A World on the Edge: The Role of Comms in Navigating Geopolitical Tensions

Welcome & Informal Networking

Drinks and food will be served, including non alcoholic drinks

A chance to meet in-house leaders and innovators in the communications industry.

Chairs Opening Remarks

Ben Smith, founder, PRmoment

Exclusive Research Results: What keeps 500 in-house communicators up at night?

Sarah Moloney, UK managing director, MikeWorldWide

Confidence Amidst Chaos: Navigating Brand Identity in 2025

Key themes:

• Communications Under Pressure: Complex narratives, tight deadlines and evolving stakeholder demands
• Budget Constraints: Is the scope of public relations increasing faster than the budget?
• Acute Reputational Risk: And strong fear of backlash amongst the C-Suite
• Data-Led Insights: The need for better data to drive evidence-based decisions
• Audience Fragmentation: The paradox of consistent messaging versus community specific content

A Postcard From America: The future of reputation in a fragmented world

Michael Kempner, founder & CEO, MikeWorldWide

• The New Global Rules of Reputation: From the rise of Trumpism to the rapid evolution of AI
• What’s Fuelling Brand Distrust?: And what it now takes to lead with clarity, purpose and boldness
• Expect global insights, hard truths, and practical strategies for navigating risk in an age where silence isn’t safe, but noise isn’t enough
• How AI, geopolitics and economic uncertainty are redefining the comms landscape

The Interview: With Maryam Moshiri, chief presenter, BBC

Interviewer: Ben Smith, founder, PRmoment

Key themes:

• Maryam on what makes a meme go viral, following her middle finger countdown moment!
• What are the challenges of covering news in such a chaotic news environment?
• Why is America so important to the BBC?
• Understanding the BBC's editorial guidelines, in the context of this period of deep global political and economic uncertainty
• With the news agenda relentlessly moving on to the next big thing, how does the BBC balance the need for news analysis against the need to cover breaking news?

Panel Discussion - Comms in 2025: The Intersection of a complex internal and external stakeholder environment

Martine Parry, senior media lead, The Fairtrade Foundation
Bieneosa Ebite, head of communications and government affairs, Inclusion, GSK
Tomos Rhys Edwards, head of global research communications, EMEA, Bank of America
Sarah Moloney, UK managing director, MWW

Panel themes

• A discussion of the "Confidence Amidst Chaos: Navigating Brand Identity in 2025" research results
  
• Understanding the challenges of DE&I across different geographies in 2025
• Internal communications: How this chaotic environment will impact employees differently
• The risk versus reward of communications: What is the reality of reputation management in regulated markets across a chaotic stakeholder environment?
• The end of globalisation?: Will wider differences in law, regulation and culture impact the ability of international organisations to communicate effectively?
• What is the role of communicators in this complicated stakeholder environment?
• How can comms be a storyteller amongst all this noise?

Closing remarks from Ben Smith, founder, PRmoment

Ben Smith, founder, PRmoment

Drinks, informal networking and connections