International communications veteran Jorge Ortega joins ChangeMakers USA as Executive Vice President, Client Success

WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 10, 2025) — ChangeMakers, a leading North American communications and marketing firm focused on reputation and social impact, has appointed Jorge Ortega as Executive Vice President, Client Success and a member of the firm’s U.S. leadership team. 

A former senior leader at two multinational agencies, Ortega brings decades of experience advising public and private sector clients on CEO communications, leadership development, brand strategy, and crisis response. He will report to Robert Gemmill, President of ChangeMakers, USA.   

“Jorge is a major addition to the ChangeMakers team,” Gemmill said. “The trust he has earned from C-suite executives is evident by his deep relationships and broad experience across sectors. His leadership will be key as we grow our U.S. business and deliver the results our partners expect.”  

 Ortega joins ChangeMakers from CRA | Admired Leadership, where he served as Managing Director. He previously led Edelman’s southwest region and held senior roles at Burson. His career spans reputation strategy, brand communications, and high-stakes crisis response.  

“Jorge’s appointment reflects our commitment to building a leadership team with both insight and impact,” said Mario Simon, CEO of ChangeMakers. “His integrity and experience align with our mission to navigate complexity for our clients.” 

Ortega joins the ChangeMakers U.S. team, which specializes in helping clients anticipate and navigate complex, high-stakes communication situations.  The firm uses its proprietary Reputation Score© AI platform to inform counsel and to measure and predict reputational impact in real time. 

 “I’m eager to bring my experience advising global clients to help ChangeMakers grow and deliver meaningful results,” Ortega said.  

About ChangeMakers 

 For more than 40 years, ChangeMakers has helped organizations solve complex communications challenges by blending strategy, creativity, and insight. With more than 400 professionals across 10 locations in North America, we partner with clients to build stronger brands, navigate change, and drive meaningful impact. From corporate reputation and brand storytelling to social purpose and executive advisory, ChangeMakers brings together diverse expertise to help clients lead with confidence and clarity. 

The homecoming of Canadian tech: Why Toronto Tech Week needs to bring our talent home

Canada is outgrowing its role as a global R&D lab and needs to become a sovereign tech powerhouse that anchors its greatest inventions at home. Here’s how strategic communications serves as the catalyst to protect our IP, ensuring that innovation translates into long-term national prosperity. 

This year feels different for tech in Canada. In previous years, we’ve gathered to celebrate Canada’s potential, the promise of our researchers and the scrappy nature of our startups. But as we approach this year’s Toronto Tech Week, the conversation has fundamentally matured. We’ve moved away from the era of AI curiosity and into the era of proof of impact within our borders. For founders, investors and communications leaders, this is a crucial step not only to show what your technology can do, but to prove what it has already solved. It is the moment we stop asking how we can fit into the global tech ecosystem and start demanding that the global ecosystem recognizes the sovereign value of Canadian innovation. 

It’s important to remember that Canada has never had a genius problem. In fact, we have the opposite: we have a genius surplus. We’re home to some of the world’s most advanced research hubs, from the Mila Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute which is recognized worldwide for its major contributions to AI, to the quantum clusters in Waterloo building a foundation of research with specialized labs. And our post-secondary engineering programs are among the most accredited and sought-after globally. This is precisely why global tech brands establish their roots here – they come for the talent and stay for our IP. 

What we do have is a retention problem.  Historically, we have been world leaders in invention, but often lag in building and supporting innovation right at home. For decades, the Canadian dream for a tech founder was to build a clever feature, get noticed by a US-based giant, and exit to Silicon Valley. In that process, the intellectual property, tax revenue and senior leadership talent were all exported.  

In 2026, as we grapple with a national productivity crisis and shifting global trade alliances, we can no longer afford to be the world’s most polite R&D lab. We need to move beyond the rhetoric of ‘elbows up’ and toward a real strategy for protecting a sovereign innovation economy.  

How do we celebrate success while not losing it abroad? 

A core challenge of the Canadian ecosystem is redefining what winning looks like. For too long, the headline-grabbing success stories were the acquisitions, reinforcing the idea that the ultimate measure of success is building to sell. But the next chapter of Canadian innovation should be defined by companies that choose to stay independent, anchor themselves in Canadian cities, and use domestic capital to scale globally from a Canadian base. 

In doing so, we create a cycle where the success of one Canadian company helps fund, inspire, and strengthen the next ten – building a more self-sustaining ecosystem of talent, capital, and innovation at home. 

Where communications comes into play 

This is where the role of public relations and strategic communications becomes a critical business function. Communications is the moat that protects Canadian innovation. If we build in silence, we are invisible. For founders, this means telling the story of long-term domestic impact that attracts capital and loyal talent. Here are four ways comms leaders we can bridge this gap: 

1. Defining the category: Canadian firms often fall into the trap of being the Canadian version of “X” US company. Strategic comms must break this. Founders need to use events like Toronto Tech Week to define entirely new categories of impact, ensuring they own the mental real estate within their industry before a global competitor can claim it.  

2. Communicate with GEO in mind: In an era where search is dominated by AI summaries, your brand must be citable through GEO. Public relations is no longer just about getting humans to read the news, it’s about ensuring that LLMs cite Canadian sources as the primary authority. 

3. The infrastructure of trust: In a world with AI slop, deepfakes, and content noise, truth is a premium asset. Canadian tech needs to build a global reputation for stability and ethical governance, and communications must lean into this by positioning “Built in Canada” as a global gold standard for reliability and security. 

4. Own our stories: The onus is entirely on us to share our successes loud and proud. An immense amount of brilliant work is happening right here at home, but a cycle of success cannot sustain itself on modesty. We must own our wins to inspire the next generation of builders and convince domestic buyers to invest in Canadian tech companies. 

The new homecoming 

Thinking toward the future, Toronto Tech Week 2026 must be the catalyst for a Canada-First deployment strategy. We need our biggest domestic institutions, i.e., our banks, our telcos, and our governments, to be the first customers for our local startups.  

The time for potential is over. The global economy in 2026 moves too fast for us to remain in a state of perpetual promise. As we gather for Tech Week, every founder, communicator, and policymaker should be asking the same question: How does this stay here? 

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Why reputation is one of your most valuable (and fragile) assets

Brand is the promise an organization makes to its audiences. Reputation is how well an organization keeps that promise. 

We say this to clients all the time.  But there’s a third concept, the most important of all, that every organization wants but not all of them have: Trust. 

Trust is what an organization earns (or loses) as a result of that promise and how well it’s kept.  

How do these three concepts interact?  

We think of trust as a bridge between brand and reputation. It’s built slowly over many years, even decades, through consistency, quality, and earned reputation. When what an organization promises and what it delivers are aligned, the bridge holds. But what takes years to build can collapse in a matter of seconds.  

And yet, many organizations still rely on instinct rather than data to tell them whether that bridge is holding. 

How trust is actually built (and why it’s so hard to do)

Every organization wants to be a trusted brand. They invest in building their brand and managing their reputation, assuming that if those two things are strong, trust will naturally follow. But it doesn’t work quite like that.  

Brand and reputation create the conditions for trust, but they don’t guarantee it. Brand is something you build and reputation is something you manage; but trust, that is something your audience decides. 

You can’t control trust directly, but that doesn’t mean you can afford to ignore how it is built or lost. To understand why, it helps to think about how trust forms at the most human level, and why organizations can’t replicate it the same way. 

With a person, trust is all about the relationship. Your interactions are personal, contextual, and forgiving: a trusted friend can have a bad day without significant consequences. In a brand context, whether it’s a company, public institution, government, or platform, external people rarely have access to decision makers in an organization. When intent isn’t visible, trust gets built through signals: what organizations say, how they act, policies, other people’s experiences, press coverage, delivery on their brand promise, and even who endorses them can all have impact. 

This is the challenge: trust has to be earned and built over time. And because institutional trust is built on foundations an organization can’t fully control, everything can be done correctly and you’re still one bad weekend away from watching that bridge collapse.  

Reputation is more fragile than most brands assume

Reputation can rupture in a split second. Some audiences are more forgiving than others, but history has taught us that pressure builds quietly, until a single decision, message, video or event undoes years of bridge-building.  

Reputation rupture event: a triggering moment that occurs when accumulated pressure on an organization’s credibility is suddenly exposed. In other words, when the bridge collapses. 

Today, these events can spread in seconds thanks to screenshots, reposts, X messages, Reddit communities, and un-trackable text messages. Social media has given audiences a plethora of platforms, and the motivation to speak up — sometimes anonymously, sometimes personally — faster than any communications team can respond. This turns into a bigger risk if that person has a considerable following of their own. 

This is why monitoring and tracking brand reputation and online presence is fundamental. And now, in an AI-driven environment, that job is more urgent and complex. This is not just social media listening or sentiment tracking. Most brands are measuring what’s loud, while pressure points are building tension over time. These pressure points are embedded across operations, employee experience, stakeholder trust and public perception, which are areas traditional monitoring usually overlooks. 

The warning signs are often subtle. Repeated complaints not escalated or employee reviews not addressed can cause small gaps between the brand promise and how well it’s maintained. Moments might seem isolated but point to something deeper. When tracked collectively, these signals begin to reveal patterns of declining confidence and legitimacy, long before they show up in traditional metrics.    

Reputation rupture events rarely come out of nowhere. In most cases, the pressure was visible, but wasn’t recognized. This is becoming a more prominent risk in an AI-driven world, with decisions amplified and interpreted at scale.  

In February 2026, two AI companies faced the same decision. One said no, one said yes. Both decisions were rooted in existing tensions around transparency, control and trust. The aftermath of those two events was a reputation rupture event that played out in real time. 

Chat, why are they losing so many users? — OpenAI’s reputation rupture event

In early March 2026, the Pentagon labeled Anthropic “a supply chain risk, effective immediately¹” — a label usually reserved for US adversaries, never before applied to a US company² . The designation was blocked by a US judge in March 2026, then reinstated on appeal in April³. Anthropic is currently excluded from Department of War⁴ contracts while the litigation continues. They also designated Claude “a national security risk⁵” after Anthropic refused to remove restrictions on two specific uses: mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. The Department of War demanded the right to use Claude “for all lawful purposes⁶” without exception.
The US government making that designation should have been enough to cause a reputation rupture event and inflict massive damage to Anthropic’s reputation … but it wasn’t.  

The reason? Anthropic’s response to these requests. On February 26^th, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a statement pushing back on the DOW’s requests. Anthropic stood by their principles and didn’t budge. Many users online praised this decision, but the story wasn’t over. 

Hours later, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published on X that his company had finalized a deal with the DOD to deploy models in the DOD’s classified network. That single message ignited a rupture event: 

1. ChatGPT uninstalls jumped 295%⁷ within 24 hours.  

2. One-star app reviews surged 775%⁸ the same day. 

3. A Reddit post urging ChatGPT cancellation hit 30,000 upvotes⁹ before the weekend ended. 

4. The QuitGPT movement gathered over 4 million¹⁰ digital participants and organized a physical protest outside OpenAI’s San Francisco HQ. 

5. Claude topped the App store’s download¹¹ charts. 

Same DOD contract, same weekend, opposite decisions, completely different trust outcomes. And yes, after the fact, OpenAI said that they were rushed, and that they were working on the terms and conditions, that the deal “looked opportunistic and sloppy”. But the reputation damage was done: trust was broken.  

We used our proprietary brand health measurement tool, ChangeMakers RepScore™ to measure the impact in real time. Our Data Intelligence team identified a 34.3 point drop¹² from OpenAI’s baseline within a single day. This volume of movement reflects how quickly reputation can rupture when expectations fall out of alignment. It appears sudden, but it’s usually the result of underlying pressures reaching a tipping point.  

Uninstalls, reviews, and protest movements are lagging indicators: they tell you the bridge already collapsed. The backlash caused OpenAI to subsequently amend the deal to add surveillance restrictions, which is the real evidence: the reputation rupture event forced a course correction, proving the trust damage was real enough to change corporate behaviour. 

The question for any organization is: do you have a way to predict and measure the damage in real time, and do you have a baseline to measure it against? 

What keeps the bridge standing

Most organizations treat trust as a sentiment; something they feel is in good shape until suddenly it isn’t. But the organizations that protect it effectively aren’t reacting to crises; they’re tracking the pressure points to avoid a brand reputation collapse.  

Understanding how your reputation is perceived (and where the gaps between your promise and your audience’s experience might be growing) is what keeps the bridge standing. These gaps are early indicators of trust erosion that can impact everything from customer behaviour to employee retention. It’s why we built RepScore™: to give organizations a measurable read on the health of their brand reputation before it becomes a crisis, grounded in verifiable and relevant data points.  

When reputation is measured consistently, it becomes something brands can actively track. Knowing your reputation score helps you respond to risk with intention instead of reacting under pressure, and spot opportunities to build trust proactively. 

A brand promise has little value if audiences do not trust it.  

In a world where a single decision can destroy years of earned reputation, treating trust as a passive outcome is no longer a strategy any organization can afford. 

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When AI is the crisis: reputation and credibility when the machines make the mistake

I opened my session at the PWorld Crisis Communications Bootcamp in Toronto with a disclosure. I told the room I use AI in my work and I showed a slide on how I used and verified the information.

Then I asked two questions.

How do you feel right now about my presentation?

Does my disclosure impact how you will receive my insights?

The reaction was mixed. Some people said my disclosure improved their trust. Others said it made them immediately skeptical. Either way, I knew the pressure to not sound like an LLM had just gone way up.

It was a deliberate point, and one that is increasingly impacting trust and reputation. What happens when your audiences learn AI was involved in a decision, a message, a recommendation or a mistake?

Disclosure matters and it matters more when something goes wrong.

A familiar scenario

A board gets an update. The team presents AI-assisted market analysis that projects a significant drop in demand. The approved response involves cuts and layoffs.

Weeks later, on an earnings call, someone asks a basic question about the assumptions behind the forecast. The answers are hard to find. After digging around, the team discovers the AI tool produced incorrect information, including two reports that didn’t exist.

The first responses are predictable.

• Experimental tool
• Third-party technology
• We are reviewing the system

This scenario is fiction, but it points to a pattern we’re seeing in crisis response related to AI.

The early cyber years are a warning

In the early years of major cyber incidents, many organizations responded similarly. Sophisticated attack, bad actor, vendor issue, or we take this seriously. The organization positioned itself as the victim, blamed the technology, or the vendors and avoided accountability.

The result was a loss in trust, and eventually regulations around disclosure and communications.

We’re seeing this with early AI incidents or mistakes. Blame the tool. Downplay the impact. We’re abandoning the basic principles of crisis communications: own it, acknowledge I and fix it..

Trust is already uncertain

Most organizations are moving fast on AI adoption. Governance not so much. In fact, the best way to put people to sleep is to start talking AI governance. I’ve started leaning into verification to get people to pay attention.

But while we’re all using AI more, trust is declining. A recent KPMG report indicates most people use AI regularly (66%), but trust is much lower (46%) and there is growing support for regulation (70%). The same report shows that 66% of respondents rely on AI output without evaluating accuracy, even while 56% admit they have made mistakes at work because of AI.

Inside organizations, most leaders say ethical AI matters. Most teams are using AI. And yet the 2025 CPRS State of PR in Canada study showed less than a third of communications and public relations professionals reported having a well-established AI policy.

What makes it more interesting is that another recent academic study indicated that prior disclosure on AI use reduces trust, but exposure, being found to have used AI after the fact has an even greater impact on trust.

I feel the disclosure dilemma is relatively short lived. As AI becomes more prevalent, disclosure will be expected. Those who disclose now may experience a slight dip in in trust but will rebound quickly and avoid the larger drops that come with being found out.

But that’s not what’s happening today. Organizations avoid disclosure until they are forced into it and then it comes with ‘disappointment’ in the technology and a lack of acknowledgement of the impact. Quick tip – your AI chatbot should be as locked down and accountable as your human spokespeople. 

At the end of the day, do you want disclosure to happen on your terms or through screenshots, speculation and mockery.

AI crisis communications is still crisis communications.

There’s no secret to AI crisis communications. Here is the framework I shared in Toronto.

Identify it. Map out where AI is being used. Not just the final output. Look at prompts, datasets, tools, review steps and any decisions influenced by the output.

Assess it. Assess impact before you draft language. What changed because of the AI output? Who was impacted? What decisions were shaped? What public-facing content, financial analysis, safety guidance, or policy decisions were influenced?

Own it. Accountability sits with the organization. “The tool did it” is not good enough. “We are investigating” is not a substitute for responsibility. Ownership means clear responsibility for the decision and the next steps.

Fix it. Correct the output and deal with the consequences of acting on it. If AI influenced layoffs, pricing, safety guidance, or services, the fix must address those consequences. And if you’re ‘standing by the decision’, you’d better have credible data to back that up.

Prevent it. Build verification and escalation into your workflow. Decide who signs off, when AI use is disclosed, and how. Practice an AI crisis scenario under time pressure, the same way many organizations now practice cyber simulations.

In almost every AI incident I see discussed, the same friction points show up:

• AI is used across the organization often without leadership visibility. IBM reports that close to a quarter of Canadian employees using AI at work are doing it on non-enterprise tools. This means your company information is likely sitting in the free version of ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
• Verification is treated as optional and everyone assumes someone else has done it
• Legal, comms and IT are all talking about it, but there’s no shared plan, and likely no risk mapping of AI use across all functions.
• Leaders default to vendor language, or anthropomorphize the tool saying, ‘it surprised me’ or ‘it let me down’, eroding accountability.

If you are a CEO, a board member or the head of communications, you need to understand where AI is being used, what verification exists and who owns what. Here are five questions to get you started:

1. Where is AI being used in your organization?
   Can you name the functions where AI is influencing public-facing content, analysis, or decisions?
   
2. What verification do you have in place?
   What guardrails exist before AI-assisted output can shape public communication, financial analysis, safety guidance or policy decisions?
   
3. Who is accountable if AI gets it wrong?
   Hint: it is not your vendor.
   
4. What is your policy on disclosure?
   When do you proactively disclose AI use?
   
5. Have you practiced an AI crisis scenario?
   Have you run an AI-specific crisis simulation that tests verification, escalation, and messaging under time pressure?

If you can’t answer these quickly, you’re likely at risk. The point is to see it clearly and take steps to reduce that risk and be ready when, not if, the machines make a mistake.

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Major projects run on public confidence, not just public funding  

Published: Calgary Herald April 7, 2026 

Canada is entering a defining era of federal major projects that will shape our economy and our global competitiveness for decades. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s major project announcements signal an ambition to accelerate nation-building infrastructure.  

The opportunity is as enormous as the responsibility. These projects will not succeed on capital alone. They will succeed only if citizens are meaningfully engaged in the decisions that determine what gets built, where, and how.  

Too often public engagement is treated like a box to tick after the route is picked, the budget is set, and the press release is drafted. That approach is outdated and expensive. It slows shovels, inflames conflict, ignores Indigenous Title and Rights and turns significant projects into symbols of mistrust.  

There’s a misconception that engagement slows things down. Major projects operate at the speed of trust. Done early, it recognizes rights, helps surface concerns, hopes and opportunities before they harden into opposition.  

Consider the projects that dominate the Canadian imagination and investor spreadsheets. LNG in B.C. is framed as an export opportunity and geopolitical tool, particularly as allies seek reliable energy supply. High-speed rail, new transmission, nuclear projects, and carbon capture are pitched as the infrastructure of productivity and resilience. These projects can face community opposition as they touch identity, jurisdiction, and intergenerational risk.  

Early and thoughtful public engagement can be the difference between lasting trust and mere compliance. Compliance is brittle and can be obtained by rushing a timeline or narrowing a comment period. Consent stands the test of time. It is earned through co-development and co-design with rights holders and through early conversations that shape decisions. When engagement happens early, it reveals local knowledge that improves design, reduces environmental risk, and prevents avoidable cost overruns. When it happens downstream, it becomes a referendum on trust.  

We do not have to speculate about what happens when governments get ahead of their public. Ontario recently floated the idea of changing month-to-month “evergreen” leases, triggering swift backlash from tenants and housing advocates. Within days, the Province called off the proposed consultations. That is what a hurried signal looks like in the real world: confusion first, outrage second, retreat third. The policy may not be a megaproject but the lesson is relatable. Decisions that land as surprises invite opposition that becomes a schedule, cost, and reputation problem.  

Now raise the stakes to a proposed major project within Indigenous territories. Here, engagement is not only best practice but a constitutional reality. Nations are rights holders with their own governments, laws, and priorities. Projects that treat Indigenous engagement as a risk-mitigation tactic miss the biggest opportunity on the table: shared decision making and prosperity built through equity participation, procurement pathways, training pipelines, and stewardship models that reflect Indigenous knowledge and authority. Done well, this is reconciliation you can measure: jobs created, revenues shared, language and culture supported, and ecological outcomes strengthened.  

From racialized Canadians to newcomers to people with disabilities, low-income communities, and beyond, engagement insights can reveal practical barriers and unintended consequences of a project. 

Carney’s bold agenda matched by billions in investments presents an opportunity. Canada can build fast and engage meaningfully at the same time. 

The International Association for Public Participation is refining its global guidelines for public engagement. The goal is clearer, faster decision-making and projects rooted in the voices of the people most affected. 

Engage early. Agree on a shared vision. Share information clearly. Put real options on the table. Fund participation so communities are not asked to volunteer their capacity. Respect Indigenous title and rights. Then communicate with humility because Canadians can tell the difference between information and persuasion.  

That is how we turn major projects into collective national achievements.  

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ChangeMakers Names Stefan Moores as Chief Executive Officer  

Moores’ appointment signals commitment to innovation, evolution and delivery on client outcomes

ChangeMakers, one of North America’s leading independent strategy and communications firms, announced Stefan Moores as Chief Executive Officer. The appointment reflects the firm’s ongoing evolution to an integrated, AI-native consultancy at the intersection of change, markets, and people.  

“Stefan has the business acumen, entrepreneurial spirit and integrity that has earned him the trust of his team. We are energized by his leadership thus far and look forward to all that ChangeMakers will accomplish together under his guidance,” said Dale Tingley, Co-Managing Partner of the Canadian Business Growth Fund (CBGF) and Chair of the Board. “Under his leadership, ChangeMakers is well positioned to make waves in today’s evolving business market.” 

“Our aspiration is simple: make ChangeMakers the most trusted partner for organizations and leaders who seek to achieve measurable business outcomes. Whether it’s tangible results like sales or revenue, or the harder to quantify cultural and reputational measures, communications is the engine that powers progress,” said Moores. “We will be on the cutting edge of AI, technology and innovation while keeping our focus on the human-centered relationships that build trust, drive results, and enhance reputation. That’s how we will deliver value every day.” 

Moores’ vision for the company centers around the drive to positively impact every client’s business, from strategic planning through organizational change management and market execution. Whether navigating executive leadership changes and cultural challenges, or driving awareness and sales, ChangeMakers is the strategic partner that helps leaders execute well and move confidently. 

“Whether change is the chosen path, or takes our clients by surprise, our role at ChangeMakers is to turn it into a strategic advantage,” said Moores. “We see massive opportunity in leveraging our expertise in crisis and risk management, organizational change management, public relations, marketing and social impact to change the way companies think about, execute and capitalize on change. We do that by applying all our different crafts with technology and human expertise to move with confidence.” 

Moores is uniquely positioned to take ChangeMakers into the future. He brings decades of experience in business management, human resources, finance, investment and operations at leading management consulting, communications and public affairs firms across Canada and the U.S. Most recently, Moores served as Chief Operating Officer for ChangeMakers. He also previously served as President of Argyle and co-founder of The Castlemain Group. Moores holds an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, an MSC in International Politics, Economics and Business from The London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA in Economics from Queen’s University. 

“The next era of communications belongs to the doers — those who don’t ask if change can or will happen, but how to make it work. That’s the mindset we’re building at ChangeMakers,” added Moores.  

ChangeMakers’ independence and cross-sector expertise allow it to deliver outcomes—not just activity—for the C-suite, senior leadership and the teams they lead. With more than 400 professionals across 10 North American offices, the firm offers end-to-end, sector-shaped solutions that help clients thrive through disruption and emerge stronger. 

Resource Development: Data Speaks, but Trust Decides

We are communications and public engagement professionals, but our perspectives were shaped in forests, fields, laboratories, and community halls across Canada. What we have come to appreciate, through many projects and conversations and often the hard way, is that data, on its own, is not enough to move resource development priorities forward. 

Across a combined 30+ years working in forestry, mining, fisheries, energy, agriculture, and other resource sectors, we have seen firsthand how outcomes are shaped not just by data and evidence, but by relationships. Again and again, we have found ourselves grappling with the same question: how do we build understanding, trust, and that ever-elusive social licence in increasingly complex public arenas? 

Public interest in resource decision making is very high, particularly as Canada confronts the need to drive economic growth, strengthen competitiveness, and achieve long-term resource self-sufficiency. At the same time, the narratives surrounding natural resource decision making are increasingly fragmented and polarized. Information now travels faster, through more channels, and is interpreted through deeply personal lenses. Context and nuance can easily be lost, and people are as likely to trust family and friends as much as scientists, industry leaders, or their own government officials. 

This is not simply a communications challenge. It reflects a shift in how trust is earned and sustained. Project proponents, decision-makers and experts need to show up differently if they want to be heard.

Information does not equal inspiration  

More data alone will rarely deepen understanding or achieve broader support. People change their perspectives, and even their behaviour, when they feel personally connected to an issue. Effective engagement moves beyond transmitting data to helping people see themselves in the opportunity, the trade-offs, and the outcomes. 

Intersection of knowledge systems

Western science has greatly influenced the ways in which information is framed, communicated and consumed by the general public in the natural resources sector. Western scientific approaches provide empirical and analytical frameworks, but they only represent one epistemological lens. Indigenous knowledge systems articulate complex, relational and longitudinal understandings of land that are grounded in generations of lived experience and intergenerational transmission.  

Sharing teachings and insights from these knowledge systems not only fosters more balanced and holistic perspectives in the dissemination of information, but we have also witnessed how the intersection of this data actively recognizes and affirms voices, histories and ongoing contributions of Indigenous peoples.  

Distinguish rights holders from interest groups 

The term “stakeholder” has long functioned as a convenient catch-all for target audiences for relationship building. Today it is recognized as inadequate and antiquated. Rooted in the action of staking a claim, it carries colonial assumptions that diminish important distinctions. By acknowledging colonial harms and moving away from one-size-fits-all terminology, we can better reflect the realities of those impacted by decision-making processes. 

Treating all voices as interchangeable obscures meaningful differences in rights, responsibilities, and relationships to land and resources. Through our actions, language, and intention-setting, we have seen the benefits of instead making these distinctions visible and honouring the distinct roles and responsibilities that different parties bring to the table. 

While many interests deserve to be heard, Indigenous Nations are not simply another interested party. They are rights holders, with distinct rights and place-based relationships to land. Meaningful engagement and effective relationships-building begins with recognizing and acting on this distinction. 

Co-creation is the most powerful social licence strategy 

When people are meaningfully involved early, trust grows, even when final decisions are imperfect or contested. Co-creation goes beyond consultation or participation for its own sake. At its best, it is about identifying shared interests, surfacing local knowledge, and shaping outcomes that deliver mutual value. Across sectors, we have seen that co-created approaches reduce conflict, improve project design, and lead to decisions that are more resilient over time. While co-creation means earlier and greater investments in engagement and communications, the positive results are undeniable. When communities, rights holders, and proponents can see how their priorities are reflected in outcomes, co-creation builds the shared ownership that long-term stewardship and effective resource development require. 

Engagement excellence is essential leadership practice 

Resource development has always been technically complex. Increasingly, it is relationally complex as well. Leaders who communicate openly, involve communities early, and are transparent about uncertainty are better positioned to navigate emerging issues and make durable decisions. 

Building and sustaining trust requires more than communication. It requires listening, learning, and a willingness to evolve. While data remains foundational to responsible resource development, long-term success depends equally on the strength of the relationships built around it and a more holistic view of the knowledge that informs the work.   

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Stop Surviving Change. Start Operating Within It.

There was a time when change felt episodic — a system implementation, a reorganization, a strategic shift — distinct enough that organizations could prepare, execute, stabilize, and return to normal. 

That time is gone and never coming back.

Today, change is a constant and multi-dimensional. Technology evolves, markets shift, leadership turns over, regulations move, and strategic priorities adjust — often all at once. By the time one initiative begins to settle, another is already competing for attention and resources. 

In this environment, performance depends on more than managing individual initiatives well. Organizations have to rethink how their people understand change, make decisions, and execute under pressure. Volatility isn’t temporary anymore. So if change is constant, your operating model also has to reflect that new reality.

Five Change Realities 

Here are five truths every organization must accept:  

1. Change is Unavoidable and Must Be Normalized 

Change can no longer be treated as a rare occurrence that surprises the team and eventually passes. Teams need to anticipate change as part of how they operate.  This means shifting the mindset from “we’re going through change” to “this is how we do business.” Leaders must not only communicate that expectation clearly and consistently – but create the environment of trust and belonging that enables people to embrace change for what it is.  

Competitive advantage today depends less on executing a single change event well and more on sustaining momentum across multiple, overlapping initiatives. When teams understand that adaptation is part of the job, they stop bracing for disruption and start operating within it. 

2. Change is a Team Sport 

Employees should understand how change management works. Most of the reactions we see during change are predictable: resistance, fatigue, confusion, or slipping back into old habits. When people understand those patterns, they stop personalizing the disruption and start navigating it more intentionally. Instead of reacting impulsively, they can respond strategically. The more your organization understands change management fundamentals, the less disruptive change actually becomes. 

3. Agility is the Ultimate Goal  

Agility is a buzzword that shows up in frameworks and tools, but its real impact comes from how people think. Resilience is built when teams test assumptions, ask better questions, incorporate feedback, and adjust course when needed. In today’s environment, complete information is rarely available before action is required. Strong organizations are able to make thoughtful decisions anyway and continue moving forward without losing focus on outcomes. Agile minds adapt quickly and deliberately. 

4. Leadership Alignment is Essential 

People know when senior leaders are aligned, and when they are not. The moment a crack appears, employees notice, and it creates space to question, delay, or ignore the change altogether. 

Leaders must agree on the direction, commit to championing the change, and reinforce it consistently as a team. If leaders send mixed signals, operate in silos, or quietly disagree, the organization will feel it immediately. Alignment isn’t a one-time conversation. It requires visible commitment and the willingness to hold one another accountable. When leadership is unified, change gains traction. When it isn’t, even strong strategies stall. 

5. Failure is Not an Option 

With so many priorities shifting at once, leaders can’t afford to treat change management as optional or informal. You can’t wing it with a well-written email and expect alignment to follow. Today’s environment requires an enterprise-level change structure that provides clarity, accountability, and consistency across initiatives. Leadership behavior, decision-making, incentives, and performance expectations all need to reinforce the direction of the change. When that structure is in place, execution holds and momentum builds. Without it, even strong strategies lose traction.

The Results of Getting This Right 

When organizations normalize change, build change capability across the business, and reinforce adaptability through their systems, performance becomes steadier, even in volatile conditions. Resistance decreases, adoption speeds, execution holds, and initiatives deliver the value they were designed to produce. That consistency protects ROI and strengthens confidence at every level of the organization. 

At ChangeMakers, we recognize that change management and agility are not separate disciplines, but integrated capabilities that determine whether strategy performs under pressure. In an environment where change is constant, organizations that build this capability don’t just manage disruption — they operate effectively within it. 

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The Risk That’s Invisible – Until It’s Costly  

Too often, organizational change is treated like a project to be managed — rolled out through frameworks, timelines, and checklists, even when it’s labeled “agile.” What gets missed is that change isn’t just an initiative to execute; it’s a source of risk to be actively monitored. Because change is risk.

That lesson is clear in Boeing’s story. Its challenges didn’t begin with a single failure, they began with a shift.

After Boeing’s merger with McDonnell Douglas, the company gradually moved from an engineering-led culture to one driven by finance culture. Leadership drifted farther from frontline teams, internal dissent was discouraged, and critical warnings were treated as obstacles rather than signals. What looked like operational efficiency on paper quietly degraded decision quality, accountability, and trust — until the organization was forced into costly correction by crisis under public and regulatory scrutiny.  

The risk wasn’t invisible because it didn’t exist; it was invisible because no one was actively looking for it.

This is how change risk most often manifests. Not as an instant crisis or failure — but as subtle strain inside the system. Before performance metrics register a decline, decisions slow, workarounds proliferate, and managers struggle to translate shifting priorities. These signals are easy to rationalize in isolation, but together, they reveal that unorganized change is negatively reshaping the system, posing innumerable risks to strategy and value.  

The solution? Embedding change management within enterprise risk management.  

Unlike change management, risk management is inherently adaptive. It’s a continuous, iterative process embedded in daily activities, using sprints to constantly identify, assess, and mitigate risks. It considers financial performance, legal risks, business operations and interruptions, people and culture, and reputation.  

The Risk Most Dashboards Don’t Capture

Most organizations are disciplined about tracking financial, legal, and operational risk. These risks are visible, measurable, and embedded in dashboards and governance processes. Change risk behaves differently. It emerges through employee, partner, and customer behavior, interpretation, and decision-making—areas that are harder to quantify because they require deliberate intention. But they are no less consequential.  

Organizations experiencing change-related decline rarely notice it at the starting point. We’d argue that in today’s environment, most organizations are already in a state of decline driven by disorganized change, with systems absorbing the strain. Small degradations in clarity, alignment, and decision quality are normalized. The organization adapts to friction rather than correcting it.  

This is organizational drift: the slow, often unnoticed, gradual shift of a company’s practices, culture, or goals away from its intended path, values, or formal procedures—driven by internal shortcuts or external pressures such as competition and technology.  

And it is extremely costly – to financials, people, operations and reputation – if not recognized and addressed early and with urgency.   

Diagnosing and Reversing Organizational Drift

Leaders often sense that something is off before they can point to a specific failure — but by then, the drift is already underway. Because it develops gradually, leaders often hear organizational drift before they see it in metrics. It comes in the form of:

• “We’re not sure what to prioritize right now.”
• “This process keeps changing – what is the correct way now?”
• “I don’t understand why we’re doing this.”
• “Our team is overextended.”
• “Managers don’t have an answer either.”
• “No one told us about this.”

These statements signal that people are spending more time trying to understand what’s happening than getting work done. When the same questions, frustrations, or workarounds keep coming up, it’s a sign the organization needs to recalibrate before those issues become entrenched. This is where our change experts help leaders diagnose what’s happening beneath the surface and realign the organization before value erosion takes hold.

Turning Change Risk into Agility  

Early attention to change risk strengthens both resilience and agility. Leaders who monitor how change is landing across the organization maintain alignment between intent and experience, even in periods of disruption. Organizations must build their internal capacity to respond, change, and move without losing coherence; this is where true agility lives.

The question leaders must ask is whether they have adequate visibility into how change is affecting their organization—and whether they are prepared to act on what they discover. In ideal circumstances, this visibility is built into the change campaign before it starts. However, it’s never too late to get a pulse on how internal and external changes are impacting your organization. You just have to know where to look.

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The State of PR in Canada: ethics and strategy still needed at the table  

These days, it is easy to focus on what is new. In fact, it can seem impossible to keep up. But the 2025 State of Public Relations in Canada Report shows us that in all this change, the fundamentals: trust, ethics, and purpose, still matter. 

ChangeMakers supported this research initiative because it is deeply connected to what we do – helping organizations earn trust, build relationships and communicate with clarity. The report confirms what we hear from clients every day. People want honest, clear, and responsible communication. They trust organizations that truly listen and respond with relationships in mind. And they want professionals who understand both strategy and risk to help them move their goals forward. 

The three themes in the report stand out for us. Each is tied to the work we do and the outcomes we help deliver. 

First, trust is still fragile. 

Public trust in communications is improving, but not fast enough. The language we use to describe our work in the professional field makes a difference. Titles like “communications” and “public relations” are not interchangeable in the eyes of the public, and it affects credibility. Words matter. 

At ChangeMakers, we focus clear, honest communication. Whether we’re working with government, business or communities, we understand how to engage audiences, build relationships and earn trust. We believe reputation is earned through actions, not slogans. 

Second, AI is here. We need to lead. 

The report shows that while our professional field is looking at efficiencies in new AI tools, business leaders are not yet turning to their communications teams for guidance on AI strategy. That is a risk. If we stay focused on outputs, we will be left out of the bigger conversation. 

If harnessed correctly, AI can be much more than a tool bolted on to workflows. It can be a strategic driver that creates both new risks and new expectations. At ChangeMakers, we are responding by embedding AI into every facet of our business. The delivery of this looks different across our paradigm, but the result is consistent – higher rate of efficiency, better quality output, and getting to the solution quicker and more often. All of this is grounded in our unfettered belief in human expertise at the wheel. We believe this approach will both elevate our company and push the boundaries of what’s possible for the entire industry.  

Third, professional associations matter. 

Canadians want ethical oversight. They want standards they can trust across all disciplines in the work ChangeMakers does, from marketing, creative and digital to advertising, communications, change management, engagement and measurement. That is what professional associations, like the Canadian Public Relations Society, bring to the table. Professional associations are vital platforms for leadership and help keep the focus on what matters: relationships, ethics and public trust. 

ChangeMakers supported this research because our clients and their audiences are living these issues every day.  

Whether it is misinformation, shifting expectations, or AI uncertainty, we help our clients anticipate those challenges, navigate complexity, and create results that matter. This report confirms that our work is more important than ever. 

Let’s keep the conversation going.  

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