While America has taken steps toward progress, racism and discrimination continue to exist in America’s financial system. To further understand this issue, Edelman’s Financial Services team released new research that unpacks the fraught relationship between financial services institutions and communities of color. This week, Jonathon Jordan, General Manager of our Southern California office and Brad Smith, Anchor at Cheddar News discuss the deep historical context of this issue, persisting systemic inequities, and examples of failed customer experiences as well as solutions to improve this dynamic.

In this week’s episode, we hear from LeMia Jenkins, Global Head of Communications at Pinterest about the emerging trends and surprising shifts she’s seeing in today’s communications landscape. Kate Meissner, our U.S. Head of External Affairs, talks with LeMia about Pinterest’s move from embodying brand love to embodying brand trust, its cultural relevance, and its evolving role as a platform.

Following the convergence of several global crises over the last year—the pandemic, widespread economic downturns, financial and health inequities and a national reckoning on racial justice—we’ve seen brands that step up to address the major societal challenges we face receive a giant boost in trust, advocacy, and purchase-intent in return. The reality is, highly trusted brands are seven times more likely to be purchased. Why? Because for the first time ever brand trust matters more than brand love. Trust is the new brand equity. This week, Lee Maicon, our Global Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer and Tariq Hassan, CMO of Petco discuss building brand trust, multi-stakeholder engagement and Petco’s transformation to a health and wellness company.

Over the last twelve months, the financial markets saw record IPO and SPAC activity and widespread excitement for companies going public. To further understand this surge, Edelman’s Financial Communications team released new research about the evolving investor expectations for new issuers. This week, Margot Edelman, GM of our Bay Area hub and Steven Solomon, Professor of Law at UC Berkeley and former N.Y. Times “Deal Professor” discuss our latest research, investor perceptions and what’s next for SPACs and IPOs.

Over the past year, we’ve seen a large number of statements and pledges made by brands and companies around diversity, equity and inclusion --both in their work and through the talent represented in their company. But while the commitments were sincere, data actually shows that the percentage of Black people in leadership positions fall around the 4% mark -- across enterprises as diverse as the Fortune 100 and the U.S. Congress. This week, our U.S. CEO, Lisa Osborne Ross talks to Jamal Simmons, CBS News Political Contributor about “The 4% Problem.”

Youth empowerment. This is something that shows through in several ways – empowering our youth to try new things, progress academically, speak up on important issues, and so much more. Youth empowerment is also a passion of this week’s guest, Artis Stevens, CEO & President of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Artis joins Jonathon Jordan, General Manager of our Southern California office to talk about their similar upbringing, as well as racial injustice and how it’s impacting our youth and what needs to change in order for our society to progress.

You may think of empathy as a useful behavior in navigating your personal life -- but research shows it's also a leadership superpower when practiced in the workplace. This week, Cydney Roach, Global Chair of our Employee Experience practice speaks with Dr. Jamil Zaki, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and author of “The War for Kindness: Building Empathy       in a Fractured World.” Cydney and Jamil talk about the definition of empathy, what an empathic leader looks like in the workplace, and their recently launched eBook, “Leading with Empathy in Turbulent Times: A Practical Guide.”

In the PR/comms industry, we counsel clients on how to incorporate DE&I into their ever day practices. But, following our own advice from our recent Trust Barometer of, “getting your own house in order” is something we dive into in this week’s episode. Lisa Osborne Ross, our U.S. CEO, talks with Paul Holmes, Founder and Chair of Provoke Media (formerly known as The Holmes Report), about unconscious bias, workforce diversity and what DE&I in communications will look like in the future.

Stakeholder capitalism is a framework that has been long followed by various companies, but the adoption of putting stakeholders first – instead of shareholders – has been accelerated due to the combination of COVID-19 and the social unrest across the country, and even around the globe. More and more companies are following this framework and there are many ways in which they are doing it. This week, Lisa Osborne Ross, our newly appointed U.S. CEO, talks with Dalila Wilson-Scott, EVP and CDO at Comcast Corporation and President of Comcast NBCUniversal Foundation about the evolution of stakeholder capitalism and how to make it sustainable.

Everyone’s talking about it. Many people want it. And some people don’t trust it. That’s right, we’re talking vaccines. The pandemic laid bare historic disparities that forced institutions to confront a legacy of systemic racism. Most recently, “vaccine hesitancy” has dominated headlines, again putting Black and Latinx communities at the center of the conversation on trust, equity, and health. This week, Jackeline Stewart, U.S. head of multicultural communications, talks with Dr. Uché Blackstock, founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity about vaccine participation, social determinants, and how organizations need to be intentional about where they’re putting their resources.