One Question Annual Conversation October 8th 2025
In times of economic uncertainty, political change, cultural shifts and growing division, leadership has never felt more urgent, or more difficult.
On 8 October 2025, our annual conversation returns for its seventh edition, asking One Question:
“How do we lead through uncertainty?”
The day brings together diverse perspectives from business, politics, media, and community, across industries, markets, and experiences, in conversation to find new answers. Answers we urgently need.
10.15 | Asking One Question
Sarah Parsonage, Founder of One Question, introduces the question and begins the conversation.
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The True Tenets of Leadership
Simon Rogerson, CEO of Octopus Group, opens the conversation to explore whether, in the face of political and economic pressure, it is truly possible to adhere to our values. When we lead against our values when it is easy, are they, in the words of Jon Stewart, merely hobbies?
Stephanie Ankrah, VP Brand, Nike Women, in conversation on building the Lionesses’ brand and how strategic marketing can be the bridge between commercial impact and cultural influence, turning sport, identity and values into a movement. Taking risks and leaning into serendipity in moments of uncertainty might be the best kind of return on investment.
Fiona O Brien, Director, Reporters without Borders, joins the conversation to explore how uncertainty has become the condition of reporting, sadly, both literally and metaphorically. And to ask who carries the responsibility to sustain factual journalism? How fine is the line between a minor shift in language and creating the space for world leaders to deny or lie? And ultimately, can journalism lead today?
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12.30 | Lunch
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The Strategies We Need to Lead
Daniel Hulme, founder of Satalia and Chief AI Officer at WPP, joins the conversation to explore whether AI can bring certainty to our lives, businesses, and society, or whether uncertainty is not something to be eliminated but a condition to be understood, governed, and even harnessed. Is AI less a source of answers and more a mirror of human intent?
Tej Parikh, an economic writer at the Financial Times, joins Sarah to explore the role of creative destruction today, how innovation doesn’t just create, but also destroys. New ways of working, new technologies, and new markets emerge by dismantling the old, but what does this mean in 2025? Can leaders navigate the pace of innovation without leaving people behind? And if destruction is inevitable, who decides what we create in its place?
Sadia Sajjad, Country Manager, IFC, and Mathu Jeyaloganathan, Chief Investment Officer, Camden Wealth Fund, explore how our understanding of risk is evolving, once confined to compliance and regulation, risk now extends to relational and cultural risk—the often misunderstood “S” in ESG. By reframing risk, do we also reframe opportunity? By investing with the community, rather than simply in the community, do we mitigate exposure and create long-term commercial value?
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15.00 | Tea and Coffee and a moment to pause.
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Optimisim
Jessica Zucker, Director of Online Safety Policy at Ofcom, joins us to explore what it means to build trust when the context is always moving, why safety and clarity matter more than certainty, and how optimism can be a pragmatic choice for leaders.
Sarada Peri, Strategic Communicator & former speechwriter to President Obama, explores what happens when you build a business, a brand, or a campaign on the promise of trust but can’t deliver on it in people’s lives. Sarada examines the fallacy of trust and the role of business and policy in global democracy.
Ros Wynne-Jones, Editor of Real Britain at the Daily Mirror, shares her Island of Strangers series and discusses how communities across the UK are pushing back against caricatured national narratives, painting a different, plural Britain in 2025.
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Many Answers
Sarah gathers reflections with Marshall Manson, CEO of FleishmanHillard and Melissa Limani, a Law student at LSE, to surface themes, discuss hypotheses and share the many answers we find by asking One Question in conversation.
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17.30 |Closing Drinks Reception
Following the conversation, we publish our annual critical thinking, reflecting on the conversation and enabling our community to develop their own answers on how we lead through uncertainty in 2026 and beyond.
One Question conversations are held under the Chatham House Rule.
To learn more about our annual conversation or membership, please email us.