agent,” Davia Temin, president and CEO of management consultancy Temin and Company Inc., told Agenda. Such a process raises workforce and workflow questions due to the lack of a human control, she explained. “This is a whole new area.”
Directors must stay educated in order to deal with technological advancements like agentic AI, said Temin, emphasizing “good board hygiene” practices such as bringing in educational speakers for board meetings. More and more, business leaders are also working with technological experts for help with strategic planning, said Temin. […read more]
Does Your Private Life Bear Up To Today’s Public Scrutiny?
Leadership, “Reputation Matters,” Forbes, November 26, 2025
The question every public, semi-public, or even fiercely private figure must be thinking about these days is whether their private lives will bear up under today’s public scrutiny.
Be they quiet indiscretions or major reputational breaches, today we have few secrets left. Given the capabilities of AI to sort through massive sets of data, coupled with the public’s voracious appetite for scandal and judgement, sins of the past are being uncovered, sins of the present are being called out loudly, and sins that never even happened are being manufactured.
Jobs, marriages, citizenship, board composition and leadership roles of all kind hang in the balance. But there’s little discernment between seriously harmful, indefensible actions and fixable human error. Worse, there’s little mercy to be had, only public shaming. It’s reputational warfare: an ugly moment showcasing almost a blood lust that’s playing out in front of us. […read more]
How Boards Should Monitor Sexual Misconduct Claims
Nick Muscavage, Agenda, November 3, 2025
The shareholder lawsuit claiming that the board of one of the fastest-growing realty firms in the world failed to properly oversee rape allegations is a stark reminder to boards that they need to be monitoring and responding to sexual misconduct at their companies….
Once an independent investigation is started, the investigative body reports directly to the board, usually through the audit or risk committee, according to Davia Temin, president and CEO of management consultancy Temin and Company Inc.
It’s important that these investigations be conducted by an independent law firm or organization, she said. […read more]
Preventing a Crisis in Trust: How to Operate When Financial Stats Blur
Frederic Lee, Agenda, September 29, 2025
America’s corporate top brass sounded an alarm this month over President Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, according to polling from the Yale School of Management Chief Executive Leadership Institute’s CEO summit.
Some 80% of the CEOs who attended the summit said Trump was not acting in the best interest of the country in doing so.
Some 71% said Fed independence had been eroded by the Trump administration’s actions….
Experts suggest these moves could degrade trust in official data, ultimately destabilizing business. Boards rely on accurate forecasts from the Fed, BLS and other agencies to plan investments and chart the businesses they oversee along the right paths.
However, there are numerous tactics that board directors can implement in order to stabilize their businesses in times of uncertainty — and avoid a crisis of trust, sources tell Agenda.
When the legitimacy of independent institutions such as the Federal Reserve and BLS come under attack, it can be disorienting, but one tool that directors can apply is to scenario plan, said Davia Temin, president and CEO of reputation and crisis management consultancy Temin and Company Inc.
Coming up with five to 10 different possible scenarios helps companies to mentally prepare for the unknown in wake of a potential lack of credible information, said Temin. When business leaders lack access to reliable insight and data, they can’t make informed decisions, and the role of the board is to make the most highly informed decisions possible, she added. […read more]
I had the opportunity to see first hand your ability to guide an otherwise predetermined group think and thoughtfully provide a compelling narrative around the TRUTH
I had the opportunity to see first hand your ability to guide an otherwise predetermined group think and thoughtfully provide a compelling narrative around the TRUTH … it’s very hard work, takes time but can be enormously effective with an ethical counterpart!! You are the best at this and I am grateful for all your help and support.”
—Top-tier Private Equity Founder