Edelman CEO Richard Edelman Explains Why His Company's Trust Barometer, Now In Its 25th Year, Is More Relevant Than Ever.
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00:00Hi, everyone.
00:03Welcome to Leadership Next, the podcast about the people and trends that are shaping the
00:08future of business.
00:09I'm Diane Brady.
00:10And I'm Kristen Stoler.
00:12So Kristen, in this episode, we are talking about trust, which is something that we in
00:17the media know plenty about, lack of trust, lots of trust.
00:21And the Edelman Trust Barometer is the global gold standard for this.
00:25For 25 years, they've been going out, cross-demographics, breaking it down by gender, breaking it down
00:32by country, and looking at these four institutions, government, media, NGOs, and business, seeing
00:40do they trust us?
00:41So what did you make of this year's report?
00:44I thought it was so interesting.
00:46I think, for me, the most interesting part, and I pulled this out of the report, it says
00:51fewer than half of respondents trust those who hold opposing political beliefs.
00:57So going into a new administration, I think that is really interesting, because it's how
01:01do we bridge these divides to get people to trust each other?
01:05Well, when we're in an echo chamber, I think one of the scariest things, of course, was
01:09that more than half of those aged 18 to 24 approve of violence, property damage, or misinformation
01:16as tools of change.
01:17So not only are we becoming more extreme, we're becoming more violent at the same time.
01:22Yeah.
01:23And it's crazy that it's the young people who are becoming more violent.
01:27And I'm going to throw it back on the other generation really fast.
01:30And as a kid growing up in the 90s, I remember my parents always used to tell me, do not
01:35trust everything you read on the internet.
01:37Be so careful.
01:38Your dad was a journalist.
01:39Let's point that out.
01:41But these are the same people who now are going on Facebook, believing everything that
01:46they see there.
01:47So it's interesting to me that mindset shift from the early age of the internet to now.
01:53And why?
01:54Well, and I think it says something about where we are in the economy and opportunity.
01:58I also think if you look back to the first Edelman Trust Barometer, the most trusted
02:02institution then was the NGOs.
02:04And this was a period of anger about globalization, a lot of fear.
02:09It was sort of still the bubble time for the dot-com boom.
02:13Here we are now.
02:15Media's low.
02:16I think we're always pretty low.
02:17But business is the most trusted.
02:20Does that surprise you?
02:21That, you know, a little bit, but I feel like it's always been kind of heading this way,
02:26especially with all the discourse we've seen in the past few years.
02:30I think that really makes sense to what people believe.
02:32Who do you trust the most is my question.
02:34Oh, media, of course, depending on who it is.
02:37I do think, well, look, I think it's about hope.
02:40And I think when you trust institutions, you work through them.
02:44You put your money in a bank.
02:45You don't trade on the street.
02:47And I think what's interesting is the developing countries now have higher levels of trust
02:51than a lot of the developed democracies.
02:53And to me, that's about opportunity.
02:56It's about fairness.
02:57And it's about seeing the rich get richer and everybody else fall behind.
03:02And nothing erodes trust like thinking your neighbor's getting off with something that
03:06you don't get.
03:07Totally.
03:08Totally.
03:09Well, excited to talk to Richard about it.
03:12We're seeing an erosion of trust in institutions, which is being made worse amid the rise of
03:18A.I. and polarization.
03:20And yet, trust in business remains relatively strong.
03:23We spoke with Jason Grzodzis, the CEO of Deloitte U.S., which is the longtime sponsor of this
03:28podcast.
03:29Here's what he had to say.
03:31Trust is a function of businesses meeting their stakeholders' expectations and creating
03:37value.
03:38And that's true for customers.
03:39That's true for the workforce.
03:41And that's true for society at large.
03:43And I think given the challenges that other key pillars of the economy and society have
03:48faced in terms of trust, businesses have an opportunity to actually rise above that set
03:53of concerns and forge new levels of trust with all their stakeholders.
03:57This is an opportunity for businesses to really lead around trust, creating experiences that
04:02are reliable, resilient, as well as fulfilling their expectations to those stakeholders.
04:08And over time, I think trust will be a function of our businesses actually meeting the human
04:13needs that are resident, whether it's around health and well-being or contributing to the
04:18environment or to worker satisfaction and engagement.
04:23For 25 years, the Edelman Trust Barometer has been the global gauge by which we measure
04:30how institutions like business, government, NGOs and media are delivering on their promise
04:36to citizens in different countries around the world.
04:39Do they trust us?
04:41And the man who's been leading that effort is Richard Edelman, CEO of the global communications
04:46firm founded by his father, Daniel, in 1952.
04:50A long legacy of trust there, Richard.
04:52Good to see you.
04:53I want to start with the fact that you started the Edelman Trust Barometer.
04:58Why?
04:59Well, I had served as CEO of Edelman in Europe for three years, and I understood the power
05:05of NGOs in Europe.
05:06And I wanted to appreciate really what had happened in Seattle when the NGOs stormed
05:12the World Trade Organization meeting to protest globalization.
05:15We were shocked to find that NGOs, in fact, were the most trusted institution in the world.
05:21Ahead of business, ahead of government, ahead of media.
05:24Why those four?
05:25And I'm very chuffed that media is part of the mix.
05:29We thought that they were the most fundamental to the global society and that, in fact, they
05:36each played their own roles, you know, business, the sort of driver of economic outcomes, government,
05:43the ones who are sort of the arbiters setting the playing field, media, the critics, the
05:48guide, the information source, and then NGOs really filling a vacuum amongst the other
05:55three.
05:56Richard, 25 years, that's a long time.
05:58What has changed the most or surprised you the most over the last 25 years?
06:02Well, there have been several important events.
06:05We had the Iraq War.
06:06We had the Great Recession.
06:09We also had the rise of social media, one billion people on Facebook in 2012.
06:16We also had the COVID-19 and then most recently the geopolitical tumult, the invasion of Ukraine
06:24by Russia, et cetera.
06:26What's changed the most, I think, is, first, that business became the most trusted institution
06:31in 2021.
06:33That was surprising, the most competent and ethical.
06:37The second is really the mass class divide, the idea that the top quartile and the bottom
06:42quartile really started to separate in 2012 in the U.S., U.K. and France, leading to Brexit,
06:49Macron and Trump.
06:51But then now it's in three quarters of the countries in a substantial way, Saudi Arabia,
06:57Thailand, et cetera.
06:59One of the things I find interesting, and I know we've talked about this in the past,
07:04that you've cited Francis Fukuyama, that book he wrote on trust, as one of the inspirations
07:10for the Edelman Trust Barometer.
07:13Before we get more deeply into what we're seeing around trust, I'd love you to talk
07:19a bit more about why does trust matter?
07:21Why is it so foundational to what we do?
07:24I think Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington both had their important thinking around trust
07:35related to the great conclusion that, in fact, it was the triumph of democracy and capitalism
07:43in the 90s.
07:44You know, Soviet Union blew up, et cetera.
07:47Trust was a very sort of legally-based trust construct that, you know, Fukuyama saw a difference,
07:53for instance, between the United States and Korea, one with a very well-established legal
07:58system, the other with sort of crony capitalism, whatever, in that period.
08:02And that the last 25 years has really, you know, put that thesis to bed, because first
08:12you see that, in fact, the countries that have single government, you know, one-party
08:20government, in fact, have done better in trust than democracies.
08:24Also, there's real questions about capitalism and whether it's fair.
08:29And when you see that there's not a single democracy where people, over 30 percent of
08:34people feel that their families are going to be better off in five years, that's a really
08:39very profound condemnation.
08:42It feels like there's a direct correlation with the economy.
08:47And what you're talking about, where you see that mass-class divide, we've also seen a
08:52widening income divide.
08:54So is it reflective of democracy or is it reflective of the fact that the rich are getting
08:59richer and everyone else feels left behind?
09:03I think it's multiple factors.
09:05I think there's a real battle for truth, Diane.
09:08People can't really put their hands on what's the truth.
09:12What's the truth about COVID?
09:13Where did it start?
09:14Was masking good?
09:15Should we have been locked down?
09:16So that still needs a reckoning.
09:18But also, you're right, the mass-class divide is reflective of an income divide and the
09:25stagnation of wages in the bottom half of the population and the sense that everybody's
09:30scrambling just to make ends meet.
09:33And there's now this new fear of job loss to AI.
09:37And I think in this 2025 study, there's a real rejection of AI unless people can believe
09:45in its promise being better than the risk of losing their jobs.
09:49I want to talk about that, Richard, because I was looking at your study and some 60 percent
09:53of people say that they struggle to discern credible news from disinformation.
09:58In this age of AI, how are we looking at that?
10:02How are we combating that?
10:04What did you think seeing the results?
10:06I think the first thing is people want the media to move back to the middle, to be like
10:10fortune, that it shouldn't be ideological, it shouldn't be left or right.
10:13The second is I don't think the media can do it alone.
10:16I think that the media has now been put in such a set of boxes, thought bubbles, left
10:22or right, that business, government, NGOs all have to correct misinformation and have
10:29a lower bar when there's a sort of free for all in the media environment.
10:35And whatever somebody says is as valuable as the other person and a denigration of expertise
10:40in COVID, you know, where the leading experts are now being questioned, OK, then we have
10:46to correct facts.
10:48What I think is interesting, and I know, Kristen, I feel like I should jump across the transom
10:52to you here, is there's a generational divide on a lot of these issues.
10:56And I know with my kids, they actually don't trust AI as much as I do.
11:02And that may be the position that I'm in.
11:04But I feel like we should talk a little more about what we're seeing on the generational
11:11front.
11:12That's one of the reasons I value the trust barometer.
11:14Richard, what are you seeing there?
11:16So for me, the most alarming statistic in this barometer has to do with Gen Z feeling
11:23so aggrieved that they sanction violence of one form or another.
11:30I mean, much of it is misinformation or but 20 percent literally say, you know, physical
11:37violence is OK in order to achieve change.
11:40Yeah, that is a very important statistic to pay attention to.
11:46And I think business has a really important role here.
11:51Business can't do this alone.
11:54And that's been the sort of tendency in the last four or five years.
11:57Well, if governments paralyzed, well, business will take up the mantle on societal issues.
12:02And because business is so effective, you know, it can get it done.
12:06Well, that's too much reliance on a single institution.
12:08It's like being on a seesaw on a playground.
12:11One is up and one is down and government's down and business is up.
12:14That's a bad idea.
12:15Seesaws are more fun when kids are of kind of equal weight.
12:18And the better idea here is business should do that, which is in its swim lane, you know,
12:24where it can make impact, where it can make a difference, where it's good for the business
12:29and not overreach and not take on issues beyond its purview.
12:34The violence thing really shocks me, especially coming from a younger generation.
12:38But you're right.
12:39We're seeing it.
12:40You know, we're seeing it with the looting in California going on.
12:43We saw it with the tragedy with the UnitedHealthcare CEO.
12:46And I'm wondering why.
12:47What it is about this moment that you haven't seen in the past 25 years.
12:52What is what is spurring people toward violence?
12:55So I think primary source information is social media.
13:00And there's no sort of governor on that.
13:03Second is the idea somehow of isolation and mental health issues.
13:10And some of this was worsened by covid and despair.
13:15And just the recognition that I'll never live as well as my parents and that therefore
13:22I have no stake in society, then I can almost be an anarchist.
13:28We need to bring these people back.
13:30We need to get them back into the fold and make them at least moderate as to grievance
13:36instead of highly aggrieved, because those people actually trust institutions, the moderates.
13:41I'd love to talk a little more about what you're seeing in the rest of the world.
13:46We alluded to this earlier with developed economies.
13:49Give me some sense.
13:50Where are you seeing some of the greatest sparks of hope?
13:54Is it very much sort of these countries that are on the ascent, fast growing economies
13:59like India, for example?
14:01Diane, the most important thing to see in some of these developing markets is the basic
14:09equivalence of trust levels in their institutions.
14:13So there's not the huge disparity as there is in the U.S. between business and government,
14:18like 50 points on capability.
14:21That doesn't exist in India or Singapore, for instance.
14:26Media and government have fairly well equal levels of trust as to business and NGOs.
14:33That's a functioning society where the competence and confidence in the elected officials is
14:40very high.
14:41We need to get back to that.
14:43And I actually think in this next administration in the U.S., there's that promise, that in
14:48fact we can have a period where, OK, we're going to deregulate, energy prices are going
14:54to go down, it's going to be somehow a more free market for goods, and we'll somehow see
15:06that government can work well.
15:08What gives me pause is a president who often accuses the likes of me of being fake news.
15:15How do we deal with this vilification of media since we are allegedly important?
15:22I think we're important, of course.
15:25What advice do you have to us?
15:28I think media needs to continue to do its job to tell people the truth and to be buttressed
15:36by business and other institutions.
15:41Let's talk about trade and tariffs.
15:44If a business has a major interest in free trade, then it should stand up and explain
15:50how this is keeping prices low and there's comparative advantage and all these things.
15:55So I don't think it's a time for CEOs to put their heads down on issues that are vital
16:00to their industry.
16:01Another stat I thought was really interesting, and we've touched a bit on this, is that it's
16:05confidence in a better future is about 30-ish percent with lows in about every Western democracy,
16:13which I thought was really interesting.
16:15Richard, why is this in your opinion, and how do we fix it going forward?
16:19I think we've had a rough period in economic performance.
16:25You look at some of those European countries.
16:29I think the COVID overhang is very significant.
16:35I actually, for the first time on this show, I'm going to call for a public reckoning on COVID.
16:41I think we need to actually have, as we did on 9-11, a specific examination of where did
16:48it come from, what did we do right, like warp speed, what did we do wrong, lockdowns, whatever,
16:55and that it was well-intended.
16:57Here are the lessons, because I think that kind of level set can enable people to go
17:01forward and stop repeating history and reprocessing.
17:06You think we're still mired in COVID impacting how we think about the world?
17:13I do.
17:14I think we are still in a negative mindset.
17:16I think we still have that shadow over our heads, and we need to get out in the sunlight.
17:25Whatever the truth is, fine, let's get on with it.
17:30I think everyone would welcome that.
17:32I want to go beyond the trust barometer for a second, Richard, and talk a little bit about
17:36you and your role and Edelman's role as a global company.
17:41You are in the communications business.
17:43You advise CEOs and NGO leaders and certainly many others.
17:49Give me a sense as a leader how you're looking at the business landscape, and are you finding
17:54people are coming to you with different types of problems now because of what you're seeing
18:00in the trust barometer and just generally in society?
18:03Yeah, we're seeing a lot more nationalism, Diane, a lot more, frankly, questionable science
18:10and allegations about industries, cancer scares, et cetera.
18:15We're also seeing profound changes in behavior.
18:21People who are buying private label because they can't afford the brands or whatever,
18:28that's the nature of the work.
18:30We are always leaning into the idea that companies should act and then communicate.
18:37I remember working with United Airlines five or six years ago when that passenger was pulled
18:41off the plane in Chicago, became quite famous.
18:45You'll remember that they 10X'd the amount that they would pay a passenger to go off
18:50a plane.
18:51They would never bring cops on a plane again unless there was violence or something.
18:56They also were very clear that it's a passenger's airline.
19:02We screwed up our system.
19:04They apologized and were clear about it.
19:07Onwards.
19:08That's the sort of thing that companies need to do.
19:10Do something.
19:11Yep.
19:12I know we've talked a lot about the scary stuff, the violence, the bad stuff, but I
19:16want to also focus on what's good.
19:18Is there anything that's giving you hope from this report or that you're seeing from
19:23other CEOs that's really making you excited?
19:26I saw a paper by Brad Smith, who's president of Microsoft, about the promise of AI.
19:32I think it's really important that the health benefits, for example, of being able to say,
19:39okay, I can shorten the period of time for drug discovery.
19:44There are 500,000 equations to be done and we can get in one day down to three.
19:51Also the predictive ability to say that the Edelman family has this health risk and let's
19:57be more diagnostic.
19:58I'm deeply excited about AI.
20:01I'm also excited about mRNA.
20:04Of course, this isn't health again, but that drug delivery vehicle could be good for cancers
20:10and other things.
20:13I also see the possibility of tech changing the landscape in a way that enables the world
20:25to ... Edelman's moved a couple hundred jobs to Bogota, Colombia, because we in real time
20:32can be doing really great digital work and have it be ready for the client.
20:38It enables Edelman all of a sudden to compete with ad agencies.
20:42I feel good about invading other people's turfs as a business person.
20:48Let me end by putting on your communications guru hat.
20:53We've talked about these issues.
20:55A lot of CEOs are rightfully scared when you see people being gunned down in the street
21:01execution style because of their company, not who they are.
21:05If you were to think of a plan for the US and the institutions that you're covering
21:10and the barometer, how do we regain trust?
21:14I've lived in countries where there's a lack of trust and it's scary because it's hard
21:20to see the bridge back to winning it.
21:22Do you have any thoughts as to what kind of plan we put in place to regain the trust of
21:28the American people?
21:30I think our big idea has to be optimism regained on the basis of action.
21:38I think we should do a national reskilling and upskilling program because AI is coming
21:42like a train.
21:43I think also we should be very clear about how people can get into houses and how we
21:53can actually have neighborhoods that are safe and just things that lead to a normal life.
22:01We also should get people to come out of their houses.
22:05It's great to stream.
22:06It's even better to go to the bar and get back to socializing, which goes back to my
22:12theory around the COVID effect.
22:14Again, Tom Wilson of Allstate had this study done of the amount of negativity in media
22:25about the United States.
22:27We need to turn that to, yes, we can and feel like this is a society that's going to perform
22:34well over the next decade and give people the trust in its institutions and therefore
22:40the trust in economic optimism.
22:42On a personal level, what's your level of trust in these institutions?
22:47How has it changed in 25 years?
22:48I have a high level of belief that we can make this work.
22:52I see the progress that business has made, frankly, in the last 25 years.
22:58Its ethics score, for example, has doubled.
23:02It's really impressive that business is as ethical as NGOs.
23:07That shows that change is possible.
23:09You've also seen in some markets, in Detroit, for example, the recovery of Detroit is incredible.
23:16I went there last year.
23:18The rebuilding and the investment and the, yes, this mayor can do and let's do it.
23:29I also see a real chance for NGOs, particularly with the highly aggrieved.
23:33NGOs have been crowded out the last few years.
23:37The last is I see media having really woken up and that you are getting to people where
23:44they are, whether it's podcasts, whether it's Ben Smith and starting Semaphore, all of this
23:51is very good.
23:53We are going to reach people in different ways.
23:57It's surround sound and we all have to dig in.
24:00Never give up.
24:01Richard, I have a quick question, a follow-up question on your COVID thoughts.
24:04I thought that was just so interesting.
24:07In practice, you said you wanted people back out, going to the bars, big fan of that.
24:12How do we do it?
24:13How do we get people back out?
24:15What's keeping people, in your opinion, from returning to normal or a new normal?
24:20I think they got stuck into a certain set of habits when they were locked down.
24:25I think we haven't really gotten them out of it, whether it's remote work, whether it's
24:30the idea somehow that you can have your life via social connections online.
24:41I think the real world is experiences.
24:46We should use big events.
24:47For example, Edelman is working with America 250, which is the 250th birthday of this country
24:53in 2026.
24:54That's a big opportunity for us to get back to optimism, but also to get people out of
24:59their houses.
25:01Go to the concerts, go see the art exhibits, go do things.
25:06That's the American way.
25:07It's exciting.
25:08Before we wrap up here, is there anything that we didn't ask that you think that we
25:11should know about the report?
25:13Chris, I think the role of the CEO is quite fundamental.
25:19It's your core readership.
25:22I don't want CEOs to take from this report that they should withdraw from the discussion.
25:28I think CEOs have every reason to participate in discussions when they can have an impact,
25:37when their companies can make a difference, and when there is either some important aspect
25:46in their community, their stakeholders could benefit.
25:50It's time for CEOs to judge which ones and which areas to go for.
25:55Richard, thank you for joining us, and of course, more conversations to come.