Corporate bosses can’t hide from viral moments

Corporate bosses can't hide from viral moments and public scrutiny that seems to dominate this era of business. Tech has made it impossible. 

Social media, AI tools and the 24‑hour news cycle have combined to completely revamp governance and executive PR risk outlook. Here, in addition to all the scrutiny that usually falls on corporate actions, a more hawkish trend analyses every single move by a corporate leader. If it's caught on camera and worthy of content, we can be sure what'll happen next. It doesn't matter if the leader is in the office or on a night out; the rules stay the same. 

Gone are the days when a leader had a chance of sidelining a personal misstep into a private matter. The only question for you, as a corporate leader, is whether you've realised yet just how quickly the scrutiny can start, and how much of a risk it could carry.

At the 2025 US Open, Piotr Szczerek, CEO of the paving company Drogbruk, was caught on camera snatching a signed cap that tennis star Kamil Majchrzak was handing to a young fan next to him. Although the fan complained, Szczerek could be seen ignoring his pleas and pocketing the cap himself. 

In the aftermath, an online statement from Szczerek surfaced, defending his actions under the banner of "first come, first served". Another statement came later, claiming the previous ones were fabricated, that he apologised, and that he returned the cap to the young fan.

Drogbruk, meanwhile, had to contend with endless online reviews, many on Trustpilot, trashing the company and its CEO. Online hate also fell on a completely innocent man who happened to have a similar name and ran a similar company: Drog-Bruk – with a hyphen this time (both terms are essentially Polish for "road pavement" or "road cobblestones")

If you think that a lot of this carries echoes of the Astronomer CEO Andy Bryon's actions at a Coldplay concert this summer, you'd be right. Both cases came out of the blue, received viral online attention, got clouded by potentially fake statements afterwards, forced the party involved into humiliating retreat, and created a PR headache for the company to solve.

As these "blunder" cases become more common, the big risk is how fast the story can get amplified, distorted, and spin out of control. 

We're all used to viral moments; we've seen them for 20 years. Nowadays, however, the newer dimension of rapid content consumption and generation means anyone can add fuel to the fire with minimal effort. Whether it's a statement eventually revealed to be fake or the accused corporate leader doubling down on their motivations, the end result is the same. 

Once the story breaks, leaders and companies will have little time to act. That's despite the fact that they need to act fast in order to prevent the story from getting warped by fake content and speculation. 

Welcome to the new normal.

Whether your corporate leaders are public names or not, even the smallest altercation caught on camera can create media ripples you never expected. 

The unfortunate truth is that once you're in the limelight, it's very hard to escape. Cases like this can easily catapult you from just being known inside your industry to being a mainstream media magnet. All of a sudden, journalists come to you for comment, to your company for comment, and they'll publish something with or without a reply. All the while, none of it has anything to do with the reputation you've built over the years, framed by your career successes. 

In most cases, your prospects will take a hit. 

As for the corporate PR angle, you should ask yourself whether you're prepared if something like this happens to your business. 

Do you have the right PR strategy in place for times of crisis? Do you have clear channels of communication with stakeholders? Personnel who can make tough decisions? The expertise to manage the scandal and flip it into something positive for the business?

These are the necessary tools for navigating a viral corporate crisis. There's no one correct way through it; you just need to be able to act fast, decisively, and be able to support your decision when stakeholders come questioning.

In a world built for virality, bosses face unprecedented exposure—and little room for concealment. The US Open case, following the Coldplay concert events so closely, demonstrates that visibility is inevitable. Scandals can ignite and spiral within hours, eroding reputations faster than ever before. The lesson is clear: in today's landscape, awareness and readiness are leadership essentials.