A C-suite view of floating wind in 2026
By Richard Broughton, Brand & Strategy Director, The MTM Agency
Right now, decisions regarding floating wind are taking place in rooms where people sign things: leases and permits, credit approvals, port investments, and hiring plans. In those rooms, the question around brand is fundamentally practical: am I happy to put my name next to this team and this programme? When enough people in the room think yes, you can start to become the default. When the answer is less unequivocal, you could spend the next 12 months explaining yourself while others benefit.
Taking place this week in Aberdeen, Floating Offshore Wind 2025 (FOW25) lands squarely in this moment. The agenda is about moving from talk to delivery, unlocking investment, solving grid and transmission constraints, and attracting a global supply chain into the UK and the North Sea. Event attendees in Aberdeen will be thinking in those terms, which means they’re screening for teams that get it and can deliver without drama.
Through this lens, you can break down leadership’s role for 2026 into a slightly forced alliterative trio: are you buildable, bankable, and do you belong?
Buildable
‘Buildable’ essentially refers to whether others believe you can turn plans into assets within a timeframe they can live with. Stakeholders want a partner that understands what it’s undertaking, talks about goals and challenges in the same breath, and behaves consistently across the conversations that matter. They notice tone and pattern and expect the same balance of realism and control across every environment and touchpoint.
Buildability, in that sense, is half about science and engineering and half about proof and alignment. Do your strategy, narrative, and conduct all tell the same story? Are the things you say about industry leadership, innovation, and partnership reflected in your actions? Brands able to communicate alignment with confidence quickly become associated with reliability, and confidence follows.
A decent parallel comes from aerospace. When Airbus committed to the narrow-body A321XLR, it was already competing in a saturated market and under scrutiny for delivery delays. Rather than retreating into silence or blaming others, it treated buildability as a brand attribute. It aligned its narrative and actions, owned certification challenges, published progress milestones, and kept a consistent message from the factory floor to the press. That combination of transparency and consistency reassured airlines that the programme would reach service entry, even as the environment shifted.
We at MTM have seen the same principle of buildability through our own work with Airbus as a client partner. When the company sought to extend its reputation from aerospace into new satellite ad intelligence markets, the challenge was just as much about credibility and consistency as the technical detail. MTM helped translate Airbus’s engineering excellence into a cohesive brand a communications strategy that built trust across space and geo, maritime and energy audiences. Take a look at the Airbus case study for more information.
That’s the point: buildability is as much about rhythm and process as it is about results. When a company shows the same focus, candour, and tone through uncertainty, it earns trust. Floating wind brands can learn from that. The most persuasive developers won’t define credibility by scale or technology alone but by how they align the moving parts (partners, capital, regulators, and communities) into a single, believable story, and then behave in ways that make it true.
N.B. It would be fair to conclude that ‘credible’ would have been a better title for this section, but we are where we are.
Bankable
Bankability is similar but distinct. It still depends on transparency and consistency, but it’s more about how well your business carries risk and how safe others feel putting capital, careers, or reputation in your hands.
Scandals like Theranos and FTX aside, capital generally doesn’t follow ambition alone. Investors and partners look for a few clear signals. They want to see a management team that takes a measured view of risk, explains its decisions clearly, and shows the same discipline in communication as it does in delivery. They pay attention to how you respond when the market moves, whether you explain what’s changing or simply keep your head down. Above all, they want to know that you are conscious and present: a sense that the people running the business are a few moves ahead.
In that sense, bankability is more about behaviour than balance sheets. The companies seen as safe to back show it in how they act. They publish what they can, acknowledge what they can’t, and keep the same message across boardrooms, regulators, and communities. That bankability also sits at the heart of sustainability communications. Whether youre reporting progress or managing expectations, trust grows when words and actions align. In the same way that investors back consistency, stakeholders back transparency. We explore this further in our article on tailored communications strategies for decarbonisation success.
A good comparison can be found within the energy sector. Ørsted built its reputation on visible financial governance and steady leadership. It restructured its portfolio in public view, linked strategy to national policy, and reported progress with a degree of honesty that stood out. That transparent posture reassured investors and governments alike that they were dealing with a cool bunch of Danes, even amid cost pressures and political shifts.
Equinor offers a similar lesson. Its measured expansion into renewables and hydrogen has been deliberate and clearly reasoned. The company communicates its strategic logic in clear, concise language, striking a balance between ambition and financial realism. Stakeholders may not agree with every move, but they understand the rationale, and that sustains confidence.
For businesses across the floating wind sector, the point is simple. Bankability isn’t a financial statement; it’s the brand’s voice out there in the market and media explaining what’s going on at a commercial and C-suite level. It’s about communicating that your organisation understands its exposure, manages uncertainty with discipline, and treats transparency as a habit. When people sense that steadiness, they stop worrying about whether you can deliver and start thinking about how to work with you.
Belonging
Belonging is the quietest of the three Bs, but it often decides who gets to grow. In this context, belonging is about whether the people, institutions, and regions around you want your success. In an industry as interconnected as floating wind, that’s not a moral question; it’s a commercial one. Ports, supply chains, regulators, and local communities can accelerate or slow your progress based on the messages you share.
At its heart, belonging is about licence to scale. It’s what happens when your growth is seen to serve a wider purpose: local jobs, infrastructure renewal, skills development, and regional competitiveness. When those benefits are visible and credible, friction falls away. When they’re vague or overstated, everything takes longer.
The companies that handle this well behave as if legitimacy is a leadership function, not a comms task. Ørsted is a useful example again, not because of its size, but because of its discipline. It reports local value with the same seriousness as financial performance, keeps a predictable cadence with policymakers, and treats supply-chain development as a standing commitment, not just a tender requirement. The result is a brand that feels anchored in the countries it operates in and as committed to their development as it is to its own.
For floating wind, belonging will define your rate of expansion. The technology is proven; the question is whether the sector can scale with public consent and institutional confidence. That means being transparent about trade-offs, publishing local-value data even when it’s incomplete, and showing genuine participation in regional economies. It also means building pathways for people, helping oil-and-gas engineers, apprentices, and smaller suppliers find their place in the transition.
Projects that belong move faster, attract better people, and draw less resistance. They spend less time defending and more time building. In a market where every delay is expensive, belonging is more than soft power; it’s a real operational advantage.
Designing for default
As I see it, the real measure of brand strength in 2026 is how easily people can decide in your favour. In practice, that means being the option that feels low risk, straightforward, and already halfway chosen.
For businesses in the floating wind space, this is what a great brand now does. It removes uncertainty. It shortens the distance between awareness and acceptance, so every meeting, announcement, and partnership builds reassurance. The organisations that get this right behave in ways that make “yes” feel like the logical next step, not a shot in the dark.
Designing for default starts with two kinds of recognition. The first is human recognition, memory, trust, and clarity: the things people rely on when they have limited time to evaluate. The second is institutional recognition, which is the structure and consistency that help boards, investors, and policymakers feel confident in your competence. You need to excel at both.
We explore the psychology of brand recognition and choice in our recent article on the cognitive psychology of attention, and how marketers can tailor their communications accordingly.
For investors, that might be transparent reporting that shows you understand your exposure. For policymakers, it’s a track record of collaboration that proves you’re in it for the long haul. For ports and suppliers, it’s predictability and a sense that you understand their timelines as well as your own. When those groups see the same character expressed in different contexts, confidence becomes reflexive.
Aberdeen, then 2026
FOW25 is the moment to show that maturity. Event attendees in Aberdeen aren’t looking for slogans; they’re looking for partners who understand how to deliver through complexity. The most effective conversations next week won’t be the ones filled with self-aggrandising adjectives; they’ll be the ones that make decisions easier for others.
If you’re exhibiting or just visiting, arrive with clarity. Know exactly what you’re building, where you are in the process, and who’s with you. Speak plainly about challenges.
Demonstrate that you’ve thought about how your success fits into the wider system, from supply chains and local economies to national policy and targets. That’s what people remember when they go back to those rooms where decisions are made.
Through 2026, the floating wind market will test every participant’s ability to manage risk, align interests, and sustain credibility. The businesses that pull ahead will be the ones that keep their balance when everything around them moves. They’ll make the build feel real without over-claiming. They’ll give finance fewer surprises. They’ll behave as if they already belong.
Brand, at this level, is the cumulative effect of a thousand moments of composure. Get that right, and when the market has to choose, you’ll already be the name they want to say.
We are a specialist floating offshore wind agency
In sectors like maritime or energy, and renewables, where every decision carries weight and every message matters, clarity is a key competitive advantage. At The MTM Agency, we help leaders in high-stakes industries turn complexity into confidence. Our sector-specialist insight, data-informed strategy, and creative innovation empower brands to engage audiences with precision and purpose. It’s an approach proven to build trust, drive performance and provide long-term value.
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