PRNext’25: coordinates of trust for those who believe in the future of their brands

Trust is no longer something given once and for all. Sometimes it is damaged faster than you have time to justify yourself in the comments.  In a world where a brand lives on the hopes of the audience and falls from its suspicions, communications have turned into a minefield that only someone who has taken care in advance and carefully nurtured an anti-fragile reputation for themselves or their business can walk through. That is why the XXII International PRNext Forum, which will take place on April 3 in Kyiv, is dedicated not just to talking about trust, but to its measured and conscious cultivation — when there is chaos, crises, war and information dumps around.

The forum program promises tough but necessary conversations. After the traditional keynote speech from Olena Derevianko, Head of the Organizing Committee of the Forum and Vice President of the Ukrainian PR League, the speakers' attention will be focused on topics that will practically help to work effectively with reputation and reputational crises in impossible conditions.

Is it possible to trust artificial intelligence in PR, when even people don't always tell the truth? Iskren Lilov from AMEC will talk about this, and he will talk about the risks and opportunities of AI in communications.

Is journalism even a little bit objective, or are we already living in a world of information manipulation? This topic will be revealed by Denys Bigus, Ahava Teslenko and Oleksiy Sukhanov, each of whom knows from their own experience how truth forms reputation and how expensive it can be.

Should you rely on public figures and bloggers? Representatives of Kyivstar, L'Oréal and MHP, as well as host Valeria Tovstoles and other bloggers, who have experienced firsthand what it means to be the face of a brand in an era when every screenshot can become a sentence, will discuss this.

Despite all the difficulties, the industrial sector remains critical to the country's economy, but is this enough to retain investors? Is business ready to change its approach to communications to prove its reliability to the world? Participants of the panel discussion "Industrial Ukraine: Myth, Reality or Lost Chance?", which will be moderated by Yuriy Gusev, editor-in-chief of the magazine "TOP-100. Ratings of the largest", will look for answers to these questions. The participants of the discussion – Oleg Davydenko ("Metinvest"), Vitaliy Tkachenko ("New Products"), Olena Snitkova (Athlon Avia) and Lyudmila Novak (INTERPIPE) – will share their vision of the future of Ukrainian industry and the challenges it faces. Yaryna Skorokhod, GR & Communications DTEK, will talk about how companies can build a dialogue with the state and change the environment in which they operate.

However, trust is not only about crises and scandals, but also about opportunities. How can business not just support veterans, but really change their lives? Answering this question, Ksenia Sikorska from PUMB will talk about how social projects can start with PR and then grow into the soul of a brand, even if it is a bank. The theme of transformations will be continued by Borys Tsomaya from UPG, who will talk about how to survive a rebranding in turbulent times and why it is still important for brands not to get old.

The forum will also feature Barton Poulson, founder of datalab.cc, author of popular data science courses for LinkedIn Learning, and assistant professor of psychology at Utah Valley University, USA. He will share his vision of how analytics, data, and human behavior intertwine in modern communications.

A special topic will be humor in PR. Some people think that laughter saves you from any reputational problems, but in reality, a bad joke can cost a company all its trust. Mark Kutsevalov, known as the founder of the "Transparent Racer" team and a participant in the "League of Laughter", will share his experience of using humor in communications, talk about where the line between wit and fuckup lies, and why some companies do not survive after unsuccessful jokes.

And by tradition, PRNext will end with the 10th anniversary award ceremony for the winners of the National Corporate Reputation Management Quality Rating "Reputation ACTiVists" – an award that recognizes companies that have not only stayed afloat in the chaotic information space, but have been able to make trust their competitive advantage.

So if you don't want your brand to drown in the information noise this year, we are waiting for PRNext’2025. In 2025, a decent reputation is not just a component of business, it is the key to its survival!