The Aspen Institute New Zealand, in collaboration with the Aspen Institute, presents the Socrates Programme 2025:
In an age of AI-generated content, deepening social divides, and fast-shifting media landscapes, trust in the news is at an all-time low. Yet without a foundation of agreed-upon facts, how can we lead our businesses, our communities - and our democracy itself?
Part of our Critical Conversations programme, the Socrates Seminar brings leaders together from across sectors to ask: How can we navigate a world where truth is contested, and misinformation spreads faster than facts? What does “trust” look like when your customers, employees, and communities are all part of fragmented information bubbles? And what responsibility do leaders hold in sustaining spaces for truth, open dialogue, and shared understanding?
Moderated by Vivian Schiller, internationally renowned former media executive and current Aspen Institute Vice President and Executive Director of Aspen Digital, this immersive discussion invites CEOs, entrepreneurs, policymakers, community builders, and curious citizens to test ideas, challenge assumptions, and explore new ways forward for their organisations and society.
Set against Queenstown’s dramatic alpine backdrop, the Socrates Seminar is more than a roundtable discussion, it’s an immersive retreat for the mind and spirit. Conversations begin around the table, continue over Central Otago wine and locally sourced meals, and flow onto the trails of historic Arrowtown, where we walk together under wide skies and along gold-rush rivers.
From the seminar room to evening dinners in some of the region’s most celebrated restaurants, participants experience the best of Queenstown hospitality while grappling with one of the most urgent challenges of our time: trust in the news.
During the seminar, participants will:
Examine how the erosion of trust in news mirrors wider social and business challenges.
Discuss your role as a leader in navigating misinformation, inside and outside your organisation.
Connect with peers across sectors to ask what credible, trusted leadership looks like today.
Leave with fresh perspectives to help you lead with integrity in a complex information landscape.
Key themes include:
The impact of AI on truth and trust
Objectivity, bias, and how they shape trust in leaders
Navigating media manipulation in the boardroom, newsroom, and beyond
How shared facts underpin healthy societies and resilient businesses
“What made the Socrates Seminar so special was being in a room full of curious, respectful people willing to challenge each other in good faith—it pushed me to dig deeper, clarify my purpose, and commit to championing ideas that make a better world possible.”
– Cristina Griffiths, Managing Director, Gibbston Valley Winery
Seminar Details:
Date: 8 - 10 December 2025 (full schedule below)
Venue: ‘Taramea’ - Speargrass Flat Rd, Queenstown
Moderator: New York-based Vivian Schiller
Seminar fee: $1725 incl. GST (includes meals, excursion)
Seminar fee includes tuition, meals during the seminar, and an excursion. Accommodation packages at reduced rates are available, on request, from Mi-Pad Queenstown.
Please contact us directly if you are a Not for Profit organisation or wish to apply for a scholarship (NZ residents only - round 2 applications open 1 September, 2025).
Note: For IoD NZ members, the seminar can contribute to your annual quota of CPD points.
Join us to grapple with one of the biggest questions of our time: How do we rebuild trust in the news and each other?
Vivian Schiller joined the Aspen Institute in January 2020 as the Executive Director of Aspen Digital, which empowers policymakers, civic organisations, companies, and the public to be responsible stewards of technology and media in the service of an informed, just, and equitable world.
A longtime executive at the intersection of journalism, media and technology, Schiller has held executive roles at some of the most respected media organizations in the world. Those include: President and CEO of NPR; Global Chair of News at Twitter; General Manager of NYTimes.com; Chief Digital Officer of NBC News; Chief of the Discovery Times Channel, a joint venture of The New York Times and Discovery Communications; and Head of CNN documentary and long form divisions. Documentaries and series produced under her auspices earned multiple honors, including three Peabody Awards, four Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Awards, and dozens of Emmys.
Schiller is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; and a Director of the Scott Trust, which owns The Guardian.
About Socrates Seminars
Socrates seminars are collaborative roundtable discussions for participants from different fields. Participants are asked to contribute their understanding of and reactions to carefully selected readings, with the guidance of a moderator, who is an expert in their sector. The seminars provide stimulating dialogue, values-based introspection, and dynamic debate that serve to enhance participants’ understanding and leadership capabilities.
What makes Socrates unique?
Connects Leaders Across the Spectrum - from entrepreneurs to public servants, artists to academics, all driven by a shared commitment to engage with the hardest questions of our time.
The Aspen Method - based on the Aspen Institute’s tradition of moderated dialogue, Socrates champions civil dialogue, intellectual humility and cross-sector collaboration.
Optimised for Busy Professionals - seminars are designed to strike the perfect balance: intellectually intense, refreshingly brief, and deeply immersive.
Turn Ideas Into Action - the conversations that start at Socrates often spark new ventures and partnerships. Participants leave not just inspired but empowered.
A Global, Ever-Growing Network - with over 10,500 alumni worldwide from across the public, private, non-profit and academic sectors, Socrates is more than a programme - it’s a lifelong community.
“For me the thing about Socrates is as much about the substance of the conversation as the relationships. It is those relationships and the network that develops from this that is so powerful.”
– Andrew Ross Sorkin, Columnist for The New York Times
Schedule:
Wednesday 10 December
8:30am: Coffee / Tea
9am - 1pm: Seminar session 3
1pm - 2pm: Closing lunch
Monday 8 December Tuesday 9 December
12pm - 1pm: Welcome lunch 9am - 11am: Optional Excursion
1pm - 5pm: Seminar session 1 12pm - 1pm: Lunch
6pm: Dinner - Botswana Butchery 1pm - 5pm: Seminar session 2
6pm: Annual Celebration Dinner - The Cargo Collective
With thanks to our event supporters:
Rod Drury
Hulbert House and Mi-Pad Queenstown Hotels
