CEO Daily: The trust equation is becoming more complex

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March 15, 2022

Good morning.

Trust has been a lubricant of business since the beginning of time. But recent demands on business to play a broader role in society have made the trust equation more complex. As part of our CEO initiative, Fortune and PwC yesterday assembled 20 CEOs from diverse industries to discuss the challenge. Some excerpts below:

“It became very clear to us that our clients were dealing with more and more issues that, if we traced them to their roots, were related to trust. We found more and more of our clients dealing with not just the legality of taxes, but the morality. With ESG, diversity, how you treat your employees, how you pay your employees, data, data privacy, data security… And in many cases, the market valued these things as much or more than the financial statements themselves.”
—Tim Ryan, U.S. chair and senior partner, PwC

“In the insurance industry, trust is our entire business model.  We don’t have a tangible product.  We need to be there when our customers need us most… It really does start with employees. If your employees feel respected and valued, they are going to be that way with customers, and the customers will reward you with loyalty.”
—Tricia Griffith, CEO Progressive

“For us trust is trust with employees, trust with customers, trust with shareholders… But the most important is trust with employees.”
—Ravi Saligram, CEO, Newell Brands

“As we saw in the financial crisis, trust does arrive on foot and leave on horseback, and it takes a while to build it back.”
—Gerald Walker, CEO, ING Americas

“Business is the most trusted institution in the world. It has been for two years. It is important to note, though, that it is ‘my employer’ that is much more trusted than business in general… Geopolitics is the new test of trust. Before that it was sustainability, DEI, reskilling, wage levels.”
—Richard Edelman, CEO, Edelman

It’s been a traumatic last couple of years, piled on with another trauma right now…Our  employee base in particular is looking to us for a sense of stability, the rudder in their lives, to give them confidence we are going to get over this.”
—Elizabeth Spaulding, CEO, Stitch Fix

“As a new company, trading in chemicals, sometimes hazardous, we felt a deep need for a clear purpose… In this world of scarce resources, especially talent, it’s important to say we are here for a better purpose.”
—Mark Newman, CEO, Chemours

“Maybe this discussion of trust is missing the bigger thing, which is empathy. The more we can put ourselves in the shoes of our customers and employees, the more we can adapt.”
—Tony Bates, CEO, Genesys

“It’s very clear that the business of business is no longer business. But…we can’t live in a failed society with just business doing good things. Business has to commit and recommit to supporting government. If we do everything else right and government fails, we will have a failed society.”
—Stanley Bergman, CEO, Henry Schein

“I have been really struck by the need for collective action, both within industry and across industry.”
—Jessica Orkin, CEO, SY Partners

Business action in response to the war in Ukraine was one of the hottest topics of yesterday’s conversation. Among those attending were the heads of two hotel companies—Hyatt and Marriott—that are still operating in Russia. Their comments helped explain why they have continued, despite the withdrawal of other Western companies:

“For our managed properties (in Russia), we have a dramatically lower number of expatriates working at our hotels than we did a week ago… We focused all of our time and attention in the short term on getting people to safety. As for occupancy…some measure of those occupants in Ukraine are reporters. In Russia we also have some diplomatic people from different countries, who presumably are working on back channel communications.”
—Mark Hoplamazian, CEO, Hyatt

“We are evaluating it every single day. We made it clear we are shutting our corporate office in Russia, and pulling back all  investments. But we are trying to navigate this with the safety and security of our associates first and foremost on our mind.”
—Stephanie Linnartz, President, Marriott

And Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of crypto investment firm Grayscale, dismissed the notion that Russia might use cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions:

“Crypto is probably the worst mechanism possible for doing anything the least bit untoward or nefarious… Everything you do leaves a digital breadcrumb.”

More news below.



Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com

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