A Crisis Expert Says the Company Caught in the Coldplay Kiss Cam Scandal Responded Right — 48 Hours Too Late. Here’s How to Avoid the Same Mistake.

Last year, most people encountered Astronomer through a viral clip. In July 2025, the data company’s CEO and chief people officer were caught embracing on a Coldplay concert kiss cam and became one of the most viral moments of the year. Like everyone else, I watched the video. But I found myself paying attention to something entirely different. While most people were glued to the Jumbotron replay, I was wondering how long it would take for the company to respond and what that response would look like.

That’s how people in my profession are wired. We’re always trying to shorten the gap between when an incident becomes public and when an organization begins leading the conversation. Notice I didn’t say ends the conversation.

Astronomer, I believe, ultimately delivered a mature response. Rather than pretending the moment hadn’t happened or trying to out-lawyer the internet, the company acknowledged the attention, leaned into it with an unexpected cameo from Gwyneth Paltrow and gave people a reason to focus on something other than speculation.

What interested me even more, though, was everything that happened before it.

The concert was on a Wednesday night. By Thursday, fabricated apologies attributed to the CEO were circulating online, one of them viewed millions of times before anyone confirmed it was fake. People confidently debated what leadership believed, how the situation must have been handled internally and what it said about the company’s culture. The company’s first statement — confirming that the board had launched an investigation — did not arrive until Friday. By then, Astronomer was responding to a story that had already taken shape without it.

The one strategic shift I would have made was to enter the conversation sooner. The statement Astronomer eventually issued was the right one; it just came roughly 48 hours late. A spokesperson could have said on day one that the board was aware of the issue, was working to understand the facts and would take appropriate measures based on what it found. That did not require conclusions the company was not yet prepared to make.

It would have shown that leadership was engaged, reduced the perception that the people implicated in the situation were effectively overseeing their own investigation and given Astronomer something to point back to as events unfolded.

Your response team for an incident like this at a giant company may include a couple of dozen people. That sounds like a lot until you realize the opposition was millions of people — malicious or not — all trying to find a clever new way to knock the company and its leadership.

We can’t confuse motion with progress. But how quickly you respond does matter. Speed matters because people are measuring the silence. Speed matters because others will control the narrative for you. That’s the part many leaders underestimate. In a crisis, the greatest risk isn’t solely what happened. It’s also how quickly someone other than you begins controlling the narrative. The longer you wait to tell your story, the more likely it is that you’ll be responding to someone else’s.

Speed starts long before the crisis

One of the biggest misconceptions about crisis management is that response speed is a result of your urgency in the moment. It isn’t. Speed is a muscle you build into your organization long before you ever need it.

I spent years working in aerospace, where the possibility of an accident, big or small, is always top of mind. We kept several versions of an initial statement ready to adapt and issue within minutes, with no sign-off required beyond the spokesperson. In three tight lines, we could acknowledge the incident, note what we knew about anyone harmed, express sympathy for those affected and confirm that we were cooperating with authorities as an investigation took place. It wasn’t intended to be the final word. It showed that we were aware and engaged, while giving us room to build on the response as more became clear.

The companies that respond well under pressure aren’t improvising. They know who needs to be in the room, who owns the final decision and how information moves from the front lines to leadership. The organizations that struggle are usually trying to figure those things out while the crisis is unfolding.

My advice to every leadership team I work with is to appoint your crisis team before you need one. Decide who will be on point to drive communications, who will evaluate legal and operational risk and who has real-time decision-making authority. Keep the group small enough that decisions don’t stall.

In a crisis, basic is beautiful. Complexity is where speed goes to die.

Don’t wait for perfect information

Another reason organizations respond too slowly is that leaders treat every statement like the only statement, as if it will be tattooed on their foreheads for the rest of eternity. That’s a mistake.

The first communication isn’t meant to answer every question. It’s meant to establish that you’re present, you’re engaged and you’re taking the issue seriously. When organizations disappear in search of certainty, stakeholders don’t stop asking questions. They just start answering them for themselves.

I’ve found it helpful to think about crisis communication as a sequence rather than a single event. Your first message acknowledges the situation. The next adds facts as they’re confirmed. Later communications explain decisions, actions and next steps.

Showing up early doesn’t mean pretending to know everything. It means giving people confidence that they’ll hear from you as the facts become clearer. That is exactly why a same-day acknowledgment from Astronomer would have mattered. The company did not need to resolve the issue in its first statement. It needed to demonstrate that the people responsible for governing the company were aware of what had happened and were actively dealing with it.

Make bad news travel faster inside your organization

The speed of your external response depends on the speed of your internal communication. In many organizations, warning signs appear long before leaders recognize they’re facing a crisis. Employees raise concerns. Customer-facing teams hear recurring complaints. Managers notice problems that never quite make it to the executive level.

The issue isn’t always a lack of information. It’s that the information moves too slowly. One question I encourage leaders to ask is simple: How would bad news reach me? If the answer depends on someone navigating multiple layers of approval or wondering whether they’ll be punished for speaking up, you’ve already identified a weakness. The faster the truth travels within your organization, the more response time and options you’ll have.

Lead the narrative before someone else does

Every crisis eventually reaches a point where the facts become clearer. The question is what happened before you got there. If stakeholders spend hours (or days) hearing only speculation, fabricated statements and anonymous commentary, your eventual response has to accomplish two jobs. It has to explain what happened and undo everything people have already decided in your absence.

That’s far more difficult than introducing your perspective early and building on it as your understanding improves.

The old crisis playbook gave grace to those who waited until most of the facts were known. Today’s environment doesn’t afford that luxury. Stakeholders don’t expect leaders to know everything immediately. They do expect them to show up. That’s what speed protects. Not just your reputation, but your license to lead while people are still deciding what to believe.

Before your next leadership meeting, ask two simple questions:

• Who’s on point to make the first call in a crisis?
• How would bad news reach me before it turns into a full-blown crisis?

If you can’t answer those questions immediately, you’ve found work that needs to happen before the next crisis, not during it. Speed isn’t measured by how quickly you issue a statement. It’s measured by how quickly people know leadership is engaged.

Last year, most people encountered Astronomer through a viral clip. In July 2025, the data company’s CEO and chief people officer were caught embracing on a Coldplay concert kiss cam and became one of the most viral moments of the year. Like everyone else, I watched the video. But I found myself paying attention to something entirely different. While most people were glued to the Jumbotron replay, I was wondering how long it would take for the company to respond and what that response would look like.

That’s how people in my profession are wired. We’re always trying to shorten the gap between when an incident becomes public and when an organization begins leading the conversation. Notice I didn’t say ends the conversation.

Astronomer, I believe, ultimately delivered a mature response. Rather than pretending the moment hadn’t happened or trying to out-lawyer the internet, the company acknowledged the attention, leaned into it with an unexpected cameo from Gwyneth Paltrow and gave people a reason to focus on something other than speculation.