This finalist spotlight has been provided by Orbis Investments.
The Courage to Question
Our founder Allan Gray had a saying: “To get different results, you need to think differently.”
Today, investors have more information than ever before: company reports, market data and, increasingly, powerful tools to process it all. What differs is the questions they’re prepared to ask, how deeply they test their assumptions and the conclusions they follow.
It takes courage to think differently.
It takes courage to question consensus, conventional wisdom and your own assumptions. This idea sits at the heart of our campaign, The Courage to Question which explores how this mindset has shaped everything we do: from our investment process and our firm’s structure to how we partner with clients.
But it doesn’t stop there. This questioning mindset also shapes the content we produce, not only what we say, but how we choose to say it.
Question the format
As the year draws to a close, advisers start asking questions. What are the most likely market outcomes for the next 12 months? How will they affect my clients’ portfolios?
Asset managers around the world have a tried and tested method for answering these questions: the market outlook. But too many of these arrive at the same time, in the same format and around the same themes.
For advisers, navigating that sea of sameness can be overwhelming and valuable insights can get lost, especially those that can help explain what different market outcomes might mean for their clients. That was the genesis of Six Courageous Questions for 2026. Instead of focusing solely on where markets might go next, we looked at what investors might be taking for granted, challenging some of the assumptions shaping portfolios.
Each article stood on its own, allowing advisers to quickly pick out the topic most relevant to them and use it as a practical starting point for client conversations, offering a more focused perspective.
That questioning mindset shapes the content we produce throughout the year, not just our year-end campaign.
Different formats, same mindset Across our content, from The Contrarian View podcast and Our Thinking articles to the Through our Lens videos, we’re constantly exploring familiar topics from a different vantage point.
What if AI’s biggest constraint isn’t computing power? Could today’s boring businesses offer some of tomorrow’s more attractive opportunities? Are investors navigating emerging markets based on outdated assumptions?
It means asking difficult questions about markets and our own decisions, not simply disagreeing with the crowd.
Useful beyond publication
The most encouraging response has been seeing our client-facing teams use the content in client meetings and advisers include it in their quarterly client communications. That is when the work becomes more than content: it becomes something useful.
For us, that reinforces the value of doing things differently: asking better questions, challenging consensus and creating content that offers a genuinely different way to think about markets.
