FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contacts UK: Kate Copeman · [email protected] · +44 7591 297 380 US: Ayanna Robinson · [email protected] · +1 240 232 5575 Founder and CEO Christopher Cleves opens the firm’s first office outside the United Kingdom as Dablam reports triple-digit growth. Former Porter Novelli Chief Client Officer will lead client development. NEW YORK, Oct. 21, 2026 — Dablam, an AI-native reputation intelligence firm that helps organizations identify and mitigate reputational risk across every digital platform, today announced the opening of its New York office at 200 West 41st Street, its first location outside the United Kingdom. The firm also announced that Ayanna Robinson, a 25-year corporate reputation strategist and former Chief Client Officer at Porter Novelli, has joined as Senior Advisor to lead client development as Dablam expands in the US. The New York office is led by founder and Chief Executive Officer Christopher Cleves. It brings to the US a practice built for one purpose: making sure when investors, customers, regulators, partners and employees ask AI systems about a company, the answer is accurate, balanced and defensible. Dablam has grown more than 3X year-over-year, is profitable and founder-funded, and has never raised outside capital. Dablam has served US clients from London since its founding, and the US now accounts for the majority of its revenue. Its clients are global enterprises in regulated industries, along with the law firms, communications agencies and public affairs consultancies that advise them. The New York office gives those clients a local team as the commercial stakes of AI-mediated reputation grow in the US market. “AI systems now sit between companies and every audience that matters to them,” said Cleves. “Before an investor, a regulator or a prospective employee reads what a company has said, a model has already read it, interpreted it and formed a view. Dablam exists to make sure that view is fair, and the US is where that need is most urgent. Opening in New York puts us on the ground with the clients who need us most.” Dablam’s growth reflects a structural change in how reputation forms: stakeholders increasingly form a first impression of an organization through large language models and AI-driven search, surfaces most communications functions were not built to monitor. Over the past year, Dablam has built proprietary research infrastructure that maps how AI models answer the questions that matter to a company’s stakeholders, paired with the expertise to act on what it finds. Clients do not buy a set of reports. They buy a measurable improvement in how AI represents them. In her role, Robinson will focus on client development and growth, working with heads of communications, corporate affairs, investor relations and legal teams at organizations whose reputations are increasingly shaped by machines. She joins Dablam alongside her own consultancy, ESAR Communications, LLC, which she founded in 2026 to advise companies navigating high-stakes issues, regulatory shifts and reputational crises. “Ayanna has spent decades in the room where reputation is decided, advising leadership teams through the moments that determine whether a company keeps its license to operate,” said Cleves. “As we grow, we wanted someone who understands the counsel side of this business as well as the technology. She raises the standard of what our clients can expect from us.” “The counsel hasn’t changed, but the surface has,” said Robinson. “Communications leaders have spent their careers managing primarily what people read, watch and hear about them. Now they have to manage what machines say about them, often before a human is involved at all. That is a real gap, and very few firms truly understand it or are equipped to close it.” The New York office opens with active recruitment for Business Development Manager and Client Partner roles. Professionals who understand reputation and want to work where AI and trust meet can get in touch at [email protected], whether or not a role is currently posted. Ayanna Robinson is a corporate reputation and communications strategist with more than 25 years of experience advising global brands through crises, regulatory scrutiny and periods of intense public attention. She most recently served as Chief Client Officer at Porter Novelli and is an adjunct professor at American University, based in Washington, D.C. Dablam is an AI-native reputation intelligence firm that specializes in how large language models and AI-driven search represent organizations, a discipline often called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). Headquartered in London, with an office in New York, Dablam combines proprietary research into how AI systems describe organizations with the expertise to correct that record where it falls short. The firm advises global enterprises in regulated sectors and major law firms. Dablam is profitable and founder-funded and has taken no outside capital. For more information, visit dablam.ai.
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