2026 ACG WI | Kent Grayson, Professor of Marketing, Kellogg School of Management

Building Trust in 2026 within your Organization and in the Marketplace

Join ACG Wisconsin for a presentation on the topic of Trust with Kent Grayson, professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Public confidence in business has been eroding for years and has reached all-time lows. According to Edelman’s annual global trust survey, 68% of people worldwide believe business leaders deliberately mislead the public.

So, it’s no surprise that trust has become a deciding factor in the marketplace. When customers decide what to buy, Edelman reports that 88% rank trust as equal in importance to quality and price.

Trust problems don’t stop with customers. Edelman’s 2025 survey marked an unprecedented decline in employee trust, particularly among the 61% of those who believe business serves elites rather than society as a whole.

What does this mean?  In today’s economy, trust isn’t a “nice to have.”  It’s a competitive necessity—an asset that needs to be actively managed and rigorously measured.

How are you managing and measuring trust in your organization? If trust was declining in your brand or organization, how quickly would you know and would you know what to do?

At this luncheon, Kellogg Professor Kent Grayson will lay out a practical framework for understanding, managing, and measuring trust before trust problems show up in performance, talent, reputation, or financial results.

Join us following the luncheon to continue the discussion and Q&A with Prof. Grayson. Interested in attending this session, please register by emailing ACG Wisconsin.

This program is a joint event with the Kellogg and Harvard Business School alumni clubs from Wisconsin.

This is a great learning opportunity, and members and guests are encouraged to bring their teams and colleagues to attend.