A global industry needs a trusted voice. Creativity solves the hardest problems. And trust is built in drops, lost in buckets.

As an industry we face more pressures, faster changes and increased demands on everyone in it, whether you are a marketer, an agency, a platform or a media owner. The IAA exists to provide global perspectives to global marketing professionals, to champion the industry and to help build it responsibly. Today you have to do much more with less, and people look to an organisation like us for a point of view and a forum to exchange ideas. I just came from a roundtable with our partner Nielsen on sponsorship in sport, with people from Nigeria, India, Austria, Switzerland, Brazil and the UK, and bringing a collective like that together helps everyone take something home.

The most common issue right now is the impact of AI and how it reshapes the industry. Close behind is how you prove the value of what you do. I have lived in the UK for 20 years, and when I arrived in 2004 I chose Vodafone over the Orange phone my employer gave me, and kept it ever since. It is hard to draw a line from me watching TV in Sweden to that decision on arrival, so how do we prove the ROI? We have to give every stakeholder the tools to prove the value of advertising to the boardroom, the CFO and the CEO.

A lot of it is creativity. Brazil, which I think is the most decorated country in the history of Cannes Lions, is the obvious example. Smaller markets need more creativity to do more with less, and I see it at our events in Malaysia, Singapore and Brazil. We firmly believe in the power of creativity to solve some of the biggest problems in the world.

Necessity is the mother of invention. One of the first B2B Lions went to Dole. When they harvest pineapples in Asia a huge amount of leaves go to waste, so they worked with a company called Pinatex to turn that waste into a fake leather for shoes, bags and jackets. It came from asking how to build a more sustainable supply chain, and it produced an amazing product that is also vegan.

Different markets need different things, and we are a flat organisation. The problem you have in Serbia is very different to what you have in Bangladesh, Australia, Singapore, the Middle East, the US or Brazil. But some things are common: self-regulation, building a more sustainable business, and making the industry equitable so talent is not only for people who can afford to move to London. We run global councils to learn across markets, and those topics are almost evergreen.

We have to achieve objectives, and we cannot do it alone, so we partner. We are the only truly global industry body representing brands, agencies, media, publishers and academia, so we are the big tent. When something like Ad Net Zero comes up we support it, we talk about good growth with the Institute for Real Growth, and we work with research partners to prove the societal value of the industry. If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together, so we galvanise members to improve the industry for good.

At an event in Stockholm, someone from a large holding company said a half a million dollar mixed-media campaign across the Nordics had the same environmental impact as driving a car from Stockholm to Cape Town. That is why we support Ad Net Zero globally. We need a sustainable supply chain and should use only the measurement tools we need, because every platform has cloud storage somewhere. Sir John Hegarty said that if we leverage creativity more and make really good content, we need fewer impressions. Advertisers' budgets fuel these platforms, so they should back the healthy and ethical ones. Doing well by doing good.

A lot of it is how you put things into RFPs and vet partners, and much of it lands on brands because they hold the budget. When carbon calculators first appeared you could get three agencies producing three completely different outputs. So we need common frameworks the industry can sign up to that say this is what we want and this is how we measure it. What gets measured gets done.

We are in a challenging place. AI is coming into the workplace and we do not yet know its impact on jobs, and economic headwinds mean companies may not invest the same in their people. There is a real concern about bringing the next generation in and not losing them to other industries. We are looking at a global talent council to bring ideas from everywhere, and we must provide training, education and access in a fair and equitable way so everyone has the same chance.

Deeds Not Words hit home most. I expected the leadership gap to close much faster, but it was not even a small hockey stick, just very gradual growth. Liz Jones of Conquer was not surprised by the LinkedIn data. Diverse teams win, that is a must. As Unilever put it, our office floor needs to look like the society we serve, not the people we are most like.

A partnership has to be mutually beneficial. I ask what I can do for the network rather than only what it can do for me. It is not a zero-sum game. The partnerships that last work together for years, each side keeps its own ambitions, but they overlap and deliver value to everyone. I want to get what I need while making sure every partner leaves the room wanting to keep building.

Our old LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said trust is built in drops and lost in buckets. Building it is like making a promise: valuable, repeatable, delivered consistently over the long term. One false move and it is gone. That is how I try to lead, because you are only as strong as your own brand. If I make a commitment I have to fulfil it.

We sold our mobile advertising business to an American software company, and when that happens you owe it to your team, partners and customers to see it through. I spent a year after the deal in a global sales role, building out the team, then joined LinkedIn, where I had been a power user since 2005. One of my colleagues from that time has now joined LinkedIn too, which brings it full circle.

Founders get it wrong when they think too short term. You have to build long-term sustainable value, and in the startup world it is easy to cut corners or maximise profit on one project. What matters is the long view, even saying no to a deal if it is not right for you because something else matters more for that brand.

It is an exciting time. We have a new global managing director in Kirsty Giordani, we have moved the headquarters from New York to London, and in the last 12 months we have opened in Qatar, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Brazil, with more planned. We also look after established markets, like Lebanon where we have been for 64 years. The industry faces so many pressures that there has probably never been a better time to have a trusted voice providing global perspectives to global marketers. That is what gets you out of bed in the morning.