South Africa, April 11 -- The keynote speaker, Paul Holmes, founder and chair of PRovoke Media, delivered a message that was as unflinching as it was necessary.

One that should be echoing across every boardroom, agency, and leadership teams, a tour de force: part history lesson, part industry reckoning, and part call to arms.

Holmes didn't mince words. Public relations, he argued, is no longer about what we say, it's about what companies do. And increasingly, it's about what we see coming before anyone else does.

What Holmes delivered was more than a retrospective. It was a wake-up call for anyone in the business of reputation, stakeholder trust, or leadership counsel.

We live in an era of permanent disruption, political instability, ...