Global | Edelman

Our assumptions about who believes what about health are spectacularly wrong. Doubts about nutrition, vaccination, and public safety recommendations are no longer a fringe view. They stem neither from a single ideology nor lack of education and do not result from distrust of doctors or experts. In fact, our latest 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Trust and Health, based on a survey of 16,000 respondents across 16 countries, finds that a staggering 70% believe at least one of six divisive health claims about foods, vaccines and medicines to be true. Understanding the worldview and concerns of the public is everything. CEOs and communicators in health must wake up to this radical new reality.

Divisive health beliefs span the globe, highest in the developing nations of India (89%) and South Africa (88%), lowest in Japan, Canada, and the U.S. (50-61%). The divisive health beliefs apply equally across educational levels (university degreed versus non-university degreed) and are more acute among young people (79% for ages 18-34 ) and right-leaning voters (78%), though majorities hold for ages 55 and older (60%) and the left-leaning (64%). It is shocking that only a slight majority (52%) believes the risks of childhood vaccination outweigh the benefits to be false, while slightly over one third (36%) of respondents say adding fluoride in drinking water is harmful is false, a public health staple in the many Anglophone countries since the 1960s.

The one-year drop in confidence (-10 points to 51%) to make informed health decisions for ourselves and our families is staggering. From China to the UAE to Mexico, the majority of people feel their country is divided on key health issues, potentially leading to a profound loss of trust in the healthcare system. Artificial intelligence has already displaced medical expertise in the eyes of many; doctors are competing to influence health decisions with AI, peers, friends and other non-credentialed sources.

More information alone is not the way out of this. Those with more divisive health beliefs are in fact more immersed in information, with on average two thirds saying that they frequently consume health news or consult AI platforms for answers, double or triple the engagement of those who believe no divisive claims. They are nearly three times as likely to read health news from different political orientations. We see evidence of confusion: They are also more likely to be getting mixed advice from credentialed and uncredentialed voices, and so it follows that they’re three times more likely to disregard HCP medical guidance in favor of advice from friends, family, or social media in the past year than those who disbelieve divisive health claims. This is not a story of too little; it’s a matter of too much information without proper context.

Science needs a reset to adapt to this unstable world of trust, offering a new deal to patients and health providers. To date institutional science has solely focused on the WHAT, expressed by top-down communication from credentialed authority figures. That is no longer sufficient for those with skepticism about global institutions, experts, and government borne of the COVID-19 ordeal. The HOW must be explained in simple terms, using data visualizations and with greater transparency on clinical trial processes. The WHY requires acknowledgement of benefits versus side effects and the relative value of the innovation versus cost.

Here is a five-point communications strategy for Health:

Institutions and providers alike need to show up as guides, not advocates.
Trust must be brokered across groups with different views, elevating shared goals without needing to achieve unanimity.
Acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers. Luckily, this is already a built-in part of the scientific method to correct as we learn.
Frequency, frequency, frequency. People need to hear and be heard multiple times before they consider a recommendation on health.
Surround sound. We should utilize a broader circle of trust, valuing friends and family and patient advocacy groups alongside medical experts.

It is time for science to go on offense, to recognize the futility of facts alone, and bring the public along as partner in a better life.

Richard Edelman is CEO.

This post originally appeared on Fortune.com

I have just visited the Anne Frank House installation at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) in Chicago, which will open to the public on May 1. This is the first time that the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam has allowed its precious artifacts to come to the U.S. The installation is a precise copy of the Annex built behind the original Frank family apartment in Amsterdam. I sit on the board of the museum and have been very involved in this project.

When I asked Dr. Chevy Humphrey, President & CEO of the museum, why she wanted to host this exhibit, she told me, “Julius Rosenwald, who made Sears, Roebuck and Company a dominant retailer in the U.S., was the original funder of the museum. He was Jewish, proud of his religion and determined to use his financial success to improve society. He funded the building of schools throughout the South from 1913-32 to educate African American children in towns where local school boards did more to support white students. This exhibit carries on his work, providing students with context about the Holocaust, explained by a young girl their own age.”

The Diary of Anne Frank is a collection of writings by a teenager who lived in isolation with her family for two years in Amsterdam, hiding from the Nazi SS. Thirty million copies of the book in seventy languages have been sold since it was published first in the U.S. in 1952. The Diary also became a play on Broadway, then a movie in 1958.

Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt in 1929 to Otto and Edith Frank. Otto Frank was a successful businessman, running a food business. With the rise of Hitler, the Franks moved to Amsterdam, living above a food processing factory. As the Nazi onslaught proceeded across Europe, he constructed an annex behind their original apartment. In 1942, the deportation of Jews from Holland began. The Franks moved into their annex, fed and clothed by loyal company employees.

This deception worked until August,1944, when two workers in the factory were forced by the SS to give up the Franks. The entire family was sent to Auschwitz. The two daughters, Margot and Anne, were later transferred to Bergen Belsen, another death camp, where they died in February 1945. Their mother died in January 1945 in Auschwitz. Otto Frank lived through the ordeal and was freed by Russian troops in late January 1945, then took six months to find his way back to Amsterdam through Odessa and Marseille, only to find himself the sole survivor.

On his return to his factory in Amsterdam, he met his secretaries, who presented him with four volumes of Anne’s diaries. Her first diary was a 13th birthday present from her parents. Her first entry was, “I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.” There is an incredibly moving video of one of the secretaries, showing how she delivered the diaries into Otto Frank’s hands.

There are three objects from the house that I found deeply moving. First there was a bicycle hung on the wall alongside a backpack. It was useless for the hideaways except as a source of continuing hope for a better future. Second was a makeshift menorah, carved of wood, its candles the symbol of resistance. Third was the cut-out photos of movie stars on the wall above the beds of the two girls; the first awakening of teens to a life on the outside that they could only dream about.

Dr. Humphrey is a singular leader who understands the power of her office to influence and educate the community. She understands that the primary mission of her institution is to improve the understanding of science, enabling visitors to dream about careers in technology. But she told me, “You need an appreciation of humanities to fully appreciate science. The racial pseudo-scientific theories of the Nazis, a master race that sits above Jews and people of color or those with deep religious faith, need to be understood and rejected today. That is the message of the Anne Frank exhibit, painful truth through history.” To all my readers, please come to Chicago in the next nine months to see this all-important exhibition at the Griffin MSI.

Richard Edelman is CEO.

In today’s low-trust, high-anxiety environment, business has an outsized role in bridging divides and rebuilding trust in institutions. Not because it’s perfect, but because it is often the most proximate institution in people’s lives and among the most trusted. Employers and CEOs, in particular, are seen as highly credible sources of information.

That matters more than ever because trust isn’t just low; it’s fragmented.

The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer shows that seven in ten people are hesitant or unwilling to trust someone who has different values and backgrounds, consumes different sources of information, or holds differing views on ideas for solving societal problems than them. At the same time, economic anxiety is pervasive, with growing concern about recession and trade conflict-related job impacts.

Importantly, that anxiety is not evenly distributed. The data shows a widening trust gap between higher- and lower-income groups, with fundamentally different views of how institutions are performing and who they are serving. For many, the promise that innovation creates opportunity no longer feels credible.

As economies transition toward more technology and AI-enabled models, a sizable share of people, particularly those who are lower-income, worry they will be left behind rather than realize any actual advantages. Business leaders are echoing this concern, warning that AI disruption, geopolitical instability and declining institutional trust are converging risks.

This combination of low trust, high anxiety, and unequal experience defines today’s public affairs environment. People are not just uncertain; they are operating with a sense of personal risk. They are turning inward, relying more on their immediate networks including employers, peers and local communities, while becoming more skeptical of national and global institutions.

For business, that creates both a challenge and a responsibility.

The traditional model of public affairs - top-down messaging and reliance on institutional authority - is less effective in this environment. Authority alone doesn’t persuade. Proximity and relevance do. That shift is already visible in the data. Trust is increasingly local. People place more confidence in institutions and voices that are close to their day-to-day lives and less in those that feel distant or abstract.

At the same time, there’s a clear expectation gap. Institutions are widely expected to help bridge divides, but far fewer believe they’re doing it effectively. Business, and especially employers, are uniquely positioned to close that gap.

Increasingly, that role extends beyond communication into something closer to diplomacy. In a polarized, high-anxiety environment, there is also a growing expectation that businesses help lower the partisan temperature, bringing people together around shared interests and creating space for more constructive dialogue.

This is where trust brokering becomes critical.

Trust brokering is not about persuading people to change their views. It’s about creating enough shared understanding to move forward toward common goals despite differences. It means acknowledging that people have different values, sources of information and lived experiences, and translating across those differences to find common ground. Working together, rather than in opposition to one another, enables collective action, stimulates growth, and strengthens competitiveness.

The data shows this approach works. When institutions are seen as effectively brokering trust, overall trust levels increase by 18 points among lower-income groups that tend to be the most skeptical, making their levels of trust on par with high-income.

The reality is that trust has become a form of strategic infrastructure. Without it, even well-designed policies struggle to gain traction. With it, institutions are far better positioned to navigate complexity, economic volatility, and change.

For business leaders, the implication is clear: trust is no longer just a reputational asset. It is an operating requirement.

In this environment, there are three things business must get right:

Make it real: Connect policy and global issues to tangible local impact such as jobs, costs, security, and economic opportunity. If people can’t see how policy and action affect their daily lives, it won’t land. Multi-nationals must start behaving as multi-locals.
Focus on shared stakes: Avoid zero-sum or overly adversarial framing. In a high-anxiety environment, lowering the temperature matters. Emphasize what people have in common and what we’re solving for together.
Choose the right messengers: The messenger now matters as much as the message. Trust is built through credible, relatable voices: employees, business leaders, and experts who can translate complexity into something people understand.

As Tip O’Neill famously said, all politics is local and in today’s environment, trust follows the same pattern. It’s earned through proximity, consistency, and action.

And that matters, because action earns trust and trust drives growth.

Aaron Guiterman, U.S. Head of Government & Public Affairs.

I had lunch last Friday with Daisy Veerasingham, President and CEO of The Associated Press. She is the first non-American to hold the role of this all-important news organization, operating in 100 countries and in all 50 states in the U.S.

The changes in the business model are profound. AP has historically been funded primarily by U.S. newspapers, which now account for only 10 percent of revenue. Key customers include TV stations, digital platforms such as Google, Yahoo and OpenAI, and foreign media. Forty percent of revenue originates outside of the U.S. from broadcasters such as BBC, Al Jazeera, and Channel 18 in India. Now AP is working with influencers on some specific stories and projects.

The AP’s content is now 80 percent visual. The global news organization produced 1.34 million photos, 85,000 news and sports videos and 40,000 hours of live video in 2025. Contrast that to the 344,000 text stories produced by AP reporters. Over four billion people see AP journalism every day.

Veerasingham told me that “AP is a source of truth at scale. We have a foundational level of facts. We want to be the first out with the news, but it must be verified and correct. We must provide a nonpartisan view. We are doing first-hand journalism.”

AP is using AI in the story production process, translating articles into multiple languages, transcribing press conferences. “The story must start and end with a human being,” she noted.

The key editor for PR people is Cara Rubinsky, global business editor, based in London.

AP is going direct to consumers through APNews.com. It is a free service that depends on reader donations and advertising. The site attracted 54 million monthly users and 2.6-billion-page views last year. Veerasingham is coming to the Cannes Festival of Creativity in June to meet with advertisers.

We need to root for the success of AP, a truly independent global news organization devoted to truth and facts in a time of disinformation.

Richard Edelman is CEO.

SXSW has long been an agenda-setting event for how brands show up in the marketplace, bringing together innovators, creators, educators and business leaders for a week-plus of conversations that signal what comes next. But the real value of SXSW isn’t on stage. It’s in the conversations it catalyzes: the hallway recaps, the debates, the insights attendees bring back to their team huddles and boardrooms. That’s what makes SXSW a bellwether for where business, brand and culture are headed next. At a moment when attention is increasingly shaped by algorithms and trust in institutions is under pressure, that signal carries more weight than ever.

Like any conference these days, AI dominated the conversation. What stood out wasn’t its presence, but how quickly it moved beyond adoption. Far beyond.

Across the festival, the tone was less “should we be using AI?” and more “AI is here – now what?” The dialogue has moved beyond novelty to real implications, from automated creativity to the increasing premium placed on human contribution.

What emerged is a clearer divide: AI is accelerating the separation between brands that know who they are and those that don’t. As AI becomes ubiquitous, it stops being a differentiator and starts acting as a filter.

When AI Is everywhere, what actually stands out?

The conversation has reached a saturation point, and it’s reshaping what breaks through.

At last year’s SXSW, terms like LLMs, GPTs, and AI personas still felt novel. One year later, they’ve become as commonplace as email or Slack: expected, embedded and no longer a point of differentiation.

That shift was visible not just in the content of SXSW, but in how brands showed up. Where last year’s brand experiences leaned heavily into showcasing proprietary AI, this year’s activations signaled a shift toward distinct, differentiated brand expression.

And that’s where the real signal starts to emerge.

AI accelerates output, but it also widens the gap between signal and noise, making clarity the true differentiator. The brands that are clear on who they are – and, more importantly, the value they deliver – become more distinct because of it. The ones that don’t just become indistinguishable. They fall behind. In this environment, visibility is increasingly shaped by what is surfaced, cited and validated by others – not just what brands publish themselves.

What’s holding brands back?

SXSW made one thing clear: creativity isn’t the constraint. Execution is. What leaders pointed to was the growing tension between ideas and the systems required to act on them.

With so many tools and services now at our disposal, falling behind can start to look like a choice. And in some cases, it is.

AI has made it easier than ever to create and distribute content at scale. But that accessibility is also raising the bar for what actually gets seen and what earns trust. It’s not just about what brands can produce, but whether it resonates and holds up beyond the spaces they can control. This points to a deeper issue: not a gap in creativity, but a lack of clarity and alignment.

Too often, brands have over-indexed the technology itself, allowing tools to dictate how they show up instead of grounding in the foundation of trust and credibility they’ve built over time. In AI-driven environments, visibility is shaped just as much by what brands publish as by what’s reinforced and validated by others, placing even more pressure on brands to show up in ways that earn relevance, not just attention.

At the same time, the pace of culture has accelerated. Brands that continue to operate from a static playbook - long planning cycles, fixed messaging, prioritizing short-term certainty at the expense of long-term value - are struggling to keep up. Moving quickly is now table stakes, but speed without focus and clarity only adds to the noise.

Organizations that are built to move with clarity and conviction show up differently – in what gets seen, what gets shared and what earns trust.

What this means for leaders

For business leaders, this shifts the mandate.

It’s no longer enough to track AI adoption or how much content is being produced. The more important question is whether your brand is clear on what it stands for, and whether your organization is built to express that consistently at speed and in environments you don’t control.

That requires a different kind of confidence – one rooted in a clear understanding of who the brand is and the trust it has built over time. Practically, that means:

Defining a clear, organization-wide narrative that AI can scale consistently
Prioritizing earned visibility and third-party validation as core measures of success
Building operating models that enable speed without sacrificing consistency or credibility

In a landscape that moves at the speed of culture, safe and predictable decisions are increasingly invisible. The brands gaining traction are those willing to move with clarity and conviction – making decisions that reinforce who they are, not dilute it.

That’s what SXSW reveals early: not just where the industry is going, but what it will demand of brands and the leaders behind them.

If you’re still focused on how quickly your organization is adopting AI, you’re focused on the wrong thing. The brands that struggle in the next 12-18 months won’t be the ones behind on AI. They’ll be the ones unclear on who they are and unable to translate that into consistent, trusted presence in the market.

Nick Nelson, Executive Vice President, Corporate Purpose.
Additional contributors: Emily Chan, Emma Nash, Neven Simpson, Olivia Levada.

Tonight is the happiest night in the Jewish year, celebrating our journey from slavery in Egypt to freedom on the way to Israel. It has been the model for so many other peoples as they have sought their own path to liberty from the oppressor.

It has been a deeply disturbing year for Jews. There is a massive surge in anti-Semitism from both the Left and the Right. There have been violent incidents around the globe, most recently the attack on a synagogue in suburban Detroit which forced an emergency evacuation of school children, the torching of Jewish voluntary ambulances in London and an explosion at the Liège Synagogue in Belgium. Rather than dwell on the negative, I thought that readers would enjoy the story of a Jewish woman who endured tragedy and came out the other side to lead a life of importance.

Anne Skorecki Levy is the grandmother of my son-in-law, Marcel Garon. Known as Mamaw, Anne was born in Łódź, Poland three years before the outbreak of World War II. Her father, mother, sister, and she are the only family unit to survive intact through the ordeal of the Warsaw Ghetto. Alongside her younger sister, Lila (who recently passed away last year), she hid inside pieces of furniture inside the Ghetto that her father, a masterful carpenter created. Emerging from the shattered Europe in 1945, the family moved to New Orleans in 1947, where she ultimately married Stanley Levy.

She rose to public consciousness through her confrontation in 1989 with David Duke, grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and a recently elected state legislator, who was running for Governor of Louisiana. Levy had come to Baton Rouge at the invitation of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which was opening an exhibition at the state Capitol. Duke was strolling through the exhibit, hands clasped behind his back. This struck Levy as reminiscent of the pose of Nazi officers. She went up and tapped Duke on the back, asking, “What are you doing here? Why are you looking at these posters? I thought you said it never happened.” Duke replied, “I never said it didn’t happen, just that it was exaggerated.”

The confrontation was seen by Capitol reporters, who then followed up with Duke. “I know there were terrible atrocities against the Jewish people, but it is fair to question certain aspects of the Holocaust,” said Duke. Levy decided to follow Duke around the state as he ran for Governor, confronting him about the Holocaust. She said, “I never wanted to be in the papers, and I never wanted to find myself a nuisance. But my children look at me differently because I did speak up.” Levy went on to be a driving force in educating public school students across Louisiana and the deep South about the Holocaust and became very involved in New Orleans' world renowned World War II Museum and was the linchpin of a warm and loving family.

As the holiday approaches, I am considering my own role in preserving freedom for Jews in the U.S., which has been a blessing for immigrant families such as my own, fleeing the horrors in Europe. My commitment is to build alliances with ethnic or religious groups that have similar values of family, hard work, community, and charity. My wife Claudia and I have organized dinners for Latinos and Jews in Chicago, Houston, Long Island and New York City so that leaders in both communities can stand up for each other in challenging moments. This year, we need to find new friends, educate and cultivate them, turn them into powerful advocates for the truth about Jews in America and the world.

Richard Edelman is CEO.

^{*I’ve included photos of Anne Frank, who was a teenager in Amsterdam at the outbreak of WWII. She and her family hid for two years before being betrayed to the Nazis. The first U.S. exhibit of items from the Anne Frank House opens May 1 at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.}

I have spent the last week in Mumbai, Delhi, and Agra, meeting with business leaders, government officials, journalists, and academics while soaking in the culture. It is a time of acute self-reflection, about geopolitics, Brand India, and solving energy shortages prompted by the conflict in Iran. Here are a few observations about the market:

Friend to All: Indian tankers are some of the few allowed to move through the Straits of Hormuz, carrying essential oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) from the Middle East. India is also receiving energy from Russia. The relationship with the U.S. is strained by tariffs but remains essential. The EU has just concluded a 10-year negotiation that will allow food and wine to be sold in India, in return for access to India’s auto and textiles. India does not want to choose sides, preferring strategic autonomy in diplomatic relations. The Iran conflict is posing severe challenges, with the Government having to manage gas supply to households, restaurants and industries. The Government is considering new energy supply possibilities including South America and West Africa.
India Inc: The Government seems to be replicating the model of South Korea, with large Indian companies leading the charge as industrial champions, including Tata, Mahindra, Reliance, and Adani delivering scale and efficiency. The Hindustan Unilever model of 40 percent local ownership of the company is a powerful asset in an increasingly nationalistic marketplace. Small business accounts for only one-third of GDP; entrepreneurs are a major growth opportunity for the country but startups could do with more access to credit and less paperwork. Executives agree that India can grow 8-10 percent per annum in the next decade.
Deregulation: Since 1991, India has steadily moved from a controlled economy toward a modern, market-oriented economy driven by the private sector. The insurance market has been privatized for 25 years but the top two companies are state-owned. Delivery of services is steadily eliminating the middleman; Reliance and Allianz are launching an online direct to consumer insurance business which will mimic the low-cost Reliance cell phone service, with the goal of advancing the national target of delivering insurance for all by the 100th anniversary of India’s independence in 2047.
Manufacturing Ambition: There have been important success stories such as automotive (Chennai as the new Detroit), steel (second largest producer in the world) and the production of a quarter of all iPhones globally. But the manufacturing sector will need to grow by 15 percent year on year to achieve the goal of 25 percent of total GDP in the next two decades. Target industries include pharmaceuticals, electronics, and food products. Labor costs remain low but capital costs are high, with limited Foreign Direct Investment and high cost of logistics given excessive inventory used as a hedge against delivery risk. The Government has concluded nine free trade deals with 38 nations in the past five years, mostly with countries having capital surplus, aiming to attract inward investment to India.
Companies Are Focused on Domestic Market, Not Abroad: This was the most surprising finding of the week. The growth opportunities, whether in entertainment, retailing, healthcare or technology, are greatest at home. Companies are targeting a market of over 400 million Gen Z consumers and a population with a median age of 29, roughly a decade younger than in the U.S. or China. Hindustan Unilever has created a largely local supply chain (97 percent of raw materials are sourced in India) by helping to build cold storage and financing farmers.
Correcting Bias in AI-Driven Narratives: I also believe we need to confront a critical challenge in the age of AI-driven search. LLMs are often shaped by a predominantly Western media lens, which means the narratives that surface in GEO results can carry inherent bias, especially when it comes to foreign companies and markets like India. While this is not a surprise, it does present an opportunity -- Asian champions have a powerful role to play in shaping a more balanced and representative global narrative. By strengthening earned coverage and ensuring diverse, credible voices are reflected in the information ecosystem, organizations across the region can help correct this imbalance and build trust at scale.
Changed Media Marketplace: India has the largest YouTube audience in the world, with approximately 500 million active users as of late 2025. Brands are spending ten times as much on digital media as on television (sole exception being sports, especially Cricket Championships which are must-see TV). One marketer said, “Ten years ago it was all about branding; now it is performance, with spend concentrated on social media platforms like Instagram and Google, and e-commerce platforms like Flipkart and Amazon.” Industrial giants Reliance and Adani have substantial broadcast media holdings. This is enabling the rise of local brands, often connected to local influencers. One example is OZiva, a local supplement brand that exploded in popularity after a podcaster promoted the product on a recent segment. E-Commerce is about 7 percent of total commerce in India, projected to expand to 14 percent by 2030, with quick commerce accounting for about 10 percent of that by gross merchandise value (GMV).
The Creator Shift: In India, I see the creator economy entering a far more mature phase, with audiences moving toward raw, relatable storytelling and deeply engaged communities over mass reach. In a market shaped by vernacular growth and peer-led influence, creators are no longer just amplifiers but cultural influencers. This means co-creating with creators -- bringing them in early, investing in long-term partnerships, and building ecosystems where content, community, and real-world engagement intersect. In India especially, where trust is often built through word-of-mouth and social validation, brands must move beyond transactional engagement and build sustained, purpose-driven relationships that turn storytelling into a trust-building engine.
Remarkable Progress in Infrastructure: I could not believe the change along the waterfront in Mumbai, with the coastal road now enabling the traveler to zip between meetings at Taj Lands’ End to the bottom tip of the city in 20 minutes. Subways have opened in major cities; underground metro is expanding in Mumbai. Commuting to work will get easier soon. With new roads have come beautiful apartment towers and expansive office complexes.
Spirituality: My most profound moment was a visit to the Elephanta Caves, a 20-minute boat ride from the Gateway of India. This 7th century Hindu shrine was dug into a rock face atop a mountain, constructed by monks with hammer and chisel. Dedicated to the god Shiva, it depicts life stages of marriage and death, betrayal and punishment, love and loyalty. I also took the opportunity to visit the popular ISKCON temple for a Sunday Hare Krishna service. Parents, grandparents and children sang together as the priest twirled candles and chanted the scripture, showing the best of religion and humanity.

I leave India convinced that the market is a massive opportunity for smart businesspeople willing to play the India for India game, with affordable products sold via e-commerce and creator marketing. The country could well become the new linchpin for the region, avoiding the geopolitics while enabling its private sector to play in a deregulated context. The market is moving beyond outsourcing and low cost to quality and sophistication with a human touch. To my team at Edelman India, let’s roll!

Richard Edelman is CEO.

Edelman is working with the Chicago Bears on their quest for a new stadium. I went yesterday to visit with club President and CEO Kevin Warren at Halas Hall, the team headquarters named for team founder George Halas.

The Bears are one of the few NFL teams still owned by the founding family. George McCaskey is a third-generation chairman of the team, with Conor McCaskey in the fourth generation waiting in the wings. Virginia Halas McCaskey, daughter of George Halas, passed away last year at 102 years old.

For a lifelong Bears fan, yesterday’s visit was complete sports fantasy. Here’s what I learned:

Halas was a great athlete. Before his NFL career, he played for the New York Yankees baseball team. He held the NFL record for a fumble recovery and return for touchdown (98 yards) until 1972.
Halas served as Bears coach from 1920 to 1930, then again from 1933 to 1968. He pioneered the T Formation offense in the 1930s. My father’s fraternity brother at Columbia, Sid Luckman, perfected the T Formation to such an extent that the Bears slaughtered the Washington Redskins in the 1940 NFL Championship game 73-0.
He won six NFL championships, the last in 1963 against the New York Giants. I remember listening to that game on the radio in our living room, with quarterback Bill Wade scoring twice on one-yard sneaks.
Coach Halas was the first to name an African American as co-captain of the team in 1966 (Willie McRae). He grouped roommates by position, not by color (example: Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers, both running backs).
The Bears have more players in the NFL Hall of Fame than any other team. Among the notables are Red Grange, Sid Luckman, Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus, Mike Ditka and Walter Payton.

Many of my favorite childhood memories are related to the Bears. My brother John and I would take turns playing Sayers and Butkus, trying to run over each other in my bedroom. I called Sid Luckman, the best Bears QB of all time, Uncle Sid. He told me that my father helped him with his homework in ZBT House at Columbia. Brian Piccolo came to speak at my Latin School Varsity Club dinner when he was halfback for the team, the year before he contracted a fatal disease.

The Bears deserve a stadium worthy of a world-class team. We are working hard to achieve that goal, one family business helping another. This quote from George Halas says it all. “Nothing is work unless you’d rather be doing something else.”

Richard Edelman is the CEO.

25 Years of Trust

2026 Edelman Trust Barometer - Africa (Slimmed down)

2026 Edelman Trust Barometer - Special Report: Trust and Health

Science Needs a Game Change

Related Content

6 A.M.

Anne Frank House Comes to the U.S.

6 A.M.

Associated Press: From Words to Visuals

6 A.M.

Passover 2026: Anne Skorecki Levy — A Profile in Courage

Anne Frank House Comes to the U.S.

Related Content

6 A.M.

Associated Press: From Words to Visuals

6 A.M.

Passover 2026: Anne Skorecki Levy — A Profile in Courage

6 A.M.

India—The Next Step Forward

Trust in a Divided Environment: The Rise of Business Diplomacy

Associated Press: From Words to Visuals

Related Content

6 A.M.

Passover 2026: Anne Skorecki Levy — A Profile in Courage

6 A.M.

India—The Next Step Forward

6 A.M.

A Visit to Halas Hall

AI Isn’t the Advantage, Clarity Is

Passover 2026: Anne Skorecki Levy — A Profile in Courage

Related Content

6 A.M.

India—The Next Step Forward

6 A.M.

A Visit to Halas Hall

6 A.M.

WPP Makes PR the Supporting Cast

India—The Next Step Forward

Related Content

6 A.M.

A Visit to Halas Hall

6 A.M.

WPP Makes PR the Supporting Cast

6 A.M.

Reverend Jesse Jackson; A Fifty-Year Friendship

A Visit to Halas Hall

Related Content

6 A.M.

WPP Makes PR the Supporting Cast

6 A.M.

Reverend Jesse Jackson; A Fifty-Year Friendship

6 A.M.

And Now There Are Five