TOP TEN REPUTATION MANAGERS

‘Brexit has created huge uncertainty among our global clients, and where there is uncertainty they turn to good public affairs consultants and geopolitical advisers,’ says Lewington. He’s well positioned to help them, both personally, with his own experience in the top echelons as a former adviser to Number Ten, and logistically, with offices in London and Brussels.

An adviser to C-suite individuals at institutions such as Microsoft, Sky, Airbus and Goldman Sachs, he is practical in his advice post-Brexit: ‘There were a number of players who let the cause of the single market down ahead of the referendum. Business is only one of them — [but] I don’t think there is any merit in big business navel-gazing on whether they played a role in the referendum outcome.’

His other advice is to remember that Facebook, rather than Instagram or Twitter, is the most powerful online tool, and that CEOs and politicians shouldn’t forget the merits of being boring (his former boss, John Major, being a pin up in this regard): ‘Politicians have had their reputations trashed post-office; Major has been studious in avoiding that trap.’

His most recent success came with a major financial CEO he can’t name, beyond saying that ‘helping them “do the right thing” has been very satisfying’.