From December 8-10, 2025, the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) will host the BRIDGE Summit, the world’s premier media debut event. Among its seven essential content pillars, the Media Track will shine, bringing together over 100 global editors, founders, policymakers, and investors in more than 50 sessions. This will be part of a broader program featuring over 400 speakers, focusing on how cross-sector collaboration can foster a resilient, credible, and inclusive global media ecosystem.
In the last decade, media and information boundaries have shifted dramatically. Streaming has surpassed traditional broadcasting, social platforms have outpaced newsrooms, and artificial intelligence is redefining how truth is produced, verified, and consumed. With audience fragmentation and declining trust, issues of ownership, influence, and accountability have become pivotal challenges for the global information landscape. These challenges will be at the forefront of the BRIDGE Summit 2025 in Abu Dhabi.
The Media Track aims to further BRIDGE Summit’s goal of being a global platform for industry leaders and stakeholders to connect, exchange insights, and build partnerships that promote a more resilient and connected media ecosystem.
Themes and sessions highlighted in the media track
Panels such as “Money Talks: Who’s Funding the News You Read?”, “Media’s New Centres of Gravity”, “Who Pays When Journalism Goes Broke”, and “The End of Media’s Philanthropic Whiplash” will explore how financial backing, technology, and philanthropy are reshaping editorial independence and whether new ownership models can align with the mission of free and independent journalism.
Sessions like “The Threshold of Truth”, “When Everyone’s Verified”, “Who Can You Trust?”, “Stories with an Agenda”, and “Setting Standards for Responsible Storytelling” will delve into the evolving ethics of credibility and transparency amidst synthetic content, algorithmic distribution, and advocacy-driven reporting.
Discussions such as “Memes as a Media Business”, “Winning Back Gen Z One Swipe at a Time”, and “Fighting for Depth in a Shallow Media World” will investigate how audience behavior, subcultures, and generational values are reshaping the concepts of authenticity and attention in modern media.
Panels like “The Comfort Crisis in Media”, “The New Priorities of News Media”, and “Media Moneyball” will examine how publishers and creators are rebuilding sustainability through direct audience ownership, first-party data, and new investment strategies driven by data.
As information becomes a geopolitical tool, sessions like “How Media Shapes the Course of Modern Conflict and Leaks” and “Whistleblowers and the New Information Battlefield” will analyze the intricate relationship between journalism, security, and global stability.
Global voices driving the conversation
The Media Track will feature an exceptional lineup of media pioneers, cultural leaders, and policy experts. Headliners include Gary Vaynerchuk, Chairman of VaynerX; Moira Forbes, Executive Vice President of Forbes; Joanna Coles, Chief Creative and Content Officer at The Daily Beast; Pooja Bagga, CIO of Guardian Media Group; Jessica Sibley, CEO of TIME; Justin Smith, Co-founder and CEO of Semafor; Nancy Gibbs, Director of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School and former Editor-in-Chief of TIME; Andrew Zimmern, Emmy and James Beard Award-winning host; Anthony Scaramucci, Founder and Managing Partner of SkyBridge; and Shekhar Gupta, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of ThePrint.
They will be joined by Lamia Bint Majid Al Saud, Secretary General of Alwaleed Philanthropies; Dr. Julie Gichuru, Founder and CEO of the Africa Leadership and Dialogue Institute; Andrew Sollinger, CEO and Publisher of Foreign Policy; Eric Schurenberg, Founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media and former CEO of Inc. and Fast Company; Rt. Hon. Lucy Frazer KC, former UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; Sir Liam Fox, former UK Secretary of State for International Trade and Defence; Horst Bente, private investor of the Adi Dassler family legacy in global sports media; Christoph Sonnen, Co-Founder of LEAD Sports and Health Tech Partners; Earl Wilkinson, Executive Director and CEO of the International News Media Association (INMA); Keith Bonnici, President and COO of The Daily Beast; and Ahmed Hussain, Senior Executive at the BBC and Head of BBC Asian Network.
The stage will also host Uche Pedro, Founder of BellaNaija; Abdul Karim Abdullah, Founder and CEO of Culture Management Group and AfroFuture Festival; Ken Ansah, COO of Multimedia Group Limited; Ferial Haffajee, Associate Editor of Daily Maverick; Prof. Robert G. Picard, Media Economist at the Reuters Institute, University of Oxford; Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa; Diego Escosteguy, Founder of O Bastidor; Mpindi Abaas, Co-Founder and CEO of the Media Challenge Initiative; Betty Irabor, Founder of Genevieve Magazine; Drew Baldwin, CEO of Tubefilter and Creator of The Streamy Awards; Carole House, former Special Advisor for Cybersecurity at the White House National Security Council; Anu Duggal, Founding Partner of the Female Founders Fund; Stephanie Mehta, CEO of Mansueto Ventures; Máximos Mazzocco, Founder of EcoNews; Resham Kotecha, Global AI, Data and Strategy Expert; Regina Kim, journalist specializing in Asian-American culture and entertainment; Justin Norman, Founder of The Flip; Dr. Yemisi Akinbobola, Co-Founder of African Women in Media; Nahjae Nunes, Scholar-Practitioner at UNICEF Innocenti; Dr. Lee Bofkin, Co-Founder and CEO of Global Street Art; and Branko Brkic, Leader of Project Kontinuum and former Editor-in-Chief of Daily Maverick.
Together, these voices represent the institutions, insurgencies, capital, culture, and policy forces redefining how the world produces, distributes, monetizes, and governs information.
The Media Track exemplifies the BRIDGE Summit’s mission to facilitate cross-sector integration and advance access to the content economy. As the media ecosystem evolves at the convergence of technology, finance, policy, and culture, BRIDGE Summit provides a collaborative platform to bolster the credibility, sustainability, and inclusivity of global information systems.
Held in Abu Dhabi, the Summit also highlights the UAE’s role as a global hub for dialogue and cooperation.
