It’s a superfast, crazy and unpredictable world – no time to read, no time to think – indeed, leaders face unprecedented challenges: rapidly evolving technologies, shifting consumer expectations, and the imperative to balance profitability with purpose.

Success no longer comes solely from operational excellence or market dominance—it requires vision, creativity, and a deep understanding of people, brands, and the future. That’s why I keep reading. And you should too.

So here are 8 books that I dipped into over the summer vacation. They inspired me, and maybe will you …

They’re a mix of practical guidance, inspirational stories, and forward-thinking frameworks that can help leaders navigate this complex world. Some reveal the mental habits of extraordinary performers, others illuminate minimalist principles for clarity in a noisy marketplace, while a few offer visionary approaches to sustainability, futures thinking, and storytelling.

It’s time to think differently, act strategically, and inspire teams and customers alike. I summarise my insights, and practical takeaways from each book that I think can shape smarter, more purposeful leadership.

Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard

Yvon Chouinard’s memoir and manifesto, Let My People Go Surfing, blends storytelling with philosophy, offering an unconventional yet deeply principled approach to business leadership. As founder of Patagonia, Chouinard recounts the company’s journey from a small climbing equipment shop to a globally recognized outdoor brand. Yet the focus is never on profit alone; it is on purpose, values, and stewardship of the planet.

Chouinard presents his core belief: business can—and should—be a force for good. He describes decisions that challenge conventional corporate thinking, such as promoting work-life balance, embracing environmental responsibility, and taking bold stances on social issues. The book highlights Patagonia’s commitment to sustainable materials, activism, and long-term thinking, offering a model of how ethical principles can coexist with commercial success.

In the 1950s, Chouinard began blacksmithing to create his own climbing gear, leading to the establishment of Chouinard Equipment. This venture eventually became the largest supplier of climbing hardware in the U.S., highlighting his commitment to quality and innovation.

Chouinard’s environmental consciousness grew over time, influencing Patagonia’s product choices. In the 1990s, he emphasized that the company’s existence was to generate profits for environmental causes, integrating sustainability into the core of the business

“When the waves are good, surf. When there’s powder on the mountains, ski.”

This guiding principle reflects Chouinard’s belief in prioritizing passion and well-being over rigid work schedules. It underscores Patagonia’s flexible work culture, where employees are encouraged to embrace nature and personal pursuits, fostering creativity and satisfaction.

“You can’t wait until you have all the answers before you act.”

The memoir is infused with humour, irreverence, and personal reflection, making it engaging while conveying profound lessons about leadership, culture, and innovation. It challenges readers to reconsider the role of business in society, encouraging leaders to prioritize integrity, environmental stewardship, and human-centered management.

Ultimately, Let My People Go Surfing is more than a company history; it is a manifesto for conscious, values-driven leadership that inspires readers to redefine what success truly means in business.

Hidden Genius: The Secret Ways of Thinking That Power the World’s Most Successful People by Polina Marinova Pompliano

Hidden Genius delves into the cognitive habits, thought patterns, and decision-making approaches that distinguish high achievers across industries. Polina Marinova Pompliano draws from interviews with entrepreneurs, creatives, and investors to uncover mental frameworks that enable success in uncertain, high-pressure environments.

The book is both inspiring and practical. It identifies key traits such as pattern recognition, contrarian thinking, disciplined curiosity, and resilience, showing how these habits translate into real-world results. Pompliano highlights how successful people structure their time, manage risks, and cultivate networks to amplify their impact.

Chef Grant Achatz, renowned for his innovative approach to molecular gastronomy, faced a devastating challenge when diagnosed with stage four tongue cancer. The disease threatened not only his life but also his ability to taste and create. Undeterred, Achatz adapted by focusing on the interplay of sight and smell to craft flavors, transforming his culinary creations into multisensory experiences. This reinvention exemplifies the power of resilience and adaptability in the face of adversity.

David Goggins, a former Navy SEAL and ultramarathon runner, is renowned for his mental toughness and ability to push through extreme pain. Pompliano delves into his philosophy, emphasizing the importance of facing discomfort and using it as a catalyst for personal growth. Goggins’ story serves as a testament to the power of perseverance and the mindset required to achieve extraordinary feats.

By focusing on the psychology behind performance rather than just tactics or strategy, Hidden Genius empowers readers to rethink how they approach challenges and opportunities. It blends narrative, case studies, and exercises, making it actionable for leaders who want to optimize thinking, creativity, and influence. The book’s unconventional lens—examining the “how” of thought rather than the “what” of actions—offers a fresh perspective on personal and organizational success.

Think Like The Minimalist by Chirag Gander and Sahil Vaidya

Think Like The Minimalist explores how simplicity can become a strategic asset in modern business. Gander and Vaidya argue that in today’s cluttered marketplaces, less is often more: a minimalist approach to design, communication, and user experience allows brands to stand out, focus attention, and foster deeper connections with customers.

The book illustrates minimalist principles in branding, product design, UX, and customer communication. It emphasizes clarity, precision, and intentionality, guiding leaders to strip away noise and focus on what truly matters. By showcasing case studies and practical examples, the authors demonstrate how leading brands have used minimalism not just aesthetically but strategically, simplifying customer journeys, messaging, and product offerings.

What makes the book compelling is its insistence on thoughtful reduction rather than arbitrary removal. Minimalism, the authors argue, is about maximizing impact, creating emotional resonance, and enhancing usability. The book also explores cultural and psychological aspects, showing how minimal design encourages engagement and loyalty in modern consumers who are increasingly overwhelmed by choice and information.

Through accessible storytelling and concrete frameworks, Think Like The Minimalist inspires leaders to apply disciplined simplicity to their branding and business strategy, achieving elegance, focus, and long-term differentiation.

Facing Our Futures: How Foresight, Futures Design and Strategy Creates Prosperity and Growth by Nikolas Badminton

Facing Our Futures presents a forward-looking, methodical approach to strategy in an unpredictable world. Nikolas Badminton emphasizes that traditional linear planning is no longer sufficient in the face of rapid technological change, geopolitical shifts, and societal transformation. Instead, organizations need to develop foresight capabilities: the ability to anticipate, explore, and shape multiple potential futures.

The book introduces practical tools such as scenario planning, horizon scanning, and the Positive Dystopia Canvas—a method for imagining disruptive futures to inform current strategy. Badminton stresses that foresight is not merely about prediction; it is about resilience, adaptability, and creative problem-solving. Leaders learn to frame uncertainties as opportunities for innovation rather than threats to stability.

Drawing on examples from companies, governments, and social innovators, the book illustrates how futures thinking can lead to both commercial success and societal impact. Badminton bridges the gap between theory and practice, showing how strategic foresight informs investment decisions, product development, talent management, and ecosystem building.

The prose is both visionary and grounded. It inspires leaders to cultivate a forward-thinking mindset, challenge assumptions, and design organizations that can thrive amid volatility. Ultimately, Facing Our Futures positions foresight not as an optional skill but as an essential capability for creating sustained prosperity and growth in the 21st century.

The Life Cycle of a CEO: The Myths and Truths of How Leaders Succeed by Claudius Hildebrand and Robert  Stark

In The Life Cycle of a CEO, Hildebrand and Stark explore the evolving journey of modern business leaders, offering an evidence-based and nuanced perspective on what it takes to succeed at the highest level. The authors identify five stages of a CEO’s journey—launch, calibration, reinvention, complacency, and legacy—illustrating how leadership is dynamic, not fixed.

The book combines data from studies of hundreds of CEOs with vivid anecdotes to challenge conventional myths about leadership. It examines the pressures, decision-making dilemmas, and psychological demands faced by executives, highlighting both triumphs and failures. The authors emphasize that effective leaders learn to adapt their style, cultivate emotional intelligence, and align personal values with organizational vision.

Practical frameworks guide readers through critical inflection points in a CEO’s tenure: recognizing when to pivot strategy, how to manage stakeholder expectations, and ways to foster innovation while maintaining stability. By blending research with narrative, the book provides lessons not only for aspiring CEOs but for all leaders seeking to understand the evolving demands of senior leadership.

The book reframes success as a journey of growth, learning, and adaptation rather than a static endpoint, offering guidance and inspiration for leaders navigating complex, high-stakes roles.

Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller

Donald Miller’s Building a StoryBrand provides a clear, actionable roadmap for businesses seeking to clarify their messaging and engage customers through narrative. The central premise is deceptively simple: customers are the heroes of your brand story, not your company. By positioning the business as a guide rather than the protagonist, leaders can communicate more effectively and motivate action.

Miller introduces a seven-part StoryBrand framework, encompassing clarity in messaging, customer motivation, and a compelling call to action. The book blends practical exercises, examples, and narrative theory, emphasizing that coherent stories simplify decision-making for customers and enhance engagement.

What makes this book valuable for leaders is its ability to translate abstract storytelling concepts into tangible marketing strategies. Through the lens of story, brands can craft messages that are memorable, persuasive, and emotionally resonant, ultimately improving conversion, loyalty, and brand perception. Miller’s approach has influenced companies across industries, from startups to global enterprises, demonstrating the universal power of story in business.

Reimagining Luxury by Diana Verde Nieto

In Reimagining Luxury, my good friend (and past coauthor!) Diana Verde Nieto explores how luxury brands can integrate sustainability without compromising heritage or desirability. The book combines theory, strategy, and case studies to show how companies can innovate, reduce environmental impact, and build long-term value while maintaining aspirational appeal.

Diana emphasizes that sustainability is not just a moral imperative but a strategic opportunity. Through examples of brands like LVMH and Kering, she illustrates how luxury companies can redefine craftsmanship, sourcing, and storytelling to align with evolving consumer expectations. Leaders are guided to implement frameworks that embed sustainability into brand strategy, operations, and communication, turning ethical responsibility into competitive advantage.

Here are 10 soundbites from the passionate Brazilian:

  • “Sustainability must be more than just a trend; it needs to be a seamless part of business and everyday life.”

  • “We need to create a state of competition for being more socio-environmentally positive, not just less negative.”

  • “The definition of luxury has changed – present-day luxury is about inclusive exclusivity, encompasses experience innovation, and has a more concentrated focus on social and environmental issues.”

  • “Knowledge is the new consumer currency.”

  • “Being net positive is so much more exciting and galvanizing than being a ‘bit less negative.’”

  • “I think I knew about the fragility of our planet a long time ago. This is my vocation, not my job.”

  • “We need to make space, not take space.”

  • “Business can—and should—be a force for good.”

  • “Our philosophies aren’t rules; they’re guidelines.”

  • “We have to take responsibility for what we make, from birth to death and then beyond death, back to rebirth.”

The book blends narrative insight with actionable guidance, making it a practical resource for executives aiming to lead in the future of luxury. By presenting sustainability as a design and strategic principle rather than a constraint, she inspires leaders to envision a profitable and purposeful luxury sector.

In an age of accelerating disruption, every company faces a choice: adapt, transform, or fade away.

The next decade will be defined not by incremental progress but by seismic shifts in how the world works. Megatrends aren’t background noise; they’re the blueprint for what’s next. From AI to aging populations, climate collapse to geopolitical fracture, companies that thrive will be those that reinvent themselves in response to the tectonic forces reshaping society.

In a world of relentless disruption, business leaders need more than strategy, they need a megatrend mindset.

That means looking forward, not back. It means anticipating the seismic shifts reshaping our economies, societies, and technologies, and acting before others do. Leaders must use them to galvanise their organisations, mobilise talent, and reimagine what their business is for. Reinvention can no longer be occasional or reactive, it must become a core capability, a cultural instinct, a superpower.

The future won’t wait. The companies that lead it will be those bold enough to shape it.

So, what is driving the future, and how can you be part of it?

Megatrends are long-term, transformative forces that are global in scope, cross-industry in impact, and inevitable in their trajectory. From climate change and technological convergence to demographic shifts and urbanization, megatrends are not just fleeting headlines—they are the undercurrents shaping the future of markets, societies, and business itself.

Ignoring megatrends is no longer an option. They influence how people live, what they value, how they consume, how they work, and how economies evolve. For businesses, this means rethinking what they offer, how they operate, and why they exist. Companies that spot these shifts early and act boldly are the ones that leapfrog competitors, shape new markets, and earn the right to lead.

We explore six megatrends with a 10-year perspective, already shaking up every market. They are the disruptive forces that threaten your existence, but equally your biggest opportunities, superhighways to future possibilities, driving innovation and growth. And then we consider what they mean for your industry. How will they drive reinvention? What are the critical actions for business leaders, and the broader mindset to adopt? And who can we learn from?

Ultimately, the question is what will you do as a business leader – now – to create a better tomorrow, to shape the future that you want, and in which your business can thrive.

Megatrend 1. Exponential Intelligence … business at the speed of thought

By 2035, AI will be embedded in every business process. Intelligent systems will generate over 90% of digital content.

The line between human and machine thinking will blur. Exponential Intelligence represents the rapid acceleration of AI, and the convergence of technologies – in particular genomics, robotics, blockchains and energy storage – and new capabilities such as quantum computing.

AI’s application are profound, from accelerating new personalised medicines to fighting climate change, and new business models that deliver hyper personalisation.

This megatrend signifies a shift from linear progress to exponential possibility, where machines increasingly augment human decisions, also enabling people to add value in new ways. In the future AI will not just support businesses, it will co-create with them.

Companies must embed AI across every core function, from operations to marketing to finance, and develop proprietary models tailored to their domain. Leading firms are reimagining customer experiences through predictive, hyperpersonalised interfaces and training their workforces for human-machine collaboration.

Why does it matter?

  • AI will contribute over $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2035 (PwC).
  • 90% of online content is projected to be AI-generated by 2026 (IBM).
  • Over 40% of all jobs will be impacted by AI and automation (WEF)

What do we need to do?

  • Apply AI models to core business activities to radically transform speed and costs, analysis and development
  • Predict and personalise user interfaces to anticipate customer needs and serve them better and faster
  • Build ecosystem business models to unlock mutual capabilities that capture the best new opportunities for growth.

Who’s doing it?

  • Insilico Medicine: using AI to reinvent the process of drug discovery, development and evaluation, 10 times faster, 100 times cheaper
  • Siemens: co-developing self-optimising autonomous factories using digital twins and AWS infrastructure
  • Duolingo: Language learning reimagined with GPT-powered conversational roleplay, adapting instantly to user fluency and goals.

Megatrend 2. Generational Remix … older, urban, more different and personal

By 2035, society will be older, more urban, more different and personal — and yet also more connected than ever. Businesses must design for diversity, longevity, and identity.

Generational Remix captures the profound social transformation underway: populations are aging rapidly, cities are expanding, and cultural identities are becoming more diverse, fluid, and personal.

This megatrend is about designing for complexity and individuality – where different generations, values, and needs collide and co-create. It also drives fundamentally different support – older people are living longer with more affluence, for leisure and travel. Pensions will need to last longer, and healthcare costs will inevitably rise. Similarly urbanisation drives the reinvention of many services, from education and entertainment to how communities are built, and the rising power of city states.

Businesses must develop inclusive, intergenerational products and services; personalise offerings based on lifestyle rather than age; and embrace cultural plurality in design and communication. Planners must design cities, homes, and brands for 100-year lives, build inclusive, multigenerational workplaces, and address loneliness, mental health, and community. It is also about embedding cultural and demographic diversity into R&D. This is about treating every customer—and employee—not as a demographic, but as a unique human.

Why does it matter?

  • 20% of global population will be over 60 by 2035, more than under 18
  • 68% of the world will live in cities by 2035, and more in single homes
  • 90% of global population growth to 2050 will be in Africa and Asia (UN)

What do we need to do?

  • Develop intergenerational products and services, personalise offerings based on lifestyle and diverse identities
  • Urban planning to design cities, homes, and brands for 100-year lives, build inclusive, multigenerational workplaces
  • Reinvent urban services, from education and entertainment to how communities are built, and the rising power of city states.

Who’s doing it?

  • Philips HealthSuite: Cloud-based health platform for remote care, chronic condition monitoring, and aging-in-place solutions.
  • Nestlé Health Science: Investing in personalised nutrition, gut health, and senior wellness—especially in fast-aging markets.
  • Toyota Woven City: A prototype smart city in Japan designed for autonomous vehicles, robotic assistance, and aging-friendly living.

Megatrend 3. Asian Century … economic shift to the east, and volatility everywhere

Asia is the gravitational centre of global growth. By 2035, most middle-class consumers will live in Asia. The region will lead in innovation, consumption, and complexity.

The Asian Century represents the rebalancing of global economic power towards Asia and the Global South. These regions are not just growth markets—they are innovation hubs, cultural trendsetters, and geopolitical forces reshaping the future.

While Asia’s huge population with increasing disposable income will increasingly dominate the world’s consumer markets, Asia’s businesses have also dramatically shifted from cheap imitators of western goods, to leaping ahead in their application of new technologies, new business models, and innovations.

Businesses must do more than export to Asia—they must co-create in and for Asia, localising products for fast-rising middle classes in Tier 2/3 cities, collaborating with Asian startups, and embedding cultural relevance into innovation. India, Vietnam, Indonesia are popular locations for global R&D hubs. New digital trade corridors (eg RCEP, BRICS+ alliances) are reconfiguring markets.  Superapps like Jio and Grab provide easy access to markets, through collaboration with their ecosystems. But with growth, prepare for volatility.

Why does it matter?

  • Asia will contribute 65% of global GDP growth by 2035 (IMF)
  • Over 50% of global consumer spending will be Asian by then.
  • 83% of global AI-related patents are filed by Asian companies (Wired)

What do we need to do?

  • Seize the Asian market opportunity, finding effective ways to access and compete eg Indonesia, Vietnam, tier 2/3 cities, BRIC trade corridor
  • Localise and co-create with local partners, finding cultural relevance and sourcing and manufacturing locally.
  • Learn from the best Asian companies, who have leapfrogged the west, and are typically the most innovative, agile and efficient in the world.

Who’s doing it?

  • BYD: China’s batteries to EV giant has become the global leader, and in clean energy too
  • Xiaomi: Creating consumer electronic products equal or superior to western peers but 90% cheaper
  • LVMH Asia Studios: Culturally attuned luxury innovation, where Asian consumer no longer want western goods

Megatrend 4. Regenerative Systems … from climate crisis to net positive impact

Climate change is the defining risk and opportunity of our time. But the frontrunners are moving beyond carbon-neutral to climate-positive and nature-regenerating models.

Regenerative Systems is about moving beyond sustainability as damage limitation toward a model that actively restores, replenishes, and reimagines the relationship between business and the planet. With the climate crisis accelerating and ecosystems under pressure, the regenerative economy is a shift from extractive to circular, from carbon-neutral to climate-positive.

The impact however can be even greater when we look beyond carbon – to other materials and resources – in particular, water and biodiversity. It can be greater still when we embrace social and environmental issues together, as they are often systemically connected.

This is when businesses really can reinvent for net positive impact.

Businesses must transition from compliance to leadership—transforming supply chains into regenerative ecosystems, adopting circular design, and tying executive incentives to sustainability performance. This includes decarbonising supply chains with digital ESG tracking, linking executive pay to sustainability goals, restoring biodiversity and natural capital, and creating planet-positive products and services.

Why does it matter?

  • The world’s business systems are still only 6.9% “circular” (IPCC)
  • Clean energy will be 60% of the global energy mix by 2035 (IEA)
  • Embedding the 17 SDGs is worth $12 trillion, and 380 million jobs (UN)

What do we need to do?

  • Develop regenerative business models, going far beyond CSR and ESG, circular and net zero, to create net positive impact
  • Think beyond carbon to embrace other challenges eg biodiversity, water, but also social issues eg equality, fairness, etc
  • Focus innovation on the big problems, AI to address climate change and disease, to create 40% more food, 50% more energy, in new ways

Who’s doing it?

  • Schneider Electric: Helping cities and factories go carbon-neutral through connected, AI-managed energy efficiency platforms.
  • Interface: creating net-positive floor tiles that absorb carbon, creating the “factory as the forest”
  • Nubank: world’s fastest growing bank from Brazil, targeting the unbanked, building financial literacy, reducing poverty, and building inclusion.

Megatrend 5. Multipolar World … geopolitical tension and the end of globalisation

The old model of seamless globalisation is fragmenting. Economic nationalism, digital sovereignty, and supply chain shocks driven by conflicts and tariffs are reshaping business strategy.

Multipolarity marks the end of the unipolar, globalised world as we knew it. With growing geopolitical tensions, trade fragmentation, and inwards facing economic policies, companies are navigating a world of shifting alliances, digital borders, and regional blocs.

By 2035, over 70% of global trade will occur within regional networks. Data sovereignty regulations will be in place in dozens of countries, and supply chains will be redesigned for resilience, not just cost.

Businesses must nearshore manufacturing, create flexible, modular operations, and navigate complex trade relationships with agility and foresight. The reinvention challenge is to build resilience without retreat—balancing localisation with global ambition.

Why does it matter?

  • Global trade as a % of global GDP has declined since 2008 (OECD)
  • By 2035, over 70% of global trade will occur within regional networks
  • 84% of global executives now rate geopolitical as their top risk (McKinsey)

What do we need to do?

  • Redesign supply chains for resilience, agility not cost, nearshoring and partnering closer to customer markets,
  • Diversify your global spread of markets and operations, to spread risk and be more responsive to change.
  • Address data sovereignty, and other issues such as IP protection, regulation, cybersecurity, with foresight and influence.

Who’s doing it?

  • Apple: Accelerating iPhone and chip production in India to diversify away from China, including flagship stores in Mumbai and Delhi.
  • Inditex: Strengthening local production in Europe and the Americas to respond faster and reduce geopolitical exposure.
  • Flexport: Creating tech tools to reroute and de-risk global supply chains in real-time amid fragmentation and shocks.

Megatrend 6. Humanity Rising … more purposeful, caring and collective progress

The most powerful force in business is the human one. Trust, wellbeing, meaning, and social contribution are now core to business strategy.

Humanity Rising is a movement toward putting people and purpose at the heart of business. It reflects a shift from transactional to meaningful work, from shareholder primacy to stakeholder ecosystems, and from short-term profit to long-term wellbeing.

As automation, and specifically AI, takes on the repetitive tasks of many workflows, business need to redesign human roles for more added value.

Companies must rewire culture around empathy, trust, and meaning; invest in human-centred leadership; and design work for life, not just productivity.

By 2035, businesses that lead on purpose and wellbeing will significantly outperform their peers. Mental health will be a core performance metric, and the human experience of work—flexibility, autonomy, growth—will shape loyalty and innovation.

Humanocracy calls for ”organisations as amazing as the people inside them”. Microsoft’s Satya Nadella recognised this calling for his organisation to be a platform to showcase each person’s unique talents, to let them achieve their ambitions, rather than just being the cog in the works of a corporate machine.

Why does it matter?

  • Purpose-driven brands grow 2.5x faster than average brands (WARC)
  • 77% of GenZ seek meaningful work, and buy meaningful brands (McKinsey)
  • AI augmentation is likely to improve human productivity by 40% by 2035

What do we need to do?

  • Create purposeful business strategies, that turn purpose into real action and delivers better progress – profitable growth and positive impact.
  • Redesign for human added value so that technology automates processes, releasing people to achieve more
  • Build organisations as amazing as the people inside them: empowering, democratic, enabling, caring, dynamic, resilient and daring.

Who’s doing it?

  • Danone: Legally binding mission-driven governance (B Corp), in its shift from food to becoming a health business
  • Salesforce: Flexibility, purpose, ethics as a platform, mental health through “Success from Anywhere” strategy
  • Mindera: Portuguese software “made by humans” … people-first culture fostering innovation through community, autonomy, and trust.

How megatrends drive business reinvention

Every industry is being reinvented.

These 6 megatrends create a perfect storm of technological breakthroughs, shifting consumer expectations, environmental imperatives, and economic uncertainty that are driving radical transformation across every sector. The boundaries between industries are blurring, value is migrating to new models and ecosystems, and the winners of tomorrow are being shaped today.

From automotive to insurance, banking to retail, energy to healthcare, established players face existential pressure to change. Legacy systems, slow-moving cultures, and risk-averse mindsets are being outpaced by fast, bold innovators—companies that use data, AI, and platform thinking to deliver better, smarter, more sustainable solutions. Tesla isn’t just a car company. Amazon isn’t just a retailer. They’re both operating systems for the future.

Disruptors are emerging from every corner of the globe—scaling faster, experimenting more aggressively, and harnessing the power of technology to solve meaningful problems.

These next generation leaders are obsessed with what’s next. They blend purpose and profit, long-term impact and short-term agility. But incumbents aren’t out of the race. The most forward-looking are reinventing themselves, acquiring new capabilities, and unlocking value from their intangible assets—brand, trust, ecosystems, and intelligence.

The next five years will be decisive. Growth will come not from doing more of the same, but from reimagining what’s possible—through smart automation, regenerative design, AI-powered personalization, and bold new business models. The winners will be those who stretch their vision, embrace uncertainty, and build for the future—not the past.

Reinventing Automotive

When Lei Jun unveiled the SU7 electric supercar from his smartphone maker Xiaomi, with comparable features but over 90% cheaper than a Porsche Taycan, we knew the industry was not just being disrupted, but fundamentally reinvented. No longer just about horsepower and design, the future of cars became about software, autonomy, and energy ecosystems. Disruptors like Tesla, BYD, and Rivian are redefining mobility, while incumbents like GM and VW scramble to catch up. The future belongs to firms that can merge electric drivetrains with data-driven intelligence, build direct customer relationships, and plug into renewable grids.

  • Key Drivers: EV revolution, autonomy, mobility-as-a-service
  • Disruptors: Tesla, BYD, Rivian, Waymo, Nio, Xiaomi
  • Incumbents: VW and Hyundai invest heavily in EVs and batteries; GM pivots toward all-electric by 2035
  • Future Winners: Tesla remains dominant due to its integrated energy + mobility model; Chinese EV players like BYD are poised to lead on affordability and scale; Apple and Sony may emerge through software-first approaches
  • Growth Areas: EVs, autonomous fleets, in-car software, subscription mobility
  • Outlook: $5T transformation underway; platforms and ecosystems will define winners

Reinventing Banking

In Brazil, David Vélez launched Nubank to free people from bureaucratic, fee-heavy traditional banks. With nothing more than a smartphone and a smile, customers signed up for accounts in minutes. Nubank now serves over 90 million users. Fintechs are rewriting the rules with embedded finance, AI risk models, and crypto rails. Traditional banks must become platforms, not fortresses. Future leaders will be those who turn trust, data, and user experience into intelligent financial ecosystems.

  • Key Drivers: Fintech, AI, blockchain, real-time services
  • Disruptors: Nubank, Revolut, Stripe, Square, DeFi
  • Incumbents: JPMorgan and DBS investing in AI, APIs, and sustainability-linked finance
  • Future Winners: Digital-first, customer-centric, embedded finance providers that turn financial services into frictionless tools
  • Growth Areas: AI-enabled wealth tools, crypto custody, sustainable lending
  • Outlook: Banking becomes invisible, embedded in lifestyle

Reinventing Construction

Using 3D printing, Icon built a house in 24 hours using a giant robotic arm and a special concrete blend—radically reducing time, cost, and environmental impact. This illustrates the kind of breakthrough needed in a notoriously slow-moving industry. Innovation now means modular, smart, and zero-carbon construction. Giants like Skanska are investing in digital twins and low-carbon cement. Winners will combine automation, green design, and tech-savvy talent to transform how we build the future.

  • Key Drivers: Green buildings, modular methods, robotics
  • Disruptors: Icon (3D printing), Katerra (prefab), CarbonCure (CO2 tech)
  • Incumbents: Skanska, Bouygues, Holcim, and Turner adopting digital twins and zero-carbon materials
  • Future Winners: Tech-integrated construction firms that deliver faster, cleaner, cheaper buildings; smart infrastructure providers
  • Growth Areas: Smart cities, digital twins, sustainable housing
  • Outlook: $1T green retrofit and smart build opportunity

Reinventing Energy

Octopus Energy is disrupting utilities by putting customers at the heart of a clean energy revolution—offering dynamic pricing, transparency, and rapid green energy switching. In an industry long dominated by giant incumbents, it proved agility can win. The transition to net zero, powered by solar, wind, hydrogen, and AI-managed grids, is accelerating. Winners will not just produce energy, but orchestrate energy flows, storage, and demand across intelligent, decentralised networks.

  • Key Drivers: Decarbonization, decentralization, storage
  • Disruptors: Tesla Energy, Octopus Energy, Vestas, Climeworks
  • Incumbents: Shell, TotalEnergies, and BP redefining themselves as energy transition companies
  • Future Winners: Companies that integrate solar, wind, storage, and smart grids into unified platforms
  • Growth Areas: Renewables, green hydrogen, carbon capture, virtual power plants
  • Outlook: Clean energy to dominate mix by 2030; trillion-dollar opportunity

Reinventing Entertainment

When Roblox went public, it revealed that kids were spending more time building and playing in virtual worlds than watching TV. Entertainment is no longer passive—it’s immersive, participatory, and social. New models powered by creators, fans, and algorithms are dominating, as traditional studios play catch-up. Netflix disrupted distribution; now AI and generative content are the new frontiers. Winners will build platforms that blend content, community, and co-creation.

  • Key Drivers: Streaming, gaming, AI content, creator economy
  • Disruptors: Netflix, Epic Games, Roblox, TikTok
  • Incumbents: Disney+ reinvention; Warner Bros. bets on streaming + IP
  • Future Winners: Firms that merge entertainment, social engagement, and immersive tech; those who own IP and fan relationships
  • Growth Areas: AI-generated content, gamified storytelling, AR/VR
  • Outlook: Creator platforms to become dominant media forces

Reinventing Fashion

Pangaia isn’t just a fashion brand—it’s a material science company using seaweed fibers and bacteria-based dyes to reinvent sustainable clothing. Fashion is being reshaped by digital identities, circular design, and transparent supply chains. Fast fashion disruptors like Shein use real-time data and micro-inventory, while luxury players are experimenting with resale and digital fashion. Future winners will merge purpose with personalization, creating garments that are smart, sustainable, and story-driven.

  • Key Drivers: Sustainability, digital fashion, circularity
  • Disruptors: Shein, ThredUp, Pangaia, DressX
  • Incumbents: LVMH and Zara building closed-loop supply chains and digital experiences
  • Future Winners: Brands that mix identity, impact, and innovation; digital-native and circular-first businesses
  • Growth Areas: Resale, AI design, bio-materials, virtual clothing
  • Outlook: Fashion shifts from volume to value, driven by tech + conscience

Reinventing Food and Drink

At NotCo, AI named Giuseppe creates plant-based versions of animal products by analyzing molecular similarities. It made mayo, milk, and meat that taste like the real thing—but aren’t. This signals a shift toward food as software: designed, personalized, and planetary. The food revolution is being driven by sustainability, health, and technology. Giants like Nestlé are investing in alt-proteins. Winners will feed the future with science, values, and delicious innovation.

  • Key Drivers: Health, sustainability, transparency
  • Disruptors: Beyond Meat, Oatly, NotCo, Upside Foods
  • Incumbents: Nestlé and Unilever invest in plant-based and direct-to-consumer (DTC) platforms
  • Future Winners: Brands that align with planetary and personal health; those who digitize the food chain
  • Growth Areas: Alt protein, fermentation tech, personalized nutrition
  • Outlook: $300B alt-protein industry by 2030; data becomes the key ingredient

Reinventing Healthcare

During the COVID-19 pandemic, BioNTech—once a little-known biotech firm—partnered with Pfizer to deliver a vaccine in record time using mRNA technology. It was a moonshot moment. Healthcare is being reinvented through genomics, AI, and patient-centric platforms. Startups like Tempus and Babylon offer predictive care and digital diagnoses, while incumbents digitize clinical pathways. Future leaders will move from treating illness to preventing it—personalized, predictive, and precision-driven.

  • Key Drivers: AI, genomics, personalized medicine
  • Disruptors: Tempus, BioNTech, 23andMe, Babylon Health
  • Incumbents: Pfizer, Novartis and Roche embed AI across drug discovery and diagnostics
  • Future Winners: Companies delivering preventive, digital, and personalized care at scale
  • Growth Areas: AI drug discovery, wearable diagnostics, gene therapies
  • Outlook: From reactive to proactive care; multi-trillion-dollar ecosystem

Reinventing Insurance

Lemonade turned heads by settling some claims in under 3 seconds, using AI and behavioral economics. It proved insurance doesn’t have to be slow, opaque, or distrusted. Climate volatility and shifting lifestyles demand real-time, proactive coverage. Incumbents like Munich Re are adapting with prevention-as-a-service. The winners will anticipate, not just insure—embedding risk reduction, AI insights, and customer trust into everything.

  • Key Drivers: Risk prevention, personalization, AI pricing
  • Disruptors: Lemonade, Zego, FloodFlash, Trōv
  • Incumbents: AXA and Munich Re building smart risk platforms and climate resilience tools
  • Future Winners: Insurers who evolve into risk-reduction partners powered by real-time data
  • Growth Areas: Parametric insurance, embedded models, prevention-as-a-service
  • Outlook: Reinvention from safety net to proactive value provider

Reinventing Manufacturing

Relativity Space is using 3D printing to make rockets—95% fewer parts, far faster iterations. It’s a symbol of manufacturing’s new age: flexible, intelligent, and software-defined. Automation, IoT, and AI are transforming everything from design to delivery. Legacy players like Siemens and GE are embracing digital twins. The factories of the future will be smart, sustainable, and continuously learning.

  • Key Drivers: Industry 4.0, robotics, sustainability
  • Disruptors: Relativity Space, Xometry, Vention
  • Incumbents: Siemens, GE, and Bosch digitizing supply chains and factory floors
  • Future Winners: Agile, hyper-automated, sustainable manufacturers with digital cores
  • Growth Areas: Smart factories, additive manufacturing, nearshoring
  • Outlook: $1T+ productivity gains from intelligent manufacturing

Reinventing Retail

Shopify gave small businesses global reach with a few clicks—and now powers millions of storefronts. Retail is shifting from stores to ecosystems, driven by social commerce, AI curation, and instant fulfillment. Amazon, Temu, and ThredUp are reshaping expectations. Incumbents must combine digital agility with deep human insight. The next winners will create seamless, personalized, and values-based retail experiences.

  • Key Drivers: Omnichannel, AI personalization, circularity
  • Disruptors: Amazon, Shopify, Temu, ThredUp
  • Incumbents: Walmart and Target investing in AI, last-mile, experiential retail
  • Future Winners: Ecosystem retailers blending physical, digital, and sustainable offerings
  • Growth Areas: Social commerce, live shopping, AI recommendation engines
  • Outlook: Retail = technology; brand trust + data + delivery = competitive edge

Reinventing Technology

When OpenAI released ChatGPT, it stunned the world—and ignited an AI arms race. Technology is the force multiplier of every transformation. AI, quantum, chips, and decentralised platforms are reshaping what’s possible. Disruptors like DeepMind and Anthropic push the frontiers, while incumbents like Microsoft integrate AI into everything. The winners will be ecosystem architects, building the foundations of a superintelligent, secure, and inclusive digital world.

  • Key Drivers: AI, cloud, quantum, cybersecurity
  • Disruptors: OpenAI, DeepMind, Anthropic, Nvidia
  • Incumbents: Microsoft and Google integrating GenAI across platforms
  • Future Winners: Platform-native firms owning data, chips, and AI layers
  • Growth Areas: GenAI, autonomous agents, AI operating systems
  • Outlook: Tech drives all other industries; $10T+ value shift imminent

Reinventing Telecoms

Starlink launched satellites fast enough to beam high-speed internet to war zones and remote villages alike. It showed how agile, hardware-software integrated telecom can leapfrog legacy infrastructure. With 5G, edge computing, and AI, telecom is evolving into a platform for everything—especially B2B. The leaders will connect not just people, but machines, data, and intelligence.

  • Key Drivers: 5G, private networks, AI-managed ops
  • Disruptors: Starlink, Rakuten Mobile, Helium Network
  • Incumbents: AT&T, BT, and Orange reposition as digital service providers
  • Future Winners: Providers offering integrated connectivity, intelligence, and cloud-edge infrastructure
  • Growth Areas: Satellite internet, B2B 5G, telecom-as-a-platform
  • Outlook: Telcos reinvent as enablers of digital society

Reinventing Travel

Airbnb changed not just where we stay—but how we experience the world. It made travel more local, personal, and flexible. Now, the rise of conscious travelers, nomadic workers, and immersive tech is redefining journeys. EcoHotels and digital nomad platforms are growing fast. Future winners will offer sustainable, seamless, and soul-nourishing travel—with data-driven personalisation and low-impact design.

  • Key Drivers: Sustainable tourism, remote work, personalization
  • Disruptors: Airbnb, Boom, Hopper, Nomadic, EcoHotels
  • Incumbents: Marriott and Accor push eco-design, digital concierge, loyalty platforms
  • Future Winners: Brands offering flexible, immersive, low-impact experiences
  • Growth Areas: Bleisure (business + leisure), digital nomad services, green destinations
  • Outlook: Travel reimagined around purpose, data, and experience.

Building a megatrend mindset

What the 6 megatrends share is a combination of inevitability and complexity.

They unfold over years, even decades, but their effects are accelerating. They create new winners and losers, and they require a mindset that is radically different from the one that dominated business in the past.

Traditional business thinking is rooted in linear assumptions, efficiency optimization, and incremental growth. But megatrends don’t follow linear rules. They interact with one another in unpredictable ways. They often create inflection points—sudden, nonlinear changes—that disrupt even the most well-defended industries.

Just consider how the fusion of mobile technology, social platforms, and AI enabled the rise of entirely new business models like Uber, and then TikTok which is as much about entertainment and shopping as networking. And over the last 18 months, AI platforms like ChatGPT have accelerated rapidly to challenge the very existence of the likes of Google.

In this environment, the most dangerous mindset is one of stability and control. The world no longer rewards those who cling to certainty or simply extrapolate the past forward. Instead, it favours those who embrace perpetual reinvention—those who can sense, adapt, and act at the speed of change.

To do that, leaders need to cultivate what we might call a “megatrend mindset”—a deep awareness of the forces reshaping the world, combined with the humility to question assumptions, the curiosity to explore what’s emerging, and the courage to make bold moves before the path is clear.

What Is a Megatrend Mindset?

A megatrend mindset is not just a set of insights or predictions—it’s a new operating philosophy for how leaders think, decide, and lead in uncertainty. It is defined by several key shifts:

  • From short-term to long-view thinking: Leaders must look beyond quarterly targets and focus on building future-fit businesses. This means identifying long-term opportunities and investing in capabilities that align with where the world is going—not just where it is now.
  • From control to navigating complexity: Instead of trying to manage complexity away, leaders must learn to navigate it. This includes using systems thinking, scenario planning. Strategies become more directional and agile, as embiguity and uncertainty are part of normality.
  • From optimisation to reinventing everything: Efficiency alone won’t drive tomorrow’s growth. Reinvention does. Leaders must be willing to rethink their business model, reshape their value proposition, and reimagine their entire organisations and ecosystems for how they deliver impact—over and over again.
  • From fixed expertise to dynamic learning: Expertise is becoming perishable. What matters more is learning agility—the ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn faster than the pace of change. A megatrend mindset fosters a culture of exploration, experimentation, and continuous growth.
  • From reactive to proactive transformation: Waiting for change to hit before acting is a losing strategy. The megatrend mindset pushes organizations to lead change—to shape emerging markets, experiment with new models, and continually challenge their own relevance.

Why This Mindset Matters Now

The world is entering a new era where change is not just fast—it’s relentless.

As technologies compound, environmental pressures intensify, and social expectations shift, the gap between what businesses are and what they need to become is growing wider. Those that fail to evolve will fall behind. Those that embrace change will define the next generation of value creation.

Companies like DSM have learnt to continually reinvent themselves – from Dutch coal mining to chemicals to lifesciences – or Fujifilm – from camera film to medical imaging to cosmetics and personalised medicines.

India’s Jio superapp was born out Reliance, a petrochemical giant seeking to diversify, beyond industrial markets. It built a lifestyle brand, built an ecosystem of connected services, and then a payments platform, to capture the wallets of a billion consumers.

Even legacy giants like Microsoft and Schneider Electric have transformed themselves by aligning deeply with sustainability, cloud, and AI megatrends.

The lesson is clear: Reinvention is not a one-off event. It is a mindset, a discipline, and a continuous act of strategic courage.

A Megatrend Mindset applied to business is in reality a Reinvention Mindset.

How to Lead with a Megatrend Mindset

For leaders looking to build this mindset into their organisation, here are some actions to consider:

  • Scan broadly, think deeply: Build a habit of horizon scanning—actively tracking megatrends across sectors, geographies, and disciplines. Then connect the dots to your business.
  • Reimagine your core assumptions: Regularly challenge the core beliefs that underpin your strategy. Ask: What if they’re no longer true?
  • Build strategic foresight capacity: Equip teams with tools like scenarios, futures thinking, and trend mapping to make uncertainty a source of advantage.
  • Invest in transformative innovation: Go beyond incremental improvement. Explore bold ideas, fund experiments, and build partnerships at the edges of your ecosystem.
  • Develop future-fit talent: Prioritize skills like creativity, critical thinking, and digital fluency—traits essential for navigating complexity.
  • Lead with purpose and resilience: Anchor your organization in a clear purpose that aligns with societal needs, while building the agility to adapt as the context changes.

How will you lead your future?

In a world where megatrends are reshaping everything, the biggest risk is not disruption—it’s irrelevance. The future will not be inherited by the largest or the strongest, but by those who are the most adaptable, visionary, and bold. Developing a megatrend mindset isn’t optional—it’s essential.

For business leaders, this is a moment of truth. Will you merely react to change—or lead it? Will you wait for the future to arrive—or help shape it?

The answer will define not just your next quarter, but your next decade.

Welcome to the age of reinvention.

More from Peter Fisk:

In an era when the boundaries between physical and digital are blurring, the publishing industry stands at a crossroads. For centuries, it has been dominated by linear supply chains: authors write, publishers print, distributors ship, and retailers sell.

Yet, despite technological advances, many publishers still operate on a model that is inherently speculative — printing tens of thousands of copies and hoping they find their readers. Unsold books are often pulped, shipping emissions balloon, and the costs and inefficiencies pile up. Enter Henrik Müller-Hansen and his company Gelato, a Norwegian-born entrepreneurial force whose vision for the future of publishing could be summed up in one phrase: “The Spotify of Books.”

A New Vision for an Old Industry

Müller-Hansen is not your typical tech CEO. With roots in Norway and a professional background starting with Tele2, digital services, and logistics, he has always been fascinated by platforms and networks — systems that connect supply to demand in ways that are efficient, scalable, and intelligent. In 2007, he founded Gelato with a bold ambition: to reimagine how physical products are created, distributed, and consumed, starting with print.

The problem Henrik identified was simple yet profound. Traditional publishing is linear and centralised. Large print runs mean wasted materials, costly warehousing, and logistical headaches. Authors and publishers are forced to gamble on demand, and small-scale creators often have no access to global distribution. Henrik saw an opportunity to apply the principles of the digital age to the physical world, turning printing into a platform-enabled service that is local, on-demand, and data-driven.

“The future of production must be local, on-demand, and zero inventory,” Henrik says, reflecting a Scandinavian ethos of sustainability married to a Silicon Valley understanding of scale.

Gelato’s model is deceptively simple: instead of shipping books from one centralised factory across the globe, the platform connects creators and publishers to local print partners in over 30 countries. When a reader places an order, the nearest partner prints and ships the book. This approach is faster, cheaper, and far more environmentally friendly than the traditional model.

The Power of the Platform

The genius of Gelato lies in its platform. It does not own vast factories or massive warehouses. Instead, it orchestrates a network of hundreds of professional print partners around the world, from Europe to Africa to Asia. By doing so, it achieves a trifecta that publishers have long sought but rarely attained: scale, speed, and sustainability.

Consider the experience of a reader in Nairobi ordering a new biography. Rather than waiting weeks for a book to arrive from London or New York, it is produced locally and delivered in days. Meanwhile, a teacher in Cairo can order textbooks tailored to their students’ curriculum and receive them without shipping costs or customs delays. The impact on carbon emissions is dramatic — often reduced by up to 90 per cent — while local printers gain access to a global customer base.

Gelato is essentially creating a distributed cloud for physical production. The comparison with Spotify is apt: just as Spotify gives music creators access to a global audience without producing vinyl or CDs, Gelato allows publishers and authors to reach readers worldwide without physically overproducing. The books exist digitally until demand calls them into existence, bridging the gap between digital immediacy and physical tangibility.

Empowering Publishers and Creators

Henrik’s vision is not limited to logistics; it is also about creativity, empowerment, and inclusion. Gelato’s platform integrates with e-commerce tools such as Shopify, Etsy, and WooCommerce, as well as traditional publishing workflows. It allows publishers — both independent and established — to produce books, merchandise, and other printed media on demand.

For creators, this is transformative. Imagine a small press launching a new poetry collection. Instead of risking tens of thousands of pounds on an uncertain print run, they can upload the manuscript to Gelato, and the platform takes care of printing, shipping, and tracking, wherever the readers are. Authors can also test new markets, customise editions, and even personalise books for individual buyers.

Henrik calls it “the Spotify moment for printed content”. Just as streaming liberated musicians from physical constraints and gatekeepers, Gelato liberates authors and publishers from inventory risk and geographical limits. It shifts the industry from a model of scarcity to one of access, immediacy, and responsiveness.

The Digital Product Pass: Traceability Meets Transparency

One of the most forward-looking innovations from Gelato is the Digital Product Pass, developed with the help of Dominik Haacke. This concept gives every printed product a digital identity — a unique, trackable record of where, when, and how it was produced.

A digital product pass can include:

  • Production data — the printer, location, and date.

  • Material and sustainability information — recycled paper, energy use, and carbon savings.

  • Ownership and authenticity verification — critical for limited editions or collectibles.

For publishers, this adds a layer of intelligence and accountability. Readers can engage with the story behind the book, seeing how it was made and how it impacts the planet. Educational institutions can ensure textbooks meet regulatory or sustainability standards. And publishers can use the data to refine strategies, optimise production, and demonstrate corporate responsibility.

“It is about making the invisible visible,” Henrik explains. “Every book, every printed product, tells a story. The digital product pass ensures that story is transparent, traceable, and valuable.”

Sustainability at Scale

Gelato’s vision is deeply rooted in sustainability. Unlike initiatives that rely solely on offsets or donations, Gelato integrates environmental responsibility into the core business model. Local production reduces shipping emissions. On-demand printing eliminates waste. Digital workflows streamline processes.

The result is a profitable, regenerative system that aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Publishers reduce costs, creators reach more readers, and the planet benefits. In Henrik’s words, “sustainability is not a constraint — it is a competitive advantage.”

For the publishing industry, this model represents a radical shift. Where once environmental considerations were secondary to economics, now efficiency and impact are synonymous. The global network becomes a circular ecosystem, where resources are used responsibly, and every printed copy has purpose.

AI, Automation, and the Creator Economy

Gelato is not stopping at localised production. The platform is increasingly integrating AI and automation to help creators design, format, and personalise their work. Publishers can automatically generate book layouts, experiment with cover designs, and even personalise editions for individual readers.

This is particularly relevant in the era of the creator economy. Just as YouTube or Patreon enabled independent artists to monetise their work directly, Gelato gives writers, illustrators, and small publishers global reach without intermediaries. It is an ecosystem where creation, production, and distribution are seamlessly connected, guided by data, and optimised by AI.

For Henrik, this is about democratising access. Independent authors in Latin America, Africa, or Southeast Asia can now compete on the same playing field as traditional publishing giants. Their books are no longer bound by geography, inventory, or capital. They exist digitally until readers demand them physically — and then they come alive.

Transforming the Supply Chain

The traditional publishing supply chain has long been linear and opaque. Gelato’s platform transforms it into something circular, intelligent, and responsive. By capturing data on demand, production, and delivery, publishers can adapt instantly. Popular titles can be scaled globally. Limited print runs can reach specific markets. And unsold inventory — once a financial and environmental burden — is eliminated.

This model also gives publishers a new tool: insights-driven strategy. By analysing which regions, editions, or formats perform best, publishers can make informed decisions in near real-time. The era of guesswork is ending; in its place is a data-driven, agile publishing ecosystem.

A New Era for Books

What Gelato offers is more than efficiency; it is a cultural and structural transformation. Books become fluid, local, sustainable, and connected. Every edition carries not just words but a story of creation, impact, and connection. Authors can reach readers everywhere. Publishers can experiment without risk. Readers can engage with the production journey.

In Henrik’s vision, every printed book becomes part of a dynamic ecosystem, seamlessly linked to the digital world and governed by principles of transparency, sustainability, and accessibility. It is a vision that reimagines what publishing can be in the 21st century — a vision in which the physical and digital co-exist, intelligently and responsibly.

Here are several lessons for publishers facing disruption:

  • Think Platform, Not Factory: Physical production can be orchestrated like a digital service, with global reach and local execution.

  • Embrace On-Demand Models: Inventory is costly, wasteful, and environmentally damaging. Producing only what is needed creates efficiency and flexibility.

  • Leverage Data and AI: Analytics and automation enable smarter design, production, and distribution decisions.

  • Embed Sustainability in Core Strategy: Environmental responsibility is no longer optional; it can drive innovation, brand value, and customer loyalty.

  • Empower Creators Everywhere: Democratising access to production and distribution opens new markets, audiences, and revenue streams.

These principles are not abstract; they are actionable strategies that are already reshaping publishing, education, and creative industries worldwide.

The Future of Gelato 

Looking ahead, Gelato’s ambitions are expansive. The platform is exploring 3D and on-demand manufacturing beyond print, creating products that are customised, traceable, and sustainable. AI-assisted design tools are becoming increasingly sophisticated, allowing creators to visualise concepts, test ideas, and produce them seamlessly.

Henrik’s long-term vision is to build the world’s production cloud — a system where ideas, whether a book, a poster, or a piece of merchandise, can move from conception to creation anywhere, instantly, and responsibly. For the publishing industry, this represents a radical redefinition of what a book is, how it is produced, and how it reaches readers.

As Henrik puts it: “We are creating the infrastructure for a new kind of publishing. One that is global, local, intelligent, and sustainable. One that gives every creator the tools to reach their audience, and every reader the transparency to understand the story behind what they hold.”

The Spotify Moment for Books

The analogy with Spotify is more than metaphorical. Just as Spotify turned music into a service that is immediate, personalised, and accessible worldwide, Gelato is turning books into products that are on-demand, traceable, and globally accessible. Authors, publishers, and readers are connected in a network that values efficiency, sustainability, and creativity equally.

Henrik Müller-Hansen’s Gelato is proving that the future of publishing is not about centralised factories, pulped inventory, or speculative print runs. It is about platforms, data, and responsible production. It is about reimagining books as living products, dynamically created, locally produced, and globally distributed. It is about making the invisible visible, from carbon savings to production stories.

In the 21st century, the book is no longer bound by paper and ink alone. It exists in a digital-physical hybrid ecosystem, enabled by visionaries like Henrik Müller-Hansen and platforms like Gelato. For readers, authors, and publishers alike, it is the Spotify moment for books — a transformative leap that could reshape the industry for generations to come.

“Fall in love at Umpqua Bank … We want our customers to be really really happy” is not the proposition you’d expect from a bank.

There was more. “Spread some good (the world always needs more)”. And “Reinvest in yourself” as a rework of taking out a loan.  Is there any other bank in the world where you would consider buying a branded t-shirt or baseball cap?

The River Umpqua weaves through the deep forests and rugged canyons of Oregon State. This is the land of lumberjacks, and in 1953 the South Umpqua State Bank was founded to serve the people of Canyonville. In 40 years it grew to a mighty six branches and assets of $150m, until the logging industry fell into decline, and the CEO died.

Then, under Ray Davis’s leadership Umpqua did something strange and brave: it treated the branch not as a cost centre or a vault but as a stage, a neighbourhood living room, a place for discovery and human connection.

Umpqua’s branches looked and felt like boutique retail stores — with coffee bars, events, local art, and employees whose job descriptions read more like hosts than tellers.

The bank called its approach “retail theatre” and it became shorthand for a broader thesis: in a world of commoditised financial services and relentless digital innovation, physical spaces could become a differentiator if they were reimagined as centres of community, support for local business and human-centred service.

That vision — a blend of Gap-like modern retail design, Starbucks-style community space, and Ritz-Carlton service standards — helped the bank grow beyond Oregon into California, Washington, Nevada and Idaho. It attracted attention from business writers, design thinkers and bankers alike.

But the Umpqua story is not a simple arc of triumph. Over the last decade the bank moved from insurgent icon to acquisition target, through leadership change and a shifting set of strategic priorities. The experiment’s distinctive features — the events, the coffee, the curated local partnerships — were gradually diluted as the forces that shape modern banking asserted themselves: scale-driven M&A, harder regulatory economics, shareholder expectations and the inexorable pressure to simplify operations for digital integration.

In the end, Umpqua’s name and the attributes that made it a case study in experience-driven banking were folded into something larger and more conventional.

What Umpqua did that felt so new and why it captured imaginations; how the bank evolved through acquisitions and leadership transitions; the decisions and market realities that eroded its distinctive model; and the merger and rebranding that now raise the question: what happens to an experiment in human-centred banking when the institution is subsumed into a bigger, more efficiency-driven entity?

Umpqua’s big idea

When Ray Davis arrived at the tiny South Umpqua State Bank in the 1990s, he set a conviction in motion: banks are not just financial utilities; they are cultural actors. Davis and his team overlaid the language of retail design, hospitality and community programming onto standard banking services.

Branches became “stores.” Staff were “store managers” and “ambassadors.” Lobbies hosted art shows, talks, music nights and workshops for local entrepreneurs. Free coffee and comfortable seating invited people to stay; relationship banking replaced anonymous transactions.

The physical experience was backed by investments in technology and a modern approach to products, but the front-end theatre was the signal that Umpqua wanted to be a different kind of bank. This was not greenwashing; it was a deliberate reallocation of the branch’s purpose.

The model worked on multiple levels. First, it made the brand local and memorable. Umpqua’s stores became places where people ran into their neighbors, discovered a maker’s pop-up, or learned about small business tools — and for many customers that generated loyalty and virality in a field that had grown homogenised. Second, it attracted entrepreneurial employees who wanted to host events and “curate” experiences rather than simply process transactions. Third, for a while, the model created commercial advantage: customers who felt part of the store were stickier, and the bank’s expansion into select markets rode a narrative of differentiated customer experience.

Umpqua also extended its reach through strategic acquisitions that maintained a degree of local autonomy while adding scale — a measure of how the bank tried to have both cultural authenticity and corporate growth.

In a broader context, Umpqua’s model resonated because it represented an answer to a recurring problem in finance: how do you create human connection in a commoditised industry where pricing and digital convenience are table stakes? The bank’s proposition was: lean into place and people. For a moment, Umpqua was taught in business schools and admired by brand strategists: the branch had become a product unto itself.

Expansion, and the cost of growth

Success attracts opportunity — and complexity. As Umpqua grew, it pursued acquisitions that materially expanded its footprint. A notable example was the 2014 acquisition of Sterling Financial Corporation, which nearly doubled the bank’s Washington presence and increased branches and assets significantly. The pattern continued: incremental buys and strategic entries into new markets.

Growth by acquisition is a familiar path in banking; it gives market share and scale, but it also brings integration challenges and cultural friction. Maintaining the Umpqua flavor across an enlarged, geographically diverse set of branches proved difficult. Integrating different systems, harmonising brand expectations and managing cost structures are classic M&A headaches; for a bank whose value proposition hinged on distinct, locally curated experiences, those headaches were acute.

Consolidation also changes incentives. When a bank’s balance sheet and shareholder base reach a certain size, the pressure to show steady returns grows. Cost-to-income ratios, capital management, regulatory compliance and investor expectations become dominant voices at the management table. Experiments in live events, locally sourced coffee and art programming are expensive to scale and difficult to measure in the short term against traditional ROI metrics.

The cultural initiatives that were once front-and-centre could be deprioritised when profits, operating leverage and efficiency metrics take precedence. That dynamic is not unique to Umpqua, but it explains why the very features that made the bank interesting are among the first to be trimmed during phases of rapid growth or cost rationalisation.

Leadership, from founder energy to corporate stewardship

Leadership transitions change tone and priorities. Ray Davis moved from CEO to executive chair in 2017 and formally retired in early 2018. Cort O’Haver had taken over operational leadership in 2017, and subsequent years saw the bank under new executives who faced the hard work of scaling while meeting market expectations.

Founders often provide disproportionate energy, tolerance for experimentation and a willingness to accept short-term trade-offs for long-term brand building; successors, especially in the public markets, are often more attentive to the metrics that investors focus on. That shift from founder-led insurgency to stewarded growth is a common turning point in corporate life, and for Umpqua it coincided with the broader industry forces pushing toward FTE (full-time equivalent) efficiencies and digital prioritisation.

There’s a human dimension to this, too. Many of the branch-level employees who felt empowered under the earlier regime found the new emphasis on standardisation and integration less energising. The same is true for local customers who bought into the “store” personality: over time, as systems, branding and product rationalisation took hold, those experiences could feel more templated and less locally curated.

Digital reality and the changing economics of branches

While championing branches as community hubs, Umpqua also invested in digital capabilities. But the economics of banking were shifting faster than anyone anticipated. Consumers adopted mobile banking in huge numbers; simple transactions migrated away from physical locations; regulatory, compliance and security costs rose; and the macroeconomic environment — including interest rate cycles — altered net interest margins. In this environment, banks needed scale and operational efficiency to sustain both branch networks and digital investments. For many regional banks, the answer was consolidation: merge to gain scale, rationalise overlapping branches, standardise platforms, and push more customers to lower-cost digital channels.

For Umpqua, the quandary was clear: maintain the theatrical branch investment and its attendant costs, or scale and streamline to remain competitive in a consolidating market. The bank tried to do both — but doing both is expensive, and sometime compromises become permanent. Events programs shrink, local staff get fewer resources, curated partnerships wane. The frisson that made Umpqua’s stores different is fragile; it depends on discretionary investment, local autonomy and a brand narrative that management continues to prioritise even when capital allocation choices are tight.

The merger with Columbia: rationale and consequences

In October 2021 Umpqua announced a merger with Tacoma-based Columbia Banking System, a deal valued at approximately $5.2 billion. The logic was straightforward on paper: combine two regional players to create a West Coast franchise with broader scale and a bigger balance sheet to compete with larger peers. The merger closed in early 2023 after regulatory approvals and certain divestitures required by the Department of Justice. Post-merger, the combined entity managed more than $50 billion in assets and operated under Columbia’s holding company, though the banking operations continued for a time under the Umpqua trade name in many markets.

Mergers of this kind are rarely purely about brand salvation; they are about capital, scale, market share and diversification. Columbia, headquartered in Tacoma, brought its own identity and governance priorities. The combined firm now had a different set of corporate imperatives: integration of platforms, branch rationalisation, harmonisation of product lines and the pursuit of efficiency synergies. For Umpqua’s devotees — customers, employees, and observers — the question was whether Columbia would preserve Umpqua’s distinctive community-forward retail model or whether that model would be subordinated to a more standardised, regional banking approach.

The early signals were mixed. Columbia pledged continuity and respect for Umpqua’s local roots while also pointing to the commercial benefits of scale. But regulatory filings, subsequent press releases and the public messaging that naturally accompanies large integrations often prioritise structural and financial metrics over cultural continuity. The merger required divestitures to meet antitrust conditions; branches were sold to third parties; operations were consolidated; and leadership roles shifted. Over time, the cultural markers that once defined Umpqua began to attenuate — a typical outcome when a niche brand is integrated into a larger corporate structure where uniformity, compliance and predictable metrics matter.

Rebranding and the end of the Umpqua name

Corporate identity often changes after large-scale M&A; names matter because they carry meaning, relationships and marketing value. In 2025 the combined organization took a formal step: the bank’s legal name was changed from Umpqua Bank to Columbia Bank effective on 1 July, 2025. That legal transition presaged a full brand change for retail branches and customer-facing materials later in the year. The move to a single trade name — Columbia Bank — was framed as a rationalisation of the brand architecture and a clearer message to markets and customers. For many loyalists, this was an emotional moment: the Umpqua brand — its visual language, store names and local associations — had been a tangible manifestation of a different approach to banking. Rebranding is not just a logo swap; it signals a shift in attention and priority.

Rebranding also has pragmatic reasons. Multiple legal and trade names create regulatory and operational complexity; unified identity simplifies digital systems, compliance, marketing and product rollout. But what gets lost in that calculus is the local meaning that animated Umpqua’s stores and the cultural capital invested by staff and community partners. The question is not merely whether the Umpqua name survives; it is whether the practices and protocols that created vibrant local spaces — the budgets for events, the leeway for branch managers to host community programs, the curated retail partnerships — survive intact in the new corporate design.

Evidence from the industry and early post-merger signals suggests that, in many similar consolidations, the answer is often “no.” Budgets get reallocated to centralised marketing campaigns or digital product development; local programming is evaluated as cost rather than brand investment. The result is a drift back toward a more conventional bank-with-branches model, where branches fulfil necessary in-person services but no longer function as experimental cultural hubs.

What went wrong, and what was inevitable?

It’s tempting to cast the Umpqua story as a morality play: visionary founder, brilliant retail experiment, corporate buy-out, dilution, and erasure. The truth is more nuanced. Several interacting factors made the original model difficult to sustain at scale:

  • Economic pressures and scale imperatives. As the bank grew, investors and regulators emphasised efficiency, predictable earnings and capital adequacy. Those priorities favour scale and standardisation. The costly, place-based investments that powered Umpqua’s experiences were hard to justify against the hard maths of banking returns.

  • The rise of digital convenience. Consumers adopted mobile-first banking fast. When most routine transactions migrate to apps, the justification for expensive, event-filled branches weakens. Branches still have roles (complex advice, mortgage closures, business banking) — but their function narrows.

  • Integration complexity from acquisitions. M&A creates mismatched cultures and systems. Umpqua’s theatrical model relies on discretionary local power and a culture that values experimentation — a culture that is hard to preserve when you fold many different books and teams into one ledger.

  • Leadership lifecycle. Founders can sustain non-traditional investments because they trade short-term margin impact for long-term brand capital. Successor leadership, accountable to public markets, tend to refocus on metrics that are easier to measure.

  • Regulatory and compliance costs. These always increase with scale and complexity, absorbing resources that might otherwise go to marketing or community programs.

None of these are unique to Umpqua. They reflect broader structural dynamics in banking. The bank’s experiment was never guaranteed to survive an era defined by consolidation, digital migration and investor preference for scale economies. The irony is that Umpqua’s early success made it an attractive target for the very forces that would dilute its distinctiveness.

Did the experiment fail or did it change banking?

Labeling the Umpqua story a failure would be unfair. The bank proved several enduring things: that branches can matter as experience platforms; that local curation can build deep customer loyalty; and that service design and hospitality can be meaningful differentiators even in finance. Many banks and fintechs studied and copied elements of Umpqua’s approach: pop-up events, localized marketing, branch cafes and partnerships with small businesses. In that sense, Umpqua’s ideas were absorbed into the industry even if the pure form of the experiment — the Umpqua “store” as a cultural institution — faded. Ideas diffuse; the brand that incubated them can be subsumed while the practices it popularised live on in more modular forms.

Moreover, the Umpqua case offers three pragmatic lessons for any company pursuing experiential differentiation within commoditised industries:

  • Design for modularity. If a distinctive experience is to survive scale, it needs modular systems: local autonomy bounded by scalable templates, budgets allocated as a % of marketing spend, and measurable KPIs that link experience to customer economics.

  • Measure what matters. Experiential investments need metrics beyond likes and footfall: lifetime value of customers acquired through events, referral rates, small business account growth tied to branch programming, and retention of high-value clients.

  • Plan for the founder lifecycle. If an insurgent model depends on founder charisma and tolerance for uncertainty, prepare a handover plan that institutionalises values into operating procedures rather than depending on a single person.

Umpqua’s legacy is not only nostalgia. It institutionalised a way of thinking about the branch and put “culture-as-product” into the banking conversation. Even under Columbia, regional managers and marketing teams can and sometimes do preserve local rituals, but these are usually on a smaller, more measured scale.

The human cost and the memory of place

Beyond strategy and balance sheets, there is a human story. For employees who worked in Umpqua’s stores, the model offered a kind of workplace identity: you were a host, a cultural curator, an entrepreneur within a bank. For local communities, the stores were stages for small business launches and civic conversation. When brands — or their distinctive features — fade, communities and employees lose a form of civic infrastructure. That erosion feels personal because it is personal: places disappear, rituals evaporate, and the people who oriented their careers around those cultures must either adapt or leave.

That doesn’t mean the spirit is irrecoverable. Local community banking remains alive in credit unions, in neighbourhood fintechs that focus on place, and in small banks that prioritise local autonomy. But the Umpqua ‘store’ as a replicable model for regional banks has, for now, been constrained by the broader dynamics of consolidation and scale in the sector.

Looking forward: where can banking’s “future” live now?

If Umpqua’s particular experiment has dimmed, the question becomes where the future of banking will show up next. My sense is that we will see hybrid answers:

  • Digital-first banks, creating authentic local partnerships without the full cost of branch networks. Think of fintechs that partner with co-working operators, merchant platforms, or local marketplaces to offer physical touchpoints curated for context.

  • Smaller, mission-driven banks and credit unions that double-down on community identity and resist scale, accepting slower growth in exchange for stronger local ties.

  • Large banks adopting “micro-experiences” — modest, measurable investments in local events, incubators and partnerships that can be scaled with templates and ROI metrics.

  • Embedded finance and platform-based models where financial services are distributed inside retail, payroll or commerce experiences, reducing the need for banks to own the physical front-end.

Each of these preserves some element of Umpqua’s ambition — that finance must feel human, relevant and locally embedded — but they do so in forms that are arguably more resilient to the pressures of modern banking.

A salute to Umpqua Bank, a model worth remembering

Umpqua’s story is valuable because it dared to reimagine banking’s role in everyday life. Ray Davis and his team showed that branches could host discovery, conversation and commerce in ways that transcended the transactional. That experiment pushed the industry to think harder about customer experience, brand and community.

At the same time, Umpqua’s subsequent absorption into a larger entity is a sober reminder of the structural forces that govern capital markets and banking: scale matters, regulatory burdens are real, and founder-driven experiments face a difficult path to institutionalisation. The real legacy of Umpqua is not the preservation of a single brand but the diffusion of an idea: that banking can — and sometimes should — be conceived as a cultural and civic practice as much as a financial utility.

If you’re thinking about what the “future of banking” looks like now, don’t start with logos; start with incentives. Design experience systems that scale, measure the outcomes that matter to both customers and investors, and build governance that survives founder transitions. Do that, and the human-centred impulses that Umpqua championed will continue to shape banking — even if the neon sign that once read “Umpqua” fades into a new name above the door.

Technology has never been more powerful — or more misunderstood. For decades, the world’s leading tech companies have spoken the language of platforms, architectures, clouds, and code. They’ve promised transformation but often delivered integration. They’ve implemented systems, streamlined processes, automated workflows. Yet something profound is missing: imagination.

The next great wave of value won’t come from installing technology. It will come from reimagining what technology makes possible — how it can reinvent entire businesses, industries, and even societies. The companies that will lead the future are those that help their clients reinvent, not just digitise.

Today’s most interesting tech companies are no longer the ones selling software or hardware. They are the ones enabling human and organisational transformation — helping others to see differently, think differently, and act differently. They are not tech suppliers; they are transformation partners.

The end of “digital transformation”

The phrase “digital transformation” has been emptied of meaning. Everyone is doing it, yet few are truly transformed. The first era of digital was about digitising what already existed — taking the analogue world and translating it into zeros and ones. Banks digitised forms, retailers digitised catalogues, manufacturers digitised workflows. The result was efficiency, scale, and convenience — but rarely reinvention.

Now we’ve reached an inflection point. Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, biotechnology, and extended reality are converging. The question is no longer what can we digitise, but what can we imagine?

That shift — from implementation to imagination — is the defining challenge for tech companies today. They must evolve from builders of systems to architects of futures.

A mindset for real transformation

To be a transformer means looking beyond the technology itself. It means starting not with the software, but with the purpose: What is the client really trying to achieve? What’s their place in the world? What problems do they exist to solve?

This requires a different mindset — one that blends technological mastery with strategic insight, human empathy, and creative audacity. Tech companies must become translators between what’s possible and what’s purposeful.

When Microsoft under Satya Nadella reframed its mission from “a computer on every desk” to “empowering every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more,” it redefined itself. The company stopped selling tools and started enabling outcomes. Its cloud and AI businesses are now built around empowering clients to transform themselves — from healthcare to education to sustainability.

Accenture’s reinvention as a “business reinvention partner” echoes the same logic. Its success is not in coding systems, but in helping clients redefine what success even means — with technology as the enabler. Similarly, NTT Data’s emerging positioning as a trusted transformation partner is rooted in its deep client relationships and its belief that technology alone is never the answer.

It’s about more than the technology

The paradox of modern technology is that the best tech disappears. The iPhone changed the world not because it was technologically superior, but because it redefined behaviour. The same will be true of AI, quantum, and beyond.

Transformation isn’t about the shiny new tool — it’s about the new human possibilities that tool enables. A logistics company doesn’t need AI; it needs to rethink the concept of “delivery” in a world of immediacy. A bank doesn’t need blockchain; it needs to rebuild trust in an era of financial transparency. A retailer doesn’t need data; it needs to understand people — not customers, but communities.

Transformative tech companies understand this. They don’t lead with demos or dashboards. They start with provocation: What if we could rewrite the rules of your market? What if we could dissolve industry boundaries? What if we could make your business indispensable to people’s lives in ways never imagined before?

To lead this new era, tech companies must cultivate a new kind of DNA — one that fuses technology with imagination, empathy, and experimentation.

  • Purpose over product: Transformation begins with clarity of purpose. Why does the client exist, and how could technology amplify that purpose rather than dilute it?

  • Co-creation over consulting: The best transformations are built with clients, not for them. It’s about experimentation, iteration, and learning fast.

  • Ecosystems over silos: No company transforms alone. True transformers orchestrate networks of partners, startups, universities, and creators.

  • Impact over implementation: Transformation is measured not in systems delivered, but in new value created — financial, human, and societal.

  • Curiosity over certainty:  The pace of change demands humility and constant reinvention. The best tech leaders are restless learners.

These qualities mark the difference between a systems integrator and a possibility integrator.

From coders to catalysts

Across the globe, a new generation of technology companies — alongside a handful of transformed legacy players — is beginning to embody a fundamentally different approach to value creation. The shift is subtle in some cases, audacious in others: these organisations are moving away from a product-centric mindset and toward the role of transformers, helping clients reimagine their businesses rather than simply implement systems. The intent is clear; the execution remains challenging, yet the examples already speak volumes about what is possible.

Take Microsoft. Under Satya Nadella, the company has reframed itself not as a software vendor, but as an enabler of empowerment. Its partnerships with global giants such as Unilever and L’Oréal are instructive. These engagements go far beyond IT upgrades or cloud migrations. Instead, Microsoft works hand-in-hand with clients to rethink entire supply chains, explore sustainability at scale, and foster new forms of creativity and innovation. By embedding artificial intelligence throughout operations, decisions are no longer sequential or siloed; they become dynamic, informed, and faster. The transformation is organisational and strategic as much as technological, allowing these companies to create value in ways that were previously unimaginable.

IBM’s journey illustrates a parallel trajectory. Once seen as a legacy technology behemoth, IBM has pivoted decisively toward AI and hybrid cloud under Arvind Krishna. Its evolution is about more than technology; it is about enabling intelligent ecosystems. Hospitals use its platforms to turn complex patient data into actionable insight; cities integrate its systems to manage resources in real time; energy firms employ IBM’s analytics to anticipate and optimise supply and demand. Across sectors, IBM positions itself not as a supplier of tools but as a partner in transformation, moving clients from raw data to meaningful, operationalised action.

In Europe, NTT Data is quietly making a similar shift. Its focus on client-centricity is not a marketing slogan; it is a strategic pivot. Across mobility, energy, and public services, the company combines deep domain knowledge with technological creativity to help organisations rethink their models, operations, and customer engagement. The message is clear: clients do not merely want a vendor capable of installing systems; they want a partner who can understand their world, anticipate challenges, and co-create solutions. NTT Data’s evolution illustrates that even traditional IT players can reposition themselves as catalysts for reinvention.

Salesforce offers yet another lens on this transformation. Its ethos — treating business as a platform for change — has long guided its strategy. But it is in the application of this philosophy that the company distinguishes itself. By helping clients such as L’Oréal, Adidas, and T-Mobile reimagine their relationships with consumers, Salesforce goes beyond digital connectivity to cultivate emotional resonance. The technology enables, but the transformation resides in how these companies rethink the very nature of engagement. Here, CRM is not a tool for efficiency; it is a lever for strategic reinvention.

Accenture, meanwhile, has embraced the challenge of reinvention at scale. Its global strategy explicitly positions the company as a partner capable of helping clients reinvent their businesses end-to-end. Its acquisition strategy — encompassing design studios, AI laboratories, and sustainability consultancies — signals a belief that the future belongs to organisations capable of blending technology, human insight, and creative ambition. By orchestrating these capabilities, Accenture helps clients navigate complexity, uncover new growth avenues, and embed innovation deep into their operating models.

Finally, Palantir illustrates the power of transformation in high-stakes, complex environments. Working with governments, logistics networks, and energy firms, Palantir turns data and AI into a backbone of operational resilience. Yet its impact comes not from algorithms alone, but from enabling faster, better decisions — from clarifying uncertainty, revealing patterns, and allowing organisations to act with agility in contexts where the cost of error is immense. Palantir’s approach underscores a crucial lesson: technology is an enabler, but transformation is about decision-making, foresight, and execution.

Together, these examples illuminate a new reality: the companies that will define the next era of technology are not those obsessed with features, platforms, or products. They are the ones who see their role as partners in imagination, architects of possibility, and catalysts for organisational reinvention. Their success is measured not in software delivered, but in futures realised — in businesses transformed, industries reshaped, and clients empowered to thrive in ways that transcend what they once believed possible.

Clients as Co-Transformers

Transformation is not a service you buy; it’s a journey you embark on. It cannot be outsourced, automated, or packaged into a neat digital roadmap. True transformation demands shared ambition — a mutual commitment between company and client to explore the unknown together. The best partnerships are not vendor relationships but creative alliances, grounded in curiosity and fuelled by conviction.

In this new landscape, the role of a technology partner is not to “deliver” a solution but to co-design a future. The work begins long before any code is written or platform configured. It begins with a question: What future are we trying to create?

This question reframes the entire relationship. It moves the conversation from implementation to imagination, from systems to significance. The most transformative tech partnerships are not defined by scale or sophistication of technology — they’re defined by the quality of shared thinking.

Example 1 … BMW: Redefining Freedom in a Constrained World

BMW’s evolution from a car manufacturer to a mobility company is a masterclass in this kind of partnership. When it began exploring the future of transport, it didn’t start with software architecture or EV platforms. It started with a far more existential question: What does freedom mean in an era of climate constraint?

For over a century, BMW had built its identity on the joy of driving — the precision of the engine, the feeling of control, the open road. But the world was changing. Urban congestion, environmental pressure, and generational shifts in values were rewriting the meaning of mobility. Freedom no longer meant ownership or horsepower; it meant access, sustainability, and flexibility.

To explore this new definition, BMW worked with a network of technology partners — from data analytics firms to digital experience designers — to prototype new mobility ecosystems. The result was not just the electric i-series cars, but BMW i Ventures, an investment arm funding everything from battery innovation to smart city solutions.

Technology played a vital role, but it was never the driver. What drove the transformation was a shared vision: to redefine freedom for the next generation of travellers. BMW’s partners weren’t simply implementing digital tools — they were co-authoring a new chapter in the company’s identity.

That is what real transformation looks like: not the automation of the past, but the reinvention of purpose.

Example 2 … IKEA: Democratising Sustainable Living

A similar story unfolded at IKEA, a company long admired for its democratic design and flat-pack ingenuity. When the Swedish retailer confronted the realities of climate change, shifting consumption patterns, and the rise of digital commerce, it realised that transformation could not mean simply adding e-commerce channels or apps. It had to revisit its founding mission — to create a better everyday life for the many people — and reinterpret it for the 21st century.

IKEA’s transformation was never about technology per se. It was about making sustainable living affordable, accessible, and aspirational. Technology became the means to scale that ambition. Working with tech partners across data analytics, circular logistics, and AI-driven design, IKEA reimagined every part of its value chain:

  • Circular retail models that buy back used furniture and re-sell it, powered by intelligent supply-chain platforms.

  • Augmented reality tools that allow customers to visualise products in their homes, blending digital and physical retail.

  • Smart home ecosystems, developed in partnership with energy and technology companies, that help households monitor and reduce consumption.

Each of these initiatives reflects a deep collaboration between IKEA’s designers, sustainability experts, and external technology innovators. What made them succeed was not code, but shared conviction — the belief that sustainability should be a mass movement, not a luxury niche.

For IKEA, the digital revolution became a values revolution. Its tech partners weren’t merely building interfaces; they were helping to scale a moral idea — that better living must also mean better stewardship of the planet.

Example 3 … DBS Bank: Reinventing Banking from the Inside Out

Perhaps the most radical reinvention of all came from DBS Bank in Singapore. A decade ago, DBS was regarded as a conventional, bureaucratic financial institution — reliable but uninspiring. Today, it’s widely recognised as one of the world’s most innovative banks, often described as “a technology company that happens to do banking.”

This transformation was not sparked by a single technology, but by a cultural metamorphosis. Under CEO Piyush Gupta, DBS set out to make banking invisible — seamless, intuitive, integrated into people’s lives. But to achieve that, it had to think and behave like a tech company.

It built innovation hubs that brought together engineers, designers, behavioural scientists, and clients to co-create new digital experiences. It embedded agile working methods, data-driven decision-making, and design thinking into the DNA of the organisation.

DBS’s technology partners were not external suppliers executing specifications. They were collaborators helping the bank rewire its culture. Together, they built platforms for open banking, AI-driven credit assessment, and digital onboarding — but the real innovation was internal: a mindset of continuous reinvention.

The results speak for themselves. DBS has topped global innovation and sustainability rankings for years. More importantly, it has inspired an entire sector to rethink what banking can be — from transaction processing to life-enabling service.

Transformation here was not a software upgrade; it was a redefinition of identity.

Shared imagination as strategy

Across all these stories runs a common thread: transformation succeeds when it’s built on shared imagination. The role of the technology partner is not to impose a vision but to amplify one — to act as catalyst, challenger, and creative accomplice.

Such relationships are rare because they require vulnerability. The client must be willing to question its own assumptions; the partner must be willing to go beyond the brief. Together they must dwell in uncertainty long enough for something genuinely new to emerge.

The strongest partnerships resemble joint ventures in possibility. They’re built on mutual curiosity, radical transparency, and a shared commitment to value creation that transcends the contract.

In this sense, technology becomes less of a product and more of a medium of imagination — a material through which new futures are shaped.

The ultimate measure of success is not the number of apps deployed or systems integrated. It’s the degree of transformation achieved — in thinking, in culture, in the market itself.

BMW now talks less about cars and more about mobility ecosystems.
IKEA measures impact in circularity, not sales alone.
DBS defines leadership by agility, inclusion, and social trust as much as by profit.

Their technology partners share in these outcomes not because they delivered platforms, but because they co-shaped futures.

That is the heart of being a transformer: to step beyond the role of implementer and become a co-creator of meaning. To move from being the builder of systems to the architect of possibilities.

Technology as a platform for possibility

Too often, tech projects are treated as transactions — budgets, timelines, deliverables. But the companies that will define the next decade treat technology as a platform for possibility.

Imagine if a government could predict and prevent crises instead of reacting to them. If an energy company could balance profitability with planet-positive outcomes through real-time intelligence. If a healthcare provider could shift from treating illness to enabling wellness.

These are not futuristic fantasies. They are what happens when tech companies think like transformers — when they align business design, technology architecture, and human purpose into one coherent vision.

The stakes are enormous. McKinsey estimates that up to 70% of digital transformation programmes fail to achieve their intended goals. Why? Because they focus on the tech, not the transformation.

The opportunity lies in closing this gap — in helping clients not just adopt new technologies, but adapt to new realities. That requires courage, creativity, and conviction.

The next generation of leaders — at NTT Data, Capgemini, Google Cloud, AWS, Infosys, and others — understand that their role is not to automate the past, but to invent the future. They are the architects of new growth models, new customer experiences, and new ecosystems of value.

The future belongs to the transformers

The world doesn’t need more code. It needs more imagination. The real power of technology lies not in what it does, but in what it enables us to become.

Tech companies that embrace this mindset — that position themselves as catalysts of transformation — will define the coming decade. They will be the partners every CEO turns to, not for IT upgrades, but for business reinvention.

They will help rewire capitalism itself — aligning profit with progress, efficiency with empathy, and intelligence with imagination.

Transformation is not a product. It’s a philosophy. It’s not delivered through servers or platforms. It’s delivered through belief — belief that the future can be different, and that we can build it together.

In short, the best tech companies are no longer in the technology business. They are in the future business.

The world will not slow down

Every company today stands on shifting ground. Markets move faster than business cycles; technologies collide and converge; customer expectations expand by the day. The rise of artificial intelligence, climate transition, demographic shifts, geopolitical realignments and new forms of competition have made one thing clear: change has become the constant condition of business.

The challenge for leaders is no longer how to manage transformation — but how to live within it. As McKinsey observes in its Next-Generation Operating Model report, strategy and execution have become “a single continuous loop of sensing, adapting and delivering.” The new competitive advantage is not size, scale or efficiency; it is strategic agility — the capacity to read change early, reconfigure quickly, and continually create new value.

Yet most organisations are still built for stability. They think of transformation as an event: a digital upgrade, a cost programme, a restructuring. The best organisations, by contrast, are learning to think differently. They are becoming Infinite Companies — firms that see transformation not as a programme, but as a permanent operating state; not as a response to crisis, but as a rhythm of reinvention.

Transformation as a permanent activity

The most progressive reports — Deloitte’s Chief Transformation Officer Study, Bain’s Business Transformation: Aim High, and BCG’s Transformation Paradox — all converge on the same idea: successful transformation is not a project with an end date but a continuous capability.

Transformation, in this view, is a living system: part strategy engine, part learning loop, part performance discipline. It’s not something done to the business; it’s something built into it.

Deloitte calls this the rise of the “permanent transformation capability” — a standing function that combines strategy, design, delivery and change leadership. BCG talks of developing the transformation muscle: teams that know how to sense, decide and deliver in fast-moving environments. McKinsey describes it as embedding transformation DNA — cross-functional structures that can adapt faster than the market.

This shift requires new roles and new leadership architectures. The Chief Transformation Officer (CTrO), once a short-term coordinator, is emerging as a permanent strategic partner to the CEO — owning the portfolio of reinvention, orchestrating change across silos, and ensuring that every initiative connects to value creation. In many leading companies, the CTrO now sits alongside the CFO and COO as a core member of the executive team.

In short, transformation is no longer something to complete — it’s something to sustain. It is the mechanism through which the Infinite Company continually renews itself.

Strategic agility in the age of megatrends

This permanent capability becomes crucial because the strategic landscape itself is in flux. Deloitte’s Transformation Paradox notes that “growth is now harder to achieve and easier to lose.” Global megatrends — decarbonisation, demographic shifts, digitalisation, deglobalisation — are reshaping industries from first principles.

BCG finds that the lifespan of the average company on the S&P 500 has fallen from 33 years in 1965 to less than 15 today. Strategy is no longer about five-year plans, but five-month sprints.

Strategic agility means being able to pivot across four dimensions at once:

  • New market spaces – spotting and creating emerging demand before others do.

  • New business models – reconfiguring value creation and capture mechanisms.

  • New products and services – using innovation and design to reshape customer experience.

  • New organisations and ecosystems – aligning people, partners and platforms to deliver at scale.

Leaders who can move across these dimensions create what Bain calls “multi-vector growth” — not just scaling what works, but continuously discovering what’s next.

One example is Schneider Electric, which transformed from a hardware manufacturer into a digital energy management platform. Another is DBS Bank in Singapore, which reframed itself as “a technology company delivering financial services” — embedding agile working, open APIs, and design-led thinking across the organisation.

Both firms treat transformation as a core capability: DBS runs a “Future-Ready Workforce” programme that continuously reskills its people for emerging roles, while Schneider’s sustainability-linked innovation agenda has made it a top performer in both digital and green economies.

From transformation projects to transformation system

The Infinite Company treats transformation not as an episodic initiative but as a system: a repeatable, disciplined process for creating value and embedding change. Bain describes this as moving “from a transformation project to a transformation engine.”

The system has three essential components:

permanent transformation office: not a bureaucratic PMO, but a strategic nerve centre — a small, empowered group that tracks value, clears obstacles and synchronises the portfolio. It operates with C-suite authority and cross-functional reach.

clear value logic and metrics: Deloitte emphasises “value orchestration”: aligning all initiatives to measurable business outcomes. The best firms use a value ledger that maps every initiative to revenue, cost, capability or customer impact — with weekly tracking and transparent dashboards.

iterative delivery model: transformation happens through small, fast cycles — test, learn, scale. The office provides rigour (governance, metrics, cadence) while enabling freedom for experimentation.

McKinsey calls this transformation rhythm: a disciplined heartbeat of decision, delivery and learning.

This structure enables an organisation to run multiple transformations simultaneously — digital, sustainability, customer experience, organisational design — without chaos. It turns reinvention from disruption into routine.

Leading through paradox: creativity and discipline

BCG’s Transformation Paradox argues that the hardest part of transformation is managing the contradictions. Companies must simultaneously improve today’s performance and create tomorrow’s possibilities; they must standardise and experiment, control and empower.

The firms that thrive are those that balance these tensions rather than choosing sides. They know when to tighten and when to loosen.

A good example is Unilever, which under Alan Jope and now Hein Schumacher has run a dual transformation: driving cost discipline and digital efficiency while investing heavily in purpose-driven brands and new growth platforms such as Unilever Ventures. Similarly, Fujifilm, once synonymous with film, balanced operational excellence with radical innovation — redeploying its chemical expertise into healthcare and biotech.

BCG’s insight is that transformation is not a single act but a constant act of balancing: of holding two opposing ideas — exploration and execution — and turning them into mutual strengths. The Infinite Company learns to live comfortably in paradox.

Talent and leadership as the transformation multiplier

Every major report agrees: transformation success is less about technology than talent. Bain’s research shows that the strongest predictor of lasting transformation is not capital, not technology adoption, but who leads it and how much time they can devote to it.

Too often, top performers are overloaded with “change plus day job”. The Infinite Company does it differently — it protects and empowers transformation talent.

Leading firms ring-fence their best people into dedicated transformation teams, rotate high-potential talent through change roles, and treat transformation experience as career acceleration.

Deloitte’s 2025 study identifies a “CTrO talent archetype”: a blend of strategist, operator, communicator and coach. They don’t merely manage projects — they mobilise energy, build confidence and remove friction.

Meanwhile, Korn Ferry highlights that HR leaders are now co-owners of transformation. Culture, incentives, and capability building are no longer side issues but core levers of business change. The CHRO becomes the “Chief Transformation Partner”.

Companies such as Microsoft, ING, and Novo Nordisk exemplify this. Satya Nadella reframed Microsoft’s culture from “know-it-all” to “learn-it-all” — embedding growth mindset training into leadership development. ING trained 10,000 employees in agile working, creating “squads” that blend business and IT talent. Novo Nordisk invests heavily in leadership academies that teach adaptive leadership and system thinking.

In the Infinite Company, transformation begins and ends with people.

Embedding value and metrics into the rhythm

One of the reasons transformations fail is measurement drift: activity is mistaken for progress. Bain calls this “the illusion of green” — dashboards full of activity metrics, but little real value.

To avoid this, Infinite Companies measure value creation, not activity. They build a “transformation ledger” that ties each initiative to tangible business outcomes.

McKinsey’s 2024 research finds that firms that track both leading indicators (behavioural and capability shifts) and lagging indicators (financial results) are 3.5 times more likely to sustain gains beyond three years.

A robust measurement system includes:

  • A single executive scorecard with 5–7 value drivers.

  • Weekly value audits — small, fact-based reviews focused on learning.

  • Independent value assurance — a function that validates assumptions and impact.

Schneider Electric’s “Value Creation Council” and DBS’s “Outcome-Based Scorecard” are two examples of this discipline. Their transformation offices act as both coach and challenger — enabling speed while maintaining integrity.

Culture, purpose and sustainability

While hard metrics matter, so does meaning. Purpose has become the organising principle of transformation. Deloitte’s Purpose Premium study shows that companies with a clearly articulated purpose outperform peers in both financial and social metrics.

The Infinite Company uses purpose as an aligning mechanism — connecting transformation efforts to a higher sense of why the organisation exists.

This matters not just for employee motivation but for ecosystem orchestration. When partners, customers and communities see transformation as purposeful — not merely profitable — collaboration deepens.

Patagonia, IKEA and Interface illustrate how sustainability-driven transformation can become a growth engine. Interface’s “Mission Zero” inspired a wave of material innovation; IKEA’s shift to circular design is spawning new service models such as furniture leasing.

Similarly, NextEra Energy in the United States reframed itself from a utility into a renewable energy platform, aligning its transformation to the net-zero transition. In doing so, it created one of the most valuable energy companies in the world.

Sustainability, when embedded as a core design constraint, becomes a source of innovation — not a cost to be managed. It creates new markets, new products and new legitimacy.

Designing for speed, learning and scaling

Transformation succeeds not by avoiding failure but by learning faster than others. McKinsey’s Transformation Operating Model report highlights that “organisations that run rapid cycles of experimentation achieve twice the success rate.”

Infinite Companies adopt a “fast, small, scalable” mindset:

  • Fast – short cycles from idea to market feedback.

  • Small – minimal viable products and experiments.

  • Scalable – systems and platforms that can grow rapidly once proven.

Spotify’s “squad” model, DBS’s agile tribes, and Unilever’s Foundry platform all demonstrate this approach. They blend the creativity of start-ups with the scale of enterprises.

This learning rhythm extends beyond projects to the organisation itself. Infinite Companies continuously review their own design — roles, governance, metrics — and evolve them. Organisational transformation is no longer episodic restructuring but ongoing tuning.

Ecosystems and collaborative reinvention

As business boundaries blur, transformation increasingly happens across ecosystems. The World Economic Forum calls this the “Era of Collaborative Advantage” — where the capacity to orchestrate partnerships matters more than owning assets.

Infinite Companies build modular architectures — open APIs, shared platforms, interoperable systems — that allow them to connect and co-create value.

Examples abound:

  • Shopify built an ecosystem of 10,000 developers and 7,000 apps, making it a growth platform for others.

  • Tesla and BYD open-sourced patents to accelerate EV adoption — expanding the market for their own ecosystems.

  • Nestlé collaborates with start-ups in alternative proteins and packaging circularity to reinvent its product pipeline.

Transformation, in this sense, is no longer a solo performance but an orchestrated ensemble. The Infinite Company understands that its future lies as much outside its boundaries as within.

The transformation operating model — a practical guide

Drawing from Bain, BCG, Deloitte and McKinsey, the Infinite Company typically builds its transformation engine around seven structural disciplines:

  • Strategic clarity – a single, quantified ambition that defines “what winning looks like”.

  • Leadership ownership – a CEO-sponsored, full-time transformation leader with authority.

  • Operating model redesign – structure, decision rights and process mapped to value creation.

  • Talent and culture – the right people, protected time, growth mindset and incentives.

  • Value-led metrics – measurable outcomes, leading indicators and transparent scorecards.

  • Execution cadence – weekly reviews, cross-functional teams, rapid feedback loops.

  • Capability building – continuous development of change leadership, analytics and innovation skills.

These disciplines turn transformation from aspiration into institutional habit.

The Infinite Company mindset

Ultimately, what distinguishes Infinite Companies is not the quality of their strategy but the nature of their mindset. They see the organisation as a living system, not a static structure. They view uncertainty as opportunity, not threat.

Three beliefs underpin their behaviour:

  • Transformation never ends. The moment you stabilise, you fall behind.

  • Learning is the new scale. The faster you learn, the bigger you become.

  • Value is co-created. Success lies in the ability to mobilise people, partners and platforms towards shared outcomes.

This mindset is not theoretical. It is evident in the way Amazon runs its “Day 1” philosophy; how Haier reinvented itself as a network of micro-enterprises; how Apple reimagined its entire supply chain around ecosystem design.

They are Infinite Companies — not because they are invulnerable, but because they keep recreating themselves faster than the world changes.

Here are some of the most useful transformation tools:

These tools are not prescriptions; they are enablers. They help leaders translate big ambition into practical rhythm.

The leadership imperative

For leaders, the message is both daunting and liberating. The future will not wait; but those who embrace transformation as a strategic, permanent and human activity will find unprecedented opportunity.

As Deloitte’s 2025 report concludes: “Transformation is no longer the response to change. It is the condition for existence.”

To lead in this era is to become both strategist and explorer, operator and storyteller — guiding people through uncertainty with clarity, courage and empathy.

The Infinite Company does not seek stability. It seeks momentum. It builds not for what is, but for what’s next — and for the capacity to keep becoming.

Transformation has become an overused word — but its meaning has never been more vital. The future belongs to organisations that understand transformation not as an act of change, but as a state of being.

To become infinite is not to be immortal; it is to be in perpetual motion — guided by purpose, powered by people, disciplined by value, and open to the world.

The Infinite Company thrives not by resisting change, but by mastering the art of becoming — again and again.

Explore more

In today’s rapidly evolving global landscape, the convergence of technological advancements, environmental imperatives, and social equity has redefined the role of private sector investments.

Beyond mere financial returns, investors are increasingly seeking opportunities that drive innovation, foster sustainability, and promote social inclusion. This paradigm shift underscores the potential of strategic investments to empower private companies, enabling them to not only achieve profitability but also become catalysts for positive environmental and social change.

“Purposeful profitability”

Historically, the pursuit of profit and the commitment to social good were often viewed as mutually exclusive. However, contemporary business models demonstrate that these objectives can be harmoniously integrated. By aligning financial strategies with sustainable practices and inclusive growth, companies can unlock new markets, enhance brand loyalty, and mitigate risks associated with environmental and social challenges.

This integrated approach is exemplified by companies that leverage innovation to address pressing global issues. Through strategic investments, these organizations harness emerging technologies and business models to create value that extends beyond the balance sheet, contributing to the achievement of the UNs Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Case Studies of Innovative Investments with Positive Impact

1. M-KOPA Solar: Empowering Off-Grid Communities in Africa

M-KOPA Solar, based in Kenya, has revolutionized access to clean energy for off-grid households through its pay-as-you-go solar systems. By partnering with mobile money platforms like M-Pesa, M-KOPA enables customers to make affordable daily payments for solar energy, eliminating the need for costly and polluting kerosene. With over 2 million homes powered across East Africa, M-KOPA not only provides sustainable energy but also improves health, education, and economic opportunities for underserved communities.

In 2023, M-KOPA expanded its offerings by introducing electric motorbikes, further contributing to the reduction of carbon emissions and promoting sustainable mobility in the region.

2. Solinftec: Transforming Agriculture with Precision Technology

Brazilian agtech company Solinftec is at the forefront of precision agriculture, utilizing AI-powered robots and real-time data analytics to optimize farming practices. Their Solix robotic system autonomously manages tasks such as weeding and crop monitoring, reducing the need for chemical inputs and enhancing yield efficiency. By securing investments from entities like Lightsmith and Blue Like an Orange Sustainable Capital, Solinftec has expanded its operations across North and South America, demonstrating how technology can drive sustainable agricultural practices.

The company’s platform provides farmers with real-time actionable insights related to planting, spraying, fertilizing, and harvesting, leading to increased productivity and reduced environmental impact.

3. Atlas Renewable Energy: Scaling Solar Power in Latin America

Atlas Renewable Energy, a leading Latin American renewable energy company, has partnered with IDB Invest and other financial institutions to develop large-scale solar projects in countries like Colombia and Brazil. These initiatives contribute to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and provide clean electricity to thousands of homes. By leveraging private capital and expertise, Atlas demonstrates how the private sector can play a pivotal role in advancing the global transition to renewable energy.

For instance, the Shangri-La project in Colombia, the largest solar project financed by IDB Invest in the country, is expected to generate approximately 403.7 GWh of clean energy annually, enough to power around 214,000 homes while preventing the emission of roughly 162,000 tons of CO2 per year.

4. Kubo Financiero: Expanding Financial Inclusion in Mexico

Kubo Financiero, a digital microfinance institution in Mexico, offers accessible financial services to underserved populations through its online platform. By providing loans, savings accounts, and investment products, Kubo empowers individuals to improve their financial well-being and build credit histories. Supported by investments from IDB Invest and Google for Startups, Kubo exemplifies how fintech innovations can bridge financial gaps and promote inclusive economic growth.

The company’s model allows for lower interest rates for borrowers and higher rates of return for depositors and investors, compared with traditional financial institutions, thus fostering a more inclusive financial ecosystem.

5. Grupo Bimbo: Integrating Sustainability into Core Business Practices

Grupo Bimbo, one of the world’s largest baking companies, has committed to integrating sustainability into its operations through its “For Nature” strategy. This includes achieving net-zero carbon emissions, eliminating waste, and promoting regenerative agriculture practices. By investing in renewable energy, sustainable packaging, and healthier product formulations, Grupo Bimbo not only enhances its brand value but also contributes to global environmental goals.

The company’s commitment extends to eliminating artificial colorings from all its products by the end of 2026 and ensuring that by the end of 2025, all its bread, buns, and breakfast items will carry a health star rating of at least 3.5, in response to increasing consumer preference for healthier foods.

The role of strategic investments in scaling impact

Strategic investments play a crucial role in scaling the impact of innovative companies. By providing the necessary capital and resources, investors enable these organizations to expand their operations, enhance their offerings, and reach a broader audience. This, in turn, amplifies the positive environmental and social outcomes associated with their business models.

Moreover, investments in innovation foster a culture of continuous improvement and adaptability. Companies that prioritize research and development are better equipped to respond to emerging challenges and capitalize on new opportunities, ensuring long-term sustainability and relevance in a dynamic market.

Some of the more innovative approaches include

1. Outcome-Based Financing: Linking Capital to Results

Traditional funding models often focus on inputs and outputs, but outcome-based financing shifts the emphasis to measurable results. By aligning financial returns with the achievement of specific social or environmental outcomes, investors can ensure that capital is directed toward initiatives that deliver tangible benefits.

For instance, the UP Fund, a $50 million pool of catalytic capital, aims to remove barriers to education and employment by deploying capital in two forms—student financing and organizational financing. This approach seeks to align the incentives between students, training providers, educational institutions, and employers through an outcomes-based methodology

2. Royalties-Based Financing: A Flexible Capital Structure

A novel investment model gaining traction is royalties-based financing, where investors receive a fixed percentage of future revenues instead of equity or rigid debt structures. This approach provides capital to companies without diluting ownership or imposing fixed repayment schedules, offering flexibility and aligning investor returns with company performance.

Althera42, co-founded by former BlackRock executive Caspar Macqueen, applies this model to late-stage private tech infrastructure companies in Europe and potentially North America. The fund targets companies with €10–€100 million in annual revenue from licensing-based models with strong intellectual property, low churn, and diversified customer bases. Investors receive quarterly distributions, combining venture capital-like upside with private debt’s steady cash flow.

3. Ecosystem Investing: Building Collaborative Networks

Ecosystem investing recognizes that complex social and environmental challenges require collaborative solutions. By viewing investments within the context of a broader ecosystem, funders can adjust their behavior in response to changes within that system, leading to more sustainable and scalable impact.

An example of this approach is the Nordic model of capitalism, which emphasizes collaboration between government, business, and civil society to address social issues. This model has proven effective in scaling social innovations by fostering an environment where various stakeholders work together toward common goals.

4. Digital Technology Integration: Enhancing Scale and Efficiency

The integration of digital technologies is transforming how social enterprises operate and scale. By leveraging digital platforms, companies can reach wider audiences, streamline operations, and enhance service delivery, leading to increased impact.

The Solinftec platform, for instance, provides farmers with real-time actionable insights related to planting, spraying, fertilizing, and harvesting. This digital approach has led to increased productivity and reduced environmental impact, demonstrating the power of technology in scaling sustainable agriculture practices.

5. Tradeable Impact Credits: Monetizing Social Outcomes

Innovative financial instruments, such as tradeable impact credits, are emerging to monetize social and environmental outcomes. These credits represent verified positive impacts and can be bought and sold, providing a new revenue stream for organizations delivering social value.

A recent report suggests that developing systems to create incentives to fund and scale these outcomes, focusing especially on the communities they aim to benefit, could significantly boost social funding

Creating lasting change, creating better lives

Investing in innovation is not merely a financial decision; it is a strategic approach to creating lasting positive change. By supporting companies that integrate sustainability and social impact into their core operations, investors contribute to the development of solutions that address some of the world’s most pressing challenges. The case studies of M-KOPA Solar, Solinftec, Atlas Renewable Energy, Kubo Financiero, and Grupo Bimbo illustrate the transformative potential of such investments.

As the global community continues to confront environmental degradation, social inequality, and economic instability, the need for innovative solutions has never been more urgent. Through thoughtful and strategic investments, the private sector can drive the development and scaling of these solutions, paving the way for a more sustainable and equitable future for all.

More from Peter Fisk

Leadership today is a high-wire act.

The world is more volatile, more interconnected, and more unpredictable than ever. New technologies disrupt markets overnight, competition is no longer local but global, and the speed of change leaves little time for complacency.

In this unforgiving arena, leaders need more than strategy; they need adaptability, resilience, creativity, and the ability to inspire people around a shared vision.

Some of the richest insights into modern leadership do not come from corporate boardrooms but from the worlds of music, sport, and politics.

Figures like Taylor Swift, Roger Federer, and Barack Obama have mastered the art of reinvention, performance, and influence in contexts where the stakes are high and the spotlight relentless. Alongside them, innovators like Lionel Messi, Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, Selena Gomez, and David Guetta show what it means to lead movements and industries through personal mastery, purpose, and collaboration.

For business leaders, these high performers offer profound lessons in how to thrive in times of intense competition, innovation, and change.

Taylor Swift: Reinvention as a Leadership Strategy

Few contemporary figures embody the art of reinvention better than Taylor Swift. Over nearly two decades, she has transformed herself from a teenage country singer into a global cultural force whose influence stretches far beyond music. Each “era” of Swift’s career represents not just an artistic pivot but also a strategic redefinition of her brand.

What makes her approach so powerful for business leaders is the intentionality behind her reinventions. She reads the cultural moment, anticipates shifts in her audience, and positions herself ahead of the curve. When country music felt limiting, she crossed into pop with 1989 and became a megastar. When the industry questioned her control over her own work, she turned the dispute into a campaign for artist ownership, re-recording her albums to regain her masters and reframing the narrative in her favor.

Swift’s lesson for leaders is clear: reinvention is not failure or a loss of identity — it is survival. In business, markets evolve and consumer tastes change. Leaders who cling too tightly to what worked yesterday risk irrelevance tomorrow. Like Swift, leaders must learn to treat reinvention as a deliberate act of growth, not a reaction to crisis.

Her mastery of digital platforms adds another dimension. Swift has used social media not merely as a promotional tool but as a community-building space. She creates intimacy at scale, making fans feel personally seen and valued. For leaders, this highlights the importance of authentic connection in the digital age. In a world of automation and AI, human connection and trust become scarce and valuable commodities.

  • Parallel: Swift is like Netflix, which has constantly reinvented itself — from DVD rentals to streaming, from streaming to original content, from content to gaming — always staying ahead of audience expectations.
  • Lesson: Reinvention is not reaction but anticipation. Leaders must actively redefine themselves before the market forces them to.

Roger Federer: Grace Under Pressure and the Long Game

Where Swift teaches reinvention, Roger Federer exemplifies longevity. Over a two-decade career, he maintained elite performance in one of the most physically and mentally demanding sports in the world. His grace on the court was matched by his resilience off it, adapting his game as his body aged and new competitors emerged.

Federer’s genius was not only technical but strategic. Early in his career, he relied on athleticism and aggressive shot-making. Later, he refined his style into one based on efficiency, conserving energy with shorter points, impeccable footwork, and tactical variety. He reinvented his game to extend his career, much as businesses must reinvent processes and strategies to remain competitive.

Just as important was his mental composure. Federer faced rivals like Nadal and Djokovic, who often seemed more physically dominant. Yet he rarely appeared flustered. His poise under pressure became a hallmark, turning critical points into opportunities rather than threats. Leaders in business face their own “match points”: moments of crisis, sudden disruptions, or high-stakes decisions. Federer shows that calm confidence, built on preparation and belief, can turn pressure into performance.

Beyond sport, Federer also curated his legacy. His retirement was not the end but the beginning of a new chapter as philanthropist, investor, and ambassador. For leaders, this demonstrates the importance of thinking not only about immediate wins but about long-term impact. Leadership is not just about quarterly results; it is about building enduring influence.

  • Parallel: Federer’s adaptability mirrors Toyota’s philosophy of continuous improvement (Kaizen). Just as Toyota refines processes to extend product lifecycles and reduce waste, he refined his playing style to sustain high performance over decades.
  • Lesson: Efficiency and composure are as critical as raw performance. Long-term leadership depends on resilience, adjustment, and the ability to deliver under pressure.

Barack Obama: Leadership Through Vision and Voice

If Swift embodies reinvention and Federer demonstrates resilience, Barack Obama shows the power of narrative and vision in leadership. Obama rose from relative obscurity to the U.S. presidency largely through his ability to articulate hope and possibility in a time of division.

What stands out is his mastery of voice — not only in speeches but in the way he connected across cultures and generations. Obama framed politics not as a technical exercise but as a story in which ordinary people could see themselves as protagonists. This skill of framing and storytelling is critical for business leaders. In times of uncertainty, data and analysis matter, but it is vision and narrative that mobilize people.

Obama also embraced the digital age of campaigning. His 2008 run pioneered the use of social media and online fundraising, redefining how politics engaged with citizens. Business leaders face a similar imperative: to harness digital platforms not merely for efficiency but for engagement, creating ecosystems where people feel part of a larger mission.

At the same time, Obama demonstrated equanimity under intense scrutiny. His presidency was marked by crises — economic collapse, wars, social upheaval — yet his leadership was defined by calm deliberation and the ability to bring people together. In business, where polarizing pressures can divide teams, the capacity to unify around shared purpose is a defining quality of great leadership.

  • Parallel: Obama’s use of narrative resembles Apple’s brand storytelling. Both created movements not just through products or policies, but by telling stories that people wanted to believe in and be part of.
  • Lesson: Data informs, but vision inspires. Leaders must be storytellers who give meaning to collective effort, especially in uncertain times.

Lionel Messi: Mastery, Consistency, and Adaptability

If Federer represents elegance, Lionel Messi represents relentless mastery. Across two decades, he has been one of the greatest footballers of all time, known for his vision, precision, and consistency under immense pressure. Unlike athletes who relied primarily on physical power, Messi thrived through creativity, anticipation, and relentless refinement of skill.

Messi’s career shows leaders the value of sustained excellence. In an era where businesses are tempted to chase the next big trend, Messi demonstrates the power of compounding mastery. His consistency on the pitch mirrors the importance of delivering value again and again for customers.

But Messi is not only about consistency; he is also about adaptability. Moving from Barcelona, where he had spent his entire career, to Paris Saint-Germain, and later to Inter Miami, he showed how even the greatest can reinvent themselves in new contexts. Business leaders often struggle with legacy: systems, habits, and reputations built in one environment may not translate to another. Messi proves that humility and adaptability are as important as raw talent.

Moreover, Messi’s leadership is quiet but powerful. Unlike more vocal figures, his example is through performance and presence. For leaders, this underscores that influence does not always require charisma or volume — sometimes excellence itself is the most compelling form of leadership.

  • Parallel: Messi is like Amazon — consistently excellent in execution, yet willing to expand into new fields (from books to e-commerce, cloud, entertainment, and logistics) without losing the discipline of operational mastery.
  • Lesson: Excellence compounds. Leaders who deliver consistently and adapt humbly to new environments build trust and longevity.

Beyoncé: Innovation, Empowerment, and Business Acumen

Beyoncé offers another perspective on leadership in a changing world: the fusion of creativity, innovation, and empowerment. Like Taylor Swift, she is not only an artist but also a business strategist who has built an empire across music, fashion, film, and digital streaming.

Her artistry is rooted in innovation. Albums like Lemonade or the surprise release of her self-titled record redefined how music could be launched and consumed. By bypassing traditional promotional cycles, Beyoncé disrupted industry norms and set new standards for direct-to-consumer engagement. Leaders in business can learn from this boldness: sometimes the best way to lead is to rewrite the rules of the game.

Equally important is her focus on empowerment. Beyoncé uses her platform to champion diversity, inclusion, and female empowerment, aligning her artistry with cultural relevance. In the corporate world, this translates into purpose-driven leadership: success today requires aligning business outcomes with values that matter to employees and customers.

Her ventures into streaming (with Homecoming on Netflix), fashion (Ivy Park), and even investments demonstrate strategic diversification. Beyoncé’s career is a case study in building ecosystems rather than products. Leaders should see innovation not as isolated projects but as interconnected strategies that reinforce each other.

  • Parallel: Beyoncé’s strategy echoes LVMH, the luxury giant that blends heritage with innovation, building interconnected brands that thrive on cultural relevance and aspirational values.
  • Lesson: Innovation works best when aligned with purpose. Leaders must expand influence by building ecosystems — interconnected ventures that reinforce each other — rather than isolated projects.

David Guetta: Collaboration and Digital Reinvention

David Guetta has transformed electronic music into a global phenomenon through relentless innovation, digital savvy, and strategic collaborations. Starting in the 1990s Paris club scene, Guetta leveraged the emerging digital music ecosystem to expand the reach of electronic dance music. He foresaw the potential of streaming, remix culture, and cross-genre collaboration long before they became mainstream.

Guetta’s leadership lies in his ability to connect talent and audiences in unexpected ways. By partnering with pop stars, rappers, and global musicians, he has expanded EDM’s appeal while continually reinventing his sound. He embraces technology as a tool for creativity, using digital platforms to release music directly to fans, monitor trends, and optimize engagement. His adaptability has allowed him to thrive in an industry marked by rapid obsolescence and fickle consumer tastes.

For business leaders, Guetta illustrates the power of ecosystem thinking. Success is not achieved in isolation; it emerges from partnerships, networked influence, and digital integration. He demonstrates that collaboration and digital reinvention are essential for sustaining relevance in fast-changing markets. Guetta’s career exemplifies agility, foresight, and the ability to blend creativity with strategic positioning — key traits for leaders navigating the modern competitive landscape.

  • Parallel: Guetta is like Spotify — thriving by creating platforms for collaboration, remixing, and new discovery. Both show that in a digital-first world, leadership is about curating ecosystems of connection, not just producing content.
  • Lesson: Collaboration fuels reinvention. Leaders must see partnerships not as threats but as multipliers of value in fast-changing environments.

Oprah Winfrey: Purpose and Cultural Impact

Oprah Winfrey’s career is a masterclass in purpose-driven leadership. Rising from a challenging childhood marked by poverty and adversity, she forged a media empire that blends business acumen, cultural influence, and authentic connection. Her success is rooted not in mere talent but in the ability to identify what people truly want: content that resonates emotionally, inspires, and empowers. Winfrey understood early that media could be a vehicle not only for entertainment but for influence and social impact.

Her leadership style is characterized by empathy, authenticity, and vision. She built her brand on trust, consistently delivering value to her audience while maintaining a strong ethical compass. From The Oprah Winfrey Show to the OWN network, Oprah has transformed industries by redefining what it means to be a media mogul. She champions purpose-driven business practices, demonstrating that profitability and impact are not mutually exclusive.

Winfrey’s approach offers lessons for business leaders in the modern era: embed authenticity in every decision, align operations with core values, and use influence responsibly. She demonstrates how a leader can shape culture, inspire loyalty, and drive systemic change. In a world of constant disruption, her example underscores the importance of vision, emotional intelligence, and resilience as critical leadership assets.

  • Parallel: Oprah resembles Unilever, which aligns corporate strategy with sustainability and values. Both prove that purpose can be a competitive advantage, building loyalty in a crowded marketplace.
  • Lesson: Values are the new currency of leadership. Authenticity and purpose inspire deeper engagement than financial incentives alone.

Selena Gomez: Vulnerability, Connection, and Building Community

Selena Gomez represents a new generation of leaders who combine creativity, entrepreneurship, and social advocacy. Emerging as a child star, Gomez transitioned seamlessly into music, film, and digital influence, demonstrating adaptability and long-term strategic thinking. Beyond entertainment, she built Rare Beauty, a cosmetics brand emphasizing inclusivity, authenticity, and mental health awareness, redefining the way celebrity brands interact with consumers.

Gomez’s leadership is grounded in vulnerability and relatability. She has publicly discussed mental health struggles, autoimmune disease, and personal challenges, turning transparency into a source of trust and community-building. This openness has allowed her to connect deeply with audiences and cultivate loyal followers across multiple platforms. In addition, her brand strategy emphasizes values-driven business: Rare Beauty is designed not just to sell products but to empower users and promote social change.

For business leaders, Gomez exemplifies modern leadership traits: the ability to diversify across domains, leverage personal influence responsibly, and embed mission-driven values into business operations. She shows that adaptability, authenticity, and purpose are competitive advantages, demonstrating that leaders can cultivate both emotional and commercial impact simultaneously. Her example underscores the importance of aligning brand, business strategy, and social responsibility in today’s fast-moving landscape.

  • Parallel: Gomez’s approach echoes Patagonia, which turned environmental activism into a defining strength. Both built communities not by hiding imperfections but by sharing values openly.
  • Lesson: Transparency is power. In an age of distrust, leaders who show vulnerability and align business with genuine social causes create stronger communities.

Lessons for Leaders

Drawing across these high performers, several themes emerge that are directly applicable to leaders navigating today’s competitive and innovative landscape:

  • Reinvent Relentlessly (Taylor Swift) – Stay ahead by redefining yourself before the market forces you to. Innovation is not a project; it is a way of being.

  • Play the Long Game (Roger Federer) – Adapt your strategies to sustain performance over time. Efficiency, resilience, and composure are as critical as short-term wins.

  • Lead Through Vision and Voice (Barack Obama) – Craft narratives that mobilize people, especially in times of uncertainty. Facts inform, but stories inspire.

  • Deliver Mastery with Adaptability (Lionel Messi) – Pursue excellence consistently while staying humble and ready to adapt when contexts change.

  • Build Ecosystems with Purpose (Beyoncé) – Innovate boldly, align with values, and expand influence through interconnected ventures rather than isolated products.

  • Reinvent Relentlessly (Taylor Swift/Netflix) – Stay ahead by redefining yourself before the market forces you to. Innovation is not a project; it is a way of being.

  • Play the Long Game (Roger Federer/Toyota) – Adapt your strategies to sustain performance over time. Efficiency, resilience, and composure are as critical as short-term wins.

  • Lead Through Vision and Voice (Barack Obama/Apple) – Craft narratives that mobilize people, especially in times of uncertainty. Facts inform, but stories inspire.

  • Deliver Mastery with Adaptability (Lionel Messi/Amazon) – Excellence must be consistent, but context demands flexibility.

  • Build Ecosystems with Purpose (Beyoncé/LVMH) – Create interconnected ventures rooted in cultural relevance and values.

  • Harness Collaboration and Platforms (David Guetta/Spotify) – In a digital world, ecosystems and partnerships multiply impact.

  • Lead with Purpose and Authenticity (Oprah Winfrey/Unilever) – Trust and values are the ultimate foundation of influence.

  • Turn Vulnerability Into Strength (Selena Gomez/Patagonia) – Transparency builds community and deepens loyalty.

The common denominator across Swift, Federer, Obama, Messi, Beyoncé, Winfrey, Gomez, and Guetta is not talent alone but the deliberate cultivation of adaptability, resilience, and authenticity. They do not simply react to change — they anticipate it, shape it, and use it to fuel their influence.

For business leaders, this is the challenge of our age. AI, climate change, geopolitical shifts, and social transformation are rewriting the rules of every industry. In such a world, the best leaders will not be those who cling to traditional playbooks but those who, like these high performers, embrace uncertainty as a stage on which to perform their best work.

Leadership is no longer about commanding from above but about orchestrating movements, telling compelling stories, and embodying values that resonate. It is about combining strategic reinvention with human connection, turning moments of pressure into opportunities for transformation.

In short, the leaders who thrive in this world of intense competition, innovation, and change will be those who learn to lead not just with their heads but with imagination, resilience, and authenticity — much like the performers, athletes, and statesmen who inspire us far beyond their own fields.

More from Peter Fisk

Five athletes, with a shared ambition: to run the first ever sub-six-hour 100km in history.

Adidas called it “the story of how a group of radical minds ushered in a new era of performance, a story of elite athletes working alongside the world’s sharpest product innovators, and the jaw-dropping ultramarathon history that followed.”

Indeed it was exciting – Sibusiso Kubheka (South Africa), 100km world record holder Aleksandr Sorokin (Lithuania), Charlie Lawrence (USA), Jo Fukuda (Japan) and Ketema Negasa (Ethiopia) were each backed by precision-engineered Adidas footwear and state-of-the-art apparel designed for speed and endurance.

Kubheka was the athlete who pulled off the unthinkable in an astonishing 5:59:20, shaving 6 minutes and 15 seconds off the previous fastest time of 6:05:35. 

In the same week Adidas also launched the world’s first specialist treadmill running shoe.

Over 50,000 people run on treadmills every day, yet nobody has designed a shoe for them before. An obvious gap in some ways, and yet a blue ocean for growth.

Most innovation focuses on products. Still. But we all know that it is the bigger context – the consumer experience, services beyond products, and the ecosystem of partners, the business model, the market model – where innovation can have more impact.

It is estimated that the market will be around USD 48,419.3 million in 2025 and USD 75,916.4 million in 2035 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.6% during the period of forecast.

Super shoes are now normal

As the world’s top athletes come together this week in Tokyo for the 2025 World Athletics Championships, the sport sits at an inflection point.

The “super shoe” era that began with the Vaporfly has matured: carbon plates, PEBA/TPEA-type foams, and aggressive rocker geometries have become mainstream across dozens of models and many brands.

At the same time, new materials and supply-chain priorities are reshaping design decisions, governing bodies have tightened rules, and a new generation of brands – some old, some reinvented, some startup – are pursuing different bets: sustainability, personalisation, embedded tech, direct-to-consumer culture, and niche community authenticity.

So what’s changing, who’s shaping the market, which new technologies matter, and how will shoes, apparel and accessories evolve over the next 5 years?

After a decade of rapid innovation, World Athletics and national federations have moved from reactive to proactive: setting clear limits on stack heights, limiting the number and construction of plates, and publishing approved-shoe lists.

Regulatory shifts (for example new consolidated limits for track and road shoes, and separate track/road rules that came into force after 2022 and evolved into further clarifications in 2024–25) constrain the absolute extremes of a single “secret” podium shoe and force brands to innovate within stricter boundaries.

That regulatory pressure pushes R&D into three places: smarter foam chemistry (durability and energy return), mechanical geometry (rocker profiles, localised stiffness), and supporting services (sensing, custom fit, coaching ecosystems). This matters: with obvious “game-changing” leaps less likely to be achieved by a single plate or a radical sole height, new winners will be brands that combine modest hardware gains with software, fit, durability, and ecosystem value.

They also need to think beyond the product, about the consumer – the runner – who they are, where, what and why they run.

Market analysis

According to FMI, from 2025 to 2035, the running shoes market boom will remain constant due to several factors, including an ever-growing awareness for health, an increasing engagement in sports and fitness activities, along with continuous ongoing innovations concerning the designs of athletic footwear.

Offering shock absorption, support, and traction, running shoes are an essential item for casual runners and ambitious professional athletes and fitness enthusiasts alike. It is estimated that the market will be around USD 48,419.3 million in 2025 and USD 75,916.4 million in 2035 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.6% during the period of forecast.

Growing global wellness trend, rising popularity of marathons and recreational running, and the use of advanced materials including lightweight foams and breathable uppers are promoting growth of the market. Namely, the emergence of e-commerce and brand partnerships with influencers enhance consumer involvement and product availability.

But obstacles such as counterfeit products, intense competition, and high product development costs still remain. Manufacturers have turned to opt for sustainable manufacturing, personalized fit/features technologies, and direct-to-consumer/DTC strategies to tackle these barriers.

The running shoes market has been segmented based on type as well as end user, which has seen increasing cat demand from both recreational and competitive runners. Key types include road running, trail running, and track shoes. These are mainly because road running shoes outnumber the others, being versatile and used on a daily basis, and trail shoes, with more focus on rugged outsole and trail performance.

Men are the largest consumers among end-users followed by women and children. The women’s category is seeing strong growth, aided by inclusive branding and expanding product lines. As consumers gravitate toward shoes focusing on various terrains, training intensities and foot anatomies, brands are investing in various systems for responsive cushioning, energy return and sustainability to meet changing expectations.

North America

The North America running shoes market continues to thrive, with factors including strong consumer spending on fitness, the presence of prominent athletic companies, and growing interest in endurance events. Smart and high-performance running footwear demand is significant in the United States and Canada.

Europe

The Europe market is driven by increasing sports participation, rising inclination towards eco-friendly products, and robust retail infrastructure. The UK, and France are asking for lightweight, sustainable running shoes which does not compromise style and function.

Asia-Pacific

The Asia-Pacific region is the fastest-growing running shoes market, primarily driven by rising middle-class income, fitness culture, and government-run health initiatives. In these countries, the national governments invest heavily in the domestic sports industries, people spend increasing time and expenditure on sports and the demand for footwear among urban and suburban population is inspired.

Challenges

Market Saturation and Short Product Lifecycle

One of the biggest challenges for the running shoes industry is the intense competition and rapid product turnover, with large brands constantly launching new designs, limited editions, and performance-enhancing models. Such saturation breeds price wars, brand dilution and inventory pressure, especially for retailers that serve non-competitive and casual runners.

Further, with the average running shoes having a short lifespan (300-500 miles) that adds pressure on consumers to replace the shoes often and worsens environmental waste found in the lack of recycling programs. And now, with the rise of counterfeits and cheap knock-offs, getting through to consumers has not just become noisy, but really muddy when it comes to brand loyalty and value perception.

Opportunities

Surge in Health Awareness, Personalization, and Sustainable Footwear

The positive aspect here is that the market still benefits from growing global interest in health, fitness, and outdoor activity which translates into steady demand for running and jogging footwear. With comfort, performance and injury prevention increasingly at the top of consumer priorities, brands are putting their budgets behind biomechanically optimized soles, responsive cushioning systems and foot-type-specific styles.

The growing utilization of 3D foot scanning, gait analysis and app-based customization is allowing firms to offer more tailored running journeys. At the same time, consumer demand for eco-conscious products is also driving investment in recycled materials, biodegradable outsoles and closed-loop takeback programs, enabling brands to differentiate themselves through sustainability and transparency of product lifecycle.

Market Shift 2020 to 2024
Regulatory Landscape Basic compliance with product safety and material labelling standards.
Technological Advancements Launch of carbon-plated midsoles and breathable engineered mesh uppers.
Sustainability Trends Early efforts in recycled polyester uppers and eco-friendly packaging.
Market Competition Dominated by global brands with strong marketing and athlete endorsements.
Industry Adoption Common in marathon training, casual jogging, and gym fitness.
Consumer Preferences Demand for lightweight, cushioned, and stylish running shoes.
Market Growth Drivers Growth fuelled by fitness trends and urban outdoor activity.

 

Market Shift 2025 to 2035
Regulatory Landscape Expansion into eco-certification, carbon labelling, and footwear recycling mandates.
Technological Advancements Growth in smart insoles, gait-responsive cushioning, and AI-designed performance features.
Sustainability Trends Industry-wide shift to closed-loop systems, plant-based foams, and modular repairable shoe components.
Market Competition Greater disruption from tech-integrated footwear startups and sustainability-focused challengers.
Industry Adoption Expanded into custom training programs, virtual races, and terrain-specific running modules.
Consumer Preferences Preference for sustainable, personalized, and smart shoes that track and adapt to performance.
Market Growth Drivers Expansion driven by digital health integration, personalization, and sustainability awareness.

Next generation materials

Smarter foams and tuned polymers

PEBA (often under trade names such as Pebax) and PEBA-like compounds have dominated the most lively midsoles because of exceptional rebound and lightness. By 2025 many brands—from Nike to Saucony, Hoka, New Balance, Puma and more—are using PEBA formulations or advanced TPUs to get that “bouncy” feel while trying to improve durability and reduce cost. Expect continuing work on hybrid foams (PEBA blended with more durable EVA variants), micro-architectured foams (engineered cell structures), and small additive blends that target specific distance profiles (tempo vs marathon).

Mechanical innovation without breaking rules

With one rigid plate usually permitted, designers will focus on multi-material plates (composite + thermoplastic inserts) that tune forefoot/heel dynamics and stability, and on macro-geometry: asymmetric stack heights, longitudinal channels that alter bending stiffness, and intelligent tread patterns. Stability winglets, localized pads and variable durometer inserts will let a single model serve multiple runner types via simple modular swaps (replaceable midsole pods or outsole sections). Recent race models from mainstream brands (and Puma’s Fast-R NITRO Elite 3 as a concrete example) show how intense iteration is yielding incremental but meaningful gains.

Durability, circularity and new supply-chain choices

One of the clearest future battlegrounds is resilience: historically the bounciest foams deliver the worst longevity. Runners and retailers are demanding better miles/dollar and lower lifecycle impacts. Brands like Allbirds have leaned into radical material choices (sugarcane-based midsoles, tree/eucalyptus uppers, “net-zero” experiments) and open-sourcing parts of their processes; expect more experimentation with recycled polymer formulations, reclaimed foams and take-back programs that convert used midsoles back into new compound feedstock. Sustainability will shift from PR to product economics: lighter-touch supply chains, modular replaceability and demonstrated carbon/reporting credentials will become competitive advantages.

The rise of brand clusters

When the shoe performance gap narrows, brand story and community matter. Three clusters will stand out.

Specialist performance houses

These are the mid-sized performance brands that double down on a focused promise: trail speed, marathon performance, or daily durability. Hoka (Deckers), Saucony, Brooks, Mizuno and Karhu are sharpening technical portfolios—race shoes with tuned foams, trainers that compete on mileage and stability, and trail models with plated rockered geometries. They capture serious runners who want performance but also fit, foot health and trustable customer support. Independent labs and media outlets continue to rank these brands highly in 2025 buyer guides.

Culture and community brands

Tracksmith, Allbirds, and smaller niche labels will continue to grow by selling identity as much as tech. Tracksmith’s retro, “running class” aesthetic and community activation (brick-and-mortar clubs and storytelling) prove that apparel and coaching culture are powerful. Allbirds proves a different playbook: mainstream comfort + sustainability, which wins urban runners and recovery-day buyers rather than elite racers. These brands matter because they expand the market and make running a lifestyle choice, not just a performance pursuit.

Platform and tech-driven entrants

Brands that add software and sensing to footwear (or partner closely with sensor companies) will find recurring revenue and coachable improvement loops. Expect partnerships or verticalizations with companies such as Nurvv, Stryd, RunScribe, and new insole/smart fabric ventures; the product is no longer just a shoe but a “performance platform” — hardware + firmware + training insights. Academic and commercial advances in low-cost insoles and textile sensors (solar-assisted power, thin pressure arrays) are making embedded sensing feasible at scale. That opens new revenue: subscriptions for gait coaching, injury-prevention analytics, and bespoke training plans based on actual strike mechanics.

Beyond shoes

The shoe is the hero, but apparel and accessories become differentiators:

  • Smart apparel: Textile strain sensors and deep-learning models are moving from lab papers to commercial trials (AI-driven smart sportswear and transformer-based insole pose estimation). Expect shirts and compression garments that combine breathing data, posture cues, and running form feedback via phone apps or coach dashboards. Elite teams and coaching hubs will adopt these first; consumer versions will follow.

  • Modular race kits: Clothing designed to be minimalist for races (integrated pockets, sweat shedding, aerodynamic seams) that pair with specific shoe geometries. Brands that offer combined shoe+apparel “systems” for a target outcome (10k PR kit, marathon comfort kit) will stand out.

  • Recovery and health accessories: Insoles, foot beds, and targeted muscle oxygen sensors will be bundled as part of premium offerings—an ecosystem play similar to cycling (shoes, and power meter, and coaching). Stryd and RunScribe prove business model possibilities by offering hardware that feeds platforms.

Next brands to watch

Beyond the household giants, Adidas and Asics, New Balance and Nike, a mix of incumbents and insurgents will lead:

  • Puma — aggressively repositioning itself as a performance player with the Fast-R NITRO series and R&D investment; their claims and lab testing show measurable efficiency gains and real marathon adoption. Puma is a big example of a legacy brand reasserting performance cred.

  • On Running — Swiss design culture, cloud-style cushioning and robot-woven uppers; they continue to push geometry and manufacturing novelities while expanding apparel and community events.

  • Hoka, Saucony — innovation leaders on foam tuning and marathoner-focused models. Hoka’s blend of cushioning and rocker geometry, and Saucony’s race DNA, give them runway in both everyday and elite markets.

  • Brooks , Mizuno — Brooks on everyday support and sustainability; Mizuno with wave technologies and a premium running heritage.

  • Allbirds, Tracksmith — not for podium dominance, but for convincing significant segments of runners that sustainability and culture matter; Allbirds’ net-zero experiments and open recipe approach are important industry signals.

  • Startups — Nurvv, Stryd, RunScribe and a wave of smart insole/lab spinouts: these companies will either be acquired by footwear brands or will become essential partners for “connected” product lines. New low-cost research from universities (solar-powered pressure insoles, sub-$1 e-textiles) hints at scalable consumer deployments.

  • Regional and heritage labels — Karhu, Diadora, Salomon, and other regional specialists will continue to find loyal markets by mixing authenticity with technical improvements. They might not have the global reach of Nike, but they have credibility in niches (trail, mountain, classic track).

Business models and retail

  • DTC and community: Direct-to-consumer stores that double as running hubs, coaching clinics and product test centres (increasingly what Tracksmith and On are doing). Community fuels loyalty and word-of-mouth.

  • Subscription and service offerings: Shoe+insole+app bundles with monthly coaching or injury monitoring subscriptions. This spreads lifetime revenue and makes premium margins more dependable.

  • Circularity programs: Trade-in, refurbished midsoles, and “replaceable pods” make shoes cheaper to own and more sustainable—appealing to younger consumers and urban markets that prize ethics.

  • B2B to pro teams and nations: Winning elite teams or federations (as showcased in world championships and Olympics) still offers halo effects. But the proof points will increasingly be on durability, measured gains in running economy, and analytics support rather than sensational PR claims alone.

Personalisation and data

Two trends converge: personalization (fit, stiffness, drop, orthotic) and data-driven coaching. Expect:

  • At-home gait scans and local 3D foot printing for insole/upper customization.

  • Adaptive shoes (semi-modular soles or insole inserts sold separately to tune for tempo vs long run).

  • App ecosystems that use every run to improve shoe life estimates, suggest training adjustments, and pre-empt injuries via gait drift detection from smart insoles and clothing sensors. Research prototypes and commercial offerings (Nurvv, Stryd, and academic sensor papers) show the pathway is real.

2025 and beyond

Tokyo 2025, and similar championships, function as the laboratory and the billboard. Race selections — who wears what on the start line — influence amateur choices. But by 2025 the story is less about a single dominant plate and more about brand ecosystems: fit, coach buy-in, and marginal gains from sensors/coaching.

We’ll see more elite athletes experiment with combinations: a PEBA-based race day shoe, a resilient daily trainer from a specialist brand, and data-driven recovery tools supplied by third-party tech companies. That diversification of athlete tech choices will be mirrored across recreational markets.

So what should you watch over the next 5 years?

  • Material breakthroughs: New foams that match PEBA rebound but improve durability or lower carbon footprint.

  • Modularity: Shoes with replaceable midsole pods or swap-in plates that let one shoe serve multiple roles.

  • Sensor mainstreaming: Affordable, durable smart insoles and textile sensors integrated into mass-market trainers.

  • Sustainable product lines: More mainstream, non-niche circular products (e.g., Allbirds commercializing net-zero techniques).

The short story: the future of running shoes is plural, not monopolistic. The era of a single brand defining “fast” is giving way to a richer ecosystem where materials chemistry, modular product design, data services, sustainability credentials, and community authenticity all matter. As Tokyo 2025 shows, elite competition will continue to be a laboratory that accelerates adoption, but the commercial winners will combine measured hardware gains with software, circular economics, and lived community value.

When Piyush Gupta took over as CEO of DBS Bank in 2009, he inherited a bank that was deeply rooted in Singapore’s institutional banking history. It was a strong bank, well-regarded, but also very much a traditional banking organisation—hierarchical, with legacy systems, heavy use of branches, and with relatively low expectations for what “digital” might allow. Over the next decade and a half, Gupta reimagined what DBS could be: not merely a bank that digitises, but a bank that becomes embedded in people’s lives in ways where banking itself becomes largely invisible.

The transformation has been multi-year, deep, and has involved changes in strategy, culture, technology, structure, mindset, and how success is measured. It is the story of an incumbent bank doing more than incremental change—of trying, experimenting, failing, learning, iterating, and gradually turning itself into something that, for many observers, has become a template for what banking might become in an era of fintechs, smartphones, changing customer expectations, and new competition.

The Purpose: “Live more, bank less” and the Invisible Bank

In 2018 DBS formally unveiled a new brand promise: “Live more, bank less.” This was more than marketing. It underlined a shift in how DBS conceived of its role: not to pull customers into banking, branches, apps, or complex financial products, but to push banking out of the way—to make it so simple, seamless, embedded, invisible—so people had more time and mental space for the things they care about.

Gupta described this as enabling an “invisible bank,” where banking services are woven into everyday life rather than standing apart. This could mean marketplaces for utilities, property, or cars embedded into the bank’s digital channels; seamless cross-border remittances; APIs; tools for small-businesses that reduce friction; services that anticipate customer needs; and generally reducing the cognitive and physical load of banking.

This positioning was meant to align with several trends: smartphone ubiquity, customer expectations of speed, convenience, fewer steps; the shift in many industries from product to experience; the rise of platform businesses; and competition from fintechs and large technology firms moving into financial services. DBS saw that just adding digital features to old banking wouldn’t be sufficient—it needed to reimagine processes, systems, and culture.

Early Stages: Culture, strategy, and the first moves

Gupta had a background in Citi, in operations, payments and technology, which gave him both credibility and a perspective that banking could be more than what it was. Upon taking the CEO role, he asked whether he really got to run the company and whether he could transform its culture. From early on, he believed culture was not optional—it had to come first if the other parts of the strategy were to succeed.

A turning point came around 2013, when Gupta and the board recognised that digitalization would not simply be an incremental improvement. They saw what companies like Alibaba and Ant Financial were doing — payments, insurance, lending, etc., all operating via digital platforms without traditional branch networks or salespeople—and realised DBS would have to change its frame of reference. They began asking “What would Amazon do?” or “What would big-tech do?”, rather than merely looking at what other banks were doing.

From that point forward, DBS embarked on several strategic shifts:

  • A strong emphasis on customer journey thinking: mapping customer pain points, redesigning processes end-to-end (not just slapping on a mobile app).

  • The ambition to digitise deeply: not just front-end changes but middle and back-end, operations, risk, compliance. “Killing paper” was one man­tra: trying to eliminate paperwork and manual steps wherever possible.

  • Reorganising how the bank works: agile teams, open spaces, cross-functional squads, usage of design thinking, embedding human-centred design labs and anthropologists, etc.

Hackathons, experiments, and mobilising the imagination

One of the signature features of DBS’s transformation was how it opened up experimentation inside the bank. Gupta and senior leadership deliberately used hackathons, internal experiments, and required that many parts of the organisation run experiments. The idea was not just to generate new products, but to shift mindsets—so staff at all levels felt empowered, aware they could try, fail, iterate, learn. And by exposing many people to this process, you build muscle—both psychological and organisational—for change.

Some of the key elements in this experimental culture:

  • In 2015, hackathons (including “MegaHackathon”) involving senior executives as well as start-ups were run. Staff who had rarely engaged with prototyping or coding were thrown into fast, 72-hour challenge sprints to prototype ideas.

  • Many of the experiments were mandated: in 2015, for example, “everyone’s KPI” included running an experiment. Senior leadership also had KPIs tied to owning customer journeys or employee journeys.

  • Collaborations with FinTechs / start-ups: hack-to-hire events, accelerators, ecosystems. DBS did not try to do everything internally, but partnered, invested, borrowed methodology. That included embracing lean startup, design thinking, feedback loops.

This imagination was applied to services and products as well: digital-only banks like digibank in India, mobile apps like PayLah!, innovations for SMEs, tools for cash management (Treasury Prism), etc. The objective was not simply to bring features but to reimagine what banking could feel like in the digital age.

Technology as enabler: platforms, APIs, data and infrastructure

Transforming culture is necessary but not sufficient: the tech scaffolding must support the new kinds of services and the speed of experimentation. Under Gupta, DBS made substantial investments in technology infrastructure, data analytics, AI/ML, cloud and microservices.

Some of the tech infrastructure moves included:

  • Moving toward API-based architecture and integrating services via APIs, enabling both internal modularity and external partnerships.

  • Building tech development hubs (e.g. outside Singapore: e.g. in India, Hyderabad) that are not just cost centres but innovation and value centres.

  • Embracing agile methodologies, “chaos engineering” (similar to practice in tech companies where resilience, failure, stress-testing are built into development) so new services are resilient.

  • Using data and analytics deeply: tracking customer behaviour; distinguishing digital vs traditional customers; measuring cost-to-serve, engagement; developing internal metrics / KPIs for digital value capture.

Through these, the bank could launch new products more rapidly, respond more flexibly, solve friction points in customer journeys, reduce branch-centric dependency, lower operational cost, while improving customer experience.

Culture shift: mindset, leadership, organisation

For many incumbents, culture is the hardest piece. DBS’s transformation is perhaps as much about the “people stuff” as about tech or strategy.

Key culture shift dimensions:

  • Leadership behaviour: Gupta personally involved in innovation; chairs Customer Experience Council and Innovation Council; taking roles in setting KPIs around customer journeys.

  • Mandating experimentation: experiments not optional, but expected; hackathons as both learning / ideation events and as cultural signal.

  • Flattening hierarchies: more cross-functional teams, open space design labs, breaking down silos, encouraging collaboration between traditional bankers and tech talent. D

  • Employee empowerment & learning: offering training, exposing staff to digital, design thinking, encouraging staff outside of tech or innovation to engage.

All this combined to generate increasing internal momentum: people began to believe change was possible. The confidence to try new things rose. Errors and failures were tolerated as part of learning rather than punished. Over time, the culture of innovation became embedded rather than being seen as a specialist function.

Multi-year transformation: phases, challenges, and scaling

Such transformation does not happen overnight. DBS’s journey can be seen in roughly phases, with different challenges in each.

  • Early diagnosis and strategy setting (around 2009-2013): When Gupta takes over, identifies need to change, sets direction: what is digital, what customer expectations are changing. In these early years, foundations are laid: customer journeys, innovation teams, initial experiments.

  • Execution and embedding (2014-2017): Running many experiments; redesigning internal processes; building infrastructure; launching new digital-only banks (e.g. digibank in India); moving some services to paperless, signatureless, branchless forms; evolving the brand promise. The “Live more, bank less” positioning comes in 2018 after the bank has made considerable progress.

  • Scaling, measurement, and refinement: As the innovation programmes produce some early successes and bumps, DBS invests more heavily, monitors what works and what doesn’t; refines its approach; scales successful experiments; improves tech reliability; builds platforms; ensures regulatory compliance; builds out marketplace features; strengthens risk and operations to support scale.

  • Recognition, external proof, continuous renewal: As DBS’s transformation gained traction, awards, external recognition increased; the bank continued to develop its offering, shift into new geographies; introduce new services; partner; invest in sustainability and purpose; anticipate regulatory, technological, and customer trend shifts. Along the way, there have also been challenges: tech glitches, regulatory demands, maintaining reliability and trust as innovation pushes boundaries.

Recognition and awards: the World’s Most Innovative Bank

DBS’s transformation has not gone unnoticed. Over recent years, DBS has collected many high-profile awards, recognition, and was repeatedly cited as a leader in digital banking innovation.

Some of the recognitions include:

  • Euromoney “World’s Best Digital Bank” multiple times.

  • Awards from The Banker, Global Finance, IFR Asia among others, as “Asia’s Best Bank”, “Best Bank in the World,” etc.

  • In 2019, DBS achieved the rare feat of simultaneously holding three global titles: “Bank of the Year” by The Banker, “Best Bank in the World” by Global Finance, and “World’s Best Bank” by Euromoney.

  • Numerous other industry awards and trailblazer acknowledgements (Retail Banker International Asia Trailblazer Awards, etc.).

These recognitions serve two functions: external validation (useful for investor confidence, regulatory legitimacy, recruiting talent) and internal motivation (reinforcing that the transformation is real, that efforts are being noticed, giving internal stakeholders signals that change is paying off).

What Changed, what gains, what gaps?

By transforming in this way, DBS achieved many of its goals, though not without challenges and trade-offs.

Gains

  • Customer experience improvements: reduced waiting times, more digital channels, smoother journeys, more convenience. Branch-centric friction was reduced.

  • New digital products and services: digibank, mobile wallet apps, tools for SMEs, improved cash management, faster cross-border remittances, marketplaces embedded in bank platforms.

  • Operational efficiencies: with digital tools, automation, reduction of manual work, paper, more flexible tech stack, cost savings in some parts of the bank. Also improved data practices so that decisions are more evidence-based.

  • Cultural engagement: staff more involved, more skill development, more willingness to try new things. Many internally report that the bank feels different: faster pacing, more experimentation.

Challenges, Gaps, Tensions

  • Reliability vs agility: pushing innovation and speed can expose systems to strains. As reported in recent years, DBS has faced regulatory scrutiny for tech failures / service outages. These show that as banking becomes more digital and embedded, any failure can have bigger consequences.

  • Balancing risk, regulation, security: financial services are heavily regulated. Innovating in payments, data, AI, cross-border services demands strong risk, compliance, cybersecurity. Not trivial to keep pace.

  • Profitability of new ventures: some experiments take time to reach scale or profitability; getting the right customer segments (as in the digibank India vs Indonesia experience) is tricky. Learnings from early missteps inform later decisions.

  • Cultural inertia: no transformation completely resets all legacy behaviour. Old ways of doing things, risk aversion, silos, hierarchical decision-making persist. Changing mindset is slower than changing tech. Also attracting and retaining tech/innovation talent in competition with fintechs and tech firms is a challenge.

“Invisible Banking” in practice

What does the invisible bank look like when you pull back from all the rhetoric? What are some examples of how DBS has embedded banking deeper into customers’ lives, reducing friction and making banking less front-and-centre?

  • Marketplaces embedded in the bank’s digital channels (for cars, property, electricity) so customers can take care of non-banking life tasks in or adjacent to their banking experience.

  • digibank in India (branchless, paperless, signatureless) represents a leap toward banking that exists only in the mobile / digital sphere

  • Tools like Treasury Prism for corporate clients, which simplify cash-management operations.

  • For individual customers, mobile wallets (PayLah!), apps, digital onboarding, fewer in-branch requirements. Predictive analytics, personalisation, anticipating when customers need which product or service.

Through all this, DBS sought to reduce the need for customers to think about banking—to reduce steps, to eliminate friction, to anticipate needs. The idea is that paying for groceries, saving, transferring money, getting a mortgage, etc., become part of everyday life, not separate or onerous tasks. That is the invisible bank.

Scaling and sustaining transformation

For a bank as large as DBS, sustaining this transformation over many years has required discipline, investment, and continuous renewal.

  • Measurement and metrics: DBS developed a “digital value capture” methodology to measure things like return on equity for digital customers vs traditional customers, transaction frequency, cost to serve, etc. This helped make the business case for digital investments more concrete.

  • Investment in infrastructure: tech hubs, cloud migration, modular APIs, more insourced tech so as to reduce reliance on third-party legacy dependencies.

  • Governance and leadership alignment: senior leadership bought in; KPIs aligned; boards supportive; leadership behavior modelling change. Without alignment at the top (CEO, senior teams, board) many such efforts fail. Gupta insisted on leading from the front.

  • Repeat, iterate, learn: experiments often start small, then scaled; some failed; some succeeded; learnt from failures. For example, lessons from digibank in India fed into strategy in Indonesia.

Beyond awards, the legacy is visible in many fronts: the number of customers using digital channels; the bank’s ability to respond to disruptions; generally high customer satisfaction; consistent financial performance (profits, growth); and the reputational capital that allows DBS to compete both with legacy banks and with fintechs / tech-enabled challengers. Also visible in the way DBS has influenced other banks in Asia and beyond: its practices around design thinking, API architecture, innovation culture, experimentation are often cited case studies.

New CEO, and the journey continues

After some 14-plus years guiding DBS through this transformation, Piyush Gupta retired in March 2025. His deputy Tan Su Shan stepped up to succeed him as CEO

This leadership transition comes at an opportune and challenging time: while the foundation is strong (technology, culture, recognition, customer base), the bank must maintain momentum, handle rising expectations (from customers, regulators, investors), ensure reliability (especially digital infrastructure), keep up with rapidly evolving AI / machine learning / sustainability / regulatory pressures, navigate macroeconomic headwinds, and continue to adapt.

The question going forward is: how much of the transformation is institutionalised so that it survives CEO transitions, market shocks, technological disruption? Will the “invisible bank” thesis continue to guide strategy? Will experimentation continue to be a core competency, not a luxury? Will culture remain agile, learning-oriented, and focused on customer journeys?

Lessons from DBS’s Reinvention

DBS’s transformation under Piyush Gupta offers many lessons—for banks, for incumbents more broadly, and for organisations hoping to become more digitally native and customer-centric.

  • Start with purpose, not just technology. The purpose (“Live more, bank less,” invisible bank) gives direction. It helps align everything—culture, strategy, product, tech. Technology without purpose tends to produce disconnected experiments.

  • Culture is central. You can change systems, hire technologists, build apps—but unless the culture empowers experimentation, tolerates failure, gives people agency, aligns leadership, you will hit resistance, slow uptake, and reverse-sliding.

  • Experiment broadly, fail fast, learn and scale. DBS didn’t wait for perfect; it ran many experiments, some of which failed; many small, many in parallel; prioritized learning. Hackathons, KPIs tied to experiments, cross-functional teams helped.

  • Measure impact rigorously. Not just customer satisfaction or adoption, but linking digital customers to profitability, cost to serve, return on equity, etc. That gives legitimacy to investments.

  • Invest in tech infrastructure early and deeply. Legacy systems are a drag; to enable agility, scalability, reliability, embedding banking invisibly requires a robust, modular, API-friendly, cloud-capable stack.

  • Leadership matters. Having a leader who is deeply committed, willing to take risk, push culture, show up, lead from the front makes a big difference. Also, aligning incentives and governance so that leadership is held to building the future, not only delivering past metrics.

DBS’s transformation under Piyush Gupta is one of the clearest modern examples of how an incumbent financial institution can reimagine itself—not simply to digitise and reduce cost, but to become more of a platform, more invisible, more embedded in customer lives. The “Live more, bank less” purpose is not just a slogan; it has guided strategy, culture, product design and organisational form.

Because it has been sustained over more than a decade, with repeated experiments, learning, measurement, cultural change, and deep investment in technology, DBS has earned wide recognition—not just for innovation, but for performance, for customer experience and for being ahead of many peers in understanding what banking could become in the 21st century.

Looking back on Gupta’s transformational journey, the legacy is strong, though by no means perfect or fully complete. The challenges ahead are substantial: maintaining reliability under complexity; staying ahead of rapidly changing technology (especially AI, regulation, platform competition); staying true to the invisible bank promise when trade-offs between innovation, risk, and cost are difficult. But DBS has shown that transformation of this scale is possible; that culture, technology, imagination and purpose can combine to change what a bank is.