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Rachel Botsman      

Trust Expert, Lecturer at Oxford University & Author of "Who Can You Trust?"

Rachel Botsman is a trust expert, author, and lecturer at Oxford University's Saïd Business School. She is passionate about teaching people how to think differently and challenge ideas around trust, humility, and integrity. She aims to equip leaders on how to put trust at the heart of their cultures and professional relationships. Recognized as one of the 'World's Top 50 Management Thinkers,' Botsman's expertise on trust and digital technology's role in enabling it has been globally recognized.

Botsman is the author of two critically acclaimed books that have been translated into 14 languages. Her first book, “What’s Mine is Yours," defined the theory of 'collaborative consumption' and predicted the rise of the ‘sharing economy.' This concept was hailed by TIME magazine as one of the '10 Ideas That Will Change the World' and by Thinkers50 as the 2015 Breakthrough Idea. Her second book, “Who Can You Trust?”, explores the profound ways trust is shifting in the world and is currently being followed by a new book that delves deeper into the concept of trust as the real disruption in our times.

She is a world-renowned speaker, known for her clear insights and warm storytelling. Past clients have included Salesforce, Goldman Sachs, the World Business Forum, Aspen Ideas Festival, Adobe, and Snapchat. Rachel is often voted the audience’s favorite speaker at events, and her TED talks, including "The Case for Collaborative Consumption," "The Currency of the New Economy is Trust," and "We've Stopped Trusting Institutions and Started Trusting Strangers," have been viewed more than five million times. She is also the host of the podcast series Trust Issues.

Botsman is a regular contributor to leading international publications, including The Guardian, Financial Times, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, and Wired. Through her popular newsletter, Rethink, Rachel warmly engages with a community of over 35,000 subscribers every fortnight. Apart from her academic pursuits, she has also been actively involved in examining the growth and challenges of startups such as Airbnb, TaskRabbit, and Uber. Having lived and worked on four different continents, Botsman brings a global perspective on the important issues of our times.

Speech Topics


Trust and the Future of Work

A profound trust shift is happening in our workplaces - the old hierarchal rules of trust are no longer relevant. As employee and cultural dynamics evolve faster than ever before, how can we lead with trust amid all this uncertainty and flux? What does it take to be a trustworthy leader? In this talk, Rachel explains the trust shift underway and how leaders can navigate and adapt to new employee expectations.

Rethinking Trust

Trust is both the foundation and the result of strong relationships. It is fundamental to meaningful interactions with customers. Yet, there are misconceptions about how trust really works. How do you earn trust in the early stages of a relationship and sustain it over time? What's the difference between loyalty and trust? How does trust work online vs. face-to-face? Does transparency lead to more trust? In this session, Rachel will help participants to rethink what trust is and why it's so critical in the digital age.

Trust and The Future of Work

A profound trust shift is happening in our workplaces. As workforce dynamics evolve faster than ever before, how can we lead with trust amid all this uncertainty and flux? Here, Rachel introduces a powerful new idea that will change the way organisations think about the future of work. She explains how leaders can navigate new possibilities and expectations – and reveals what can be learned from gaming designers about workplace dynamics.

Designing and Innovating With Trust

Why do some innovations fail and others succeed? Trust is the key differentiator. You can only get people - employees or customers - to use a new product or service if they're willing to take a 'trust leap' - to take a risk to do something new or different. Based on a decade of research and teaching with Fortune 500 companies and start-ups - Rachel Botsman will map out the principles of how you get teams to design for trust in ways that help new ideas succeed and be trustworthy. She also shares how designers, entrepreneurs and leaders can improve practices to consider the unintended consequences of new technologies.

Fireside topic – AI’s trust Problem

As AI rapidly expands its role in our lives, an important question is being asked: what level of trust can – and should – we place in AI systems? Renowned trust expert Rachel Botsman brings a different perspective to discussions on what trusting AI really means. She will explain why we need to think differently to earn and maintain trust in AI – and propose how we can make AI systems more trustworthy.

Rachel is available for fireside conversations with leaders or to join panels on the important and timely topic of trust and AI.

News


Rachel Botsman on the Collaborative Economy
Rachel Botsman, co-author of What's Mine is Yours, tell us where the collaborative economy is heading and why it requires a fundamental shift ...

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