Wolff Olins Global CEO Sairah Ashman shares her thoughts on building – or rebuilding – trust in business.
A New Business Agenda For A New Era
The US inauguration last month marked the culmination of a year in which 49% of the world’s population voted in 74 national elections and many incumbent governments were shown the door due to widespread voter frustration.
2025 heralds an inevitable shift in priorities with this slew of new administrations and the challenge for every business is how best to respond. The year is still young, but a few things are already becoming clear.
The global collaboration gap
Historically we’ve seen a distinction between geopolitics and national politics. That line is increasingly blurred with the potential for a fundamental impact on global growth – the new US administration’s America-first agenda being just one example amongst many.
The challenge this presents was flagged by World Economic Forum President Børge Brende’s call for careful handling of the potential “geopolitical recession” being forecasted and driven by a changing global outlook, conflict, and instability in a powerful speech last year.
While nations have always prioritised their self-interest, the desire to also collaborate as a global collective for additional upside was a general ethos taken for granted over many decades.
As that view dissolves, we see the struggle in many markets and also among nations – most recently and notably China – to meet ambitious growth targets against a backdrop of growing concerns regarding wider economic growth.
According to the World Bank recently, “conventional stimulus measures will not be sufficient to reinvigorate growth”, and neither will going it entirely alone, as noted by the World Economic Forum.
Change keeps coming
Additionally, there are growing challenges regarding how best to create new value, keeping many business leaders awake late into the night.
One major challenge is building value for the existing customers you rely on today vs those you’re looking to attract tomorrow. Another lies in realising value in terms of the ROI your stakeholders expect, amid growing predictions this year will be a busy one for IPO and M&A activity. It’s no surprise rebel investors are stalking boards, and boardroom performance, like hungry lions in the savannah.
Another challenge is the AI-powered workforce transformation that lies ahead, with no tried and tested formula to draw down on confidently.
Already, AI is showing up in workflows creating a divide between those embracing it, those still trying to deploy it, and those yet to consider it.
Perhaps somewhat sensationally and for their own advantage, some predict AI agents – tools that carry out certain jobs autonomously – will transform business output as early as this year.
With 11 months left in 2025, we’ll find out soon enough. While observing the mounting legal challenges against OpenAI with interest, alongside the ‘tech vs tech’ disruption wave brought to the fore by DeepSeek.
Trust and our “descent into grievance”
Hampering efforts to effectively address such challenges is a crisis of trust – something of a permacrisis in recent times.
In recent years, trust in institutions has significantly declined, according to the Edelman Trust Index, which tracks the average percentage of trust people have for business, government, media and NGOs across 28 countries.
Sadly, there’s scant sign of improvement in the latest findings detailed in the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer report published last month (January 2025).
Cumulatively and despite recent elections, trust levels we’re told are largely unchanged and fuelled by a growing sense of “grievance” – characterised by beliefs that the mass class divide is growing, there’s a lack of quality information, the political system is broken and that families will not be better off in the next 5 years. It’s hard not to agree.
Fears that leaders lie to us are at an all-time high, globalisation scepticism is rising, and there’s an unprecedented decline in trust for employers more generally, despite best efforts. It’s taxing out there for everyone but the few it seems.
A way through
Reaching for the positives, trust in business remains higher than in the other institutions included in the Trust Index (government, media and NGOs) and is spread pretty evenly across different industries, the report shows, giving businesses room to act.
Interestingly, while higher grievance undermines belief in business competence and poor ethics certainly erodes trust, these grievances are overpowered by economic optimism when trust is built. Optimism opens the door to all sorts of possibilities. Economic optimism ensures it stays open.
So while there are no silver bullets or magic beans to hand, there are some obvious thought starters, for business in particular, when it comes to building or rebuilding trust, with all the benefits this brings.
Clarity – With so much in flux and changing, there’s a winning virtue in simply being definitive in intent and action right now. In a practical sense, this means direction setting and signalling internally and externally. A clarity of purpose that can be turned into action, whether put to work consolidating or diversifying your portfolio, cleaning up your organisational structure, communicating your purpose and value more compellingly, or investing in innovation pilots. Clarifying, simplifying and clearing the decks in readiness for a vastly more complex landscape will make moving fast easier and an advantage.
Collaboration – While the war waged between monopolies vs open source continues in the tech arena via the courts this year, many organisations will find they can make progress via collaborative partnerships and tie-ups rather than simply consolidating or wholly owned investments. This is especially so for mid-size players who don’t yet have the clout to compete as strongly as they might otherwise. While the quality and integrity of these partnerships and alliances is critical, customers happily buy into ecosystems if their value is clear.
Character – The principles or values that make you distinctive and who you are, acted out consistently, are what ultimately build trust. While leaders and organisations are increasingly under pressure to act in ways that could be perceived negatively, their ability to connect in a way that’s human, transparent and demonstrates moral qualities will increasingly be a differentiator for those ready to stay the course. Not just in an organisational sense to attract and retain talent, but also in terms of the products and services created to attract and retain customers.
Connection – In the rush to become more AI-enabled we’d do well to remember how intrinsic and important connection is. Taking the time to know me and not just my data leads to surprising discoveries from a consumer perspective. And it won’t be long before AI solutions carry a more distinctly human and moral dimension that will create an advantage for those who build this into their roadmap early. So while technology will be game-changing, our fundamental needs remain the same. This is useful to keep in mind as we integrate effectively into new business models of the future.
In summary, while the next few years will continue to be a wild ride, history tells us that some things will remain stubbornly fixed and that those able to quieten the noise and find time to focus on the fundamentals will put themselves in a winning position.
