Tools of Trust: how a for­got­ten ar­ti­fa­ct may re-de­sign the fu­tu­re

What if we designed systems not for top-down control, but for human connection? In this public lecture, author, trust expert and artist, Rachel Botsman will explore how design thinking and visual storytelling can rethink leadership, power, and trust systems.

The conversation returns to a long-forgotten artefact: the world’s first organisational chart, drawn in 1855. From this intricate, organic diagram, we trace the enduring imprint of pyramid structures and hierarchy and ask what new forms trust might take in an age of digital and AI.

A session about how we might design our way toward a more human, connected, and trusted society, and what shape that could take next

Short bio
Rachel Botsman is an author and designer globally renowned for her thought leadership on trust. She is the author of three highly acclaimed books and was the first Trust Fellow at Oxford University Saïd Business School, where she designed and taught new courses on trust in the digital age. Her recent installation, Roots of Trust, was featured at the London Design Biennale. She is currently working on a new book, The Cultivated Mind. Her TED talks have been watched by more than 6 million viewers, and her insights are regularly featured in The New York Times, Wired, Harvard Business Review, Time and The Financial Times.