Business futurist. Innovative strategist. Leadership advisor. Bestselling author. Inspiring speaker.
The global automotive industry is in the midst of a historic transformation. For more than a century, European car makers have defined the standards of design, engineering and prestige. Brands like Volkswagen, Mercedes‑Benz, and Porsche became synonymous with quality, luxury and performance.
Yet today, an unprecedented wave of disruption is reshaping the rules of the road. Chinese manufacturers such as BYD, Nio, Xpeng and Xiaomi are challenging incumbents with electric vehicles (EVs), software‑driven experiences and aggressive growth strategies.
The contrast could not be starker.
European companies emerged from decades of industrial craftsmanship, mastery of internal combustion engines (ICE), and a global distribution footprint built on heritage.
Chinese entrants, by contrast, often come from technology, battery production, or consumer electronics backgrounds, bringing agility, digital know‑how and the ability to leapfrog legacy constraints. BYD, for instance, evolved from a battery maker into a full EV manufacturer, quickly becoming a global leader in electric mobility. Nio began with a focus on premium EVs and lifestyle services, positioning itself as a “technology luxury” brand. Xiaomi, known for smartphones and connected devices, is now applying its software ecosystem expertise to cars, promising integration with smart homes and IoT networks.
This generational shift is driven by more than just electrification. Regulatory incentives, climate concerns, urbanisation and shifting consumer expectations have disrupted the balance of power. Where European manufacturers once led in every dimension, China’s new entrants are demonstrating strengths in software, connectivity, vertical integration and rapid scale.
But the question remains: in this new era, who is truly better — and what do each need to do to secure their future potential?
Comparing the key factors
To answer this, we focus on four critical variables that will define leadership in the automotive future:
Engineering and Product Experience – encompassing vehicle performance, safety, design and hardware quality.
Software and Digital Ecosystem – including connectivity, over‑the‑air updates, autonomous driving and smart integration.
Brand and Market Positioning – capturing reputation, global reach, customer perception and lifestyle appeal.
Growth, Scale and Profitability – reflecting financial health, industrial strategy, and ability to sustain innovation.
1. Engineering and Product Experience
European manufacturers have long set the benchmark for mechanical excellence. Mercedes‑Benz combines luxury and engineering precision, Porsche delivers unparalleled performance and driving dynamics, and Volkswagen balances affordability with reliability. Decades of experience in ICE technology, suspension tuning, crash safety and materials science create vehicles that feel refined, predictable and enduring.
Chinese companies, conversely, approach engineering from a different perspective. BYD’s electric architecture emphasises battery safety, efficiency and cost‑effectiveness, while Nio and Xpeng have invested in chassis and drivetrain tuning that meet both performance and comfort expectations. Early Chinese vehicles faced criticism for derivative design and inconsistent quality, but today’s models demonstrate a striking leap in refinement. Interiors are spacious, ergonomically thoughtful and integrated with expansive digital displays, signalling a design philosophy tuned to a tech‑savvy, urban consumer.
The divergence: European engineering still excels in vehicle dynamics, material quality and mechanical reliability. Chinese makers are closing the gap quickly, particularly in EV‑specific engineering, battery innovation, and integrated performance systems. For Europe, the challenge is adapting ICE expertise to a future dominated by electric architecture without legacy inefficiencies. For China, it is sustaining high-quality production while scaling globally.
2. Software and Digital Ecosystem
Here lies the most significant battleground of the next decade. Vehicles are becoming computers on wheels; software determines the user experience, connectivity, autonomous features, and the vehicle’s adaptability long after purchase.
Chinese makers lead in this domain. Nio’s battery‑swap networks, integrated lifestyle services, and OTA (over‑the‑air) updates showcase an approach where cars are part of a broader digital ecosystem. Xpeng and Li Auto deploy advanced driver-assistance systems and smart connectivity, reflecting a software-first philosophy. Xiaomi’s entry promises to accelerate this trend, leveraging expertise in consumer electronics and IoT to integrate cars into home and personal networks seamlessly.
European manufacturers, historically hardware-centric, are catching up. Volkswagen’s “Car.Software Organisation” and Mercedes’s MBUX system indicate a serious pivot toward software, but these initiatives often operate within legacy constraints, including older IT infrastructure, complex supply chains, and slower regulatory approval cycles for autonomous or connected features.
The divergence: China excels in rapid iteration, OTA updates, and digital-first consumer experiences. Europe maintains rigorous safety and build quality but risks lagging in digital agility. To unlock future potential, European makers must embed software culture throughout product development, while Chinese manufacturers must ensure software reliability, cybersecurity, and regulatory compliance as they scale internationally.
3. Brand and Market Positioning
European marques enjoy a near-immutable aura of prestige. Mercedes‑Benz conveys luxury, safety and history; Porsche radiates performance and desirability; Volkswagen commands global recognition. This brand equity translates into pricing power, customer loyalty, and resilience in volatile markets.
Chinese brands, by contrast, are emergent and regional. BYD has become synonymous with mass-market EV reliability, while Nio markets itself as a premium, technology-focused lifestyle brand. Xpeng and Li Auto appeal to tech-conscious buyers, and Xiaomi leverages its global electronics reputation to imbue credibility in the automotive sector. Internationally, however, Chinese brands still lack the deep cultural resonance and aspirational aura enjoyed by European marques.
The divergence: European companies possess decades of brand authority, but risk being perceived as slow-moving or conservative in the tech-driven EV era. Chinese brands are innovative and digitally appealing but must overcome global perception challenges. To unlock their potential, Europe needs to modernise its brand narrative for the digital age, positioning itself as a forward-thinking EV innovator. Chinese companies must continue international expansion while demonstrating quality, reliability, and service excellence to build enduring global reputations.
4. Growth, Scale and Profitability
Financial health and industrial scale determine who can endure disruption and invest in the future. European manufacturers generate substantial profits, leveraging diversified portfolios that span luxury and volume segments. Porsche’s margins are among the highest in the world, Mercedes-Benz maintains consistent profitability, and Volkswagen’s global reach ensures stability. Yet transitioning these massive operations to EV-first production entails enormous investment in new platforms, battery supply chains, and software infrastructure.
Chinese manufacturers, in contrast, are growing explosively, particularly in the domestic EV market, which is the world’s largest. BYD’s vertical integration, producing batteries, motors, and vehicles, improves both margins and supply resilience. Nio and Xpeng are still refining profitability models but benefit from strong growth and supportive industrial policies. Xiaomi’s entry brings capital strength and digital ecosystem leverage, accelerating scale and brand reach.
The divergence: Europe maintains robust profits but faces the cost of transformation; China enjoys rapid growth but profitability remains uneven. For Europe, unlocking potential means accelerating EV transitions efficiently while rationalising costs. For China, it means translating growth into consistent profitability and building global service infrastructure capable of supporting international expansion.
Who leads, and who needs to do what?
Taken together, the comparison is nuanced:
Europe leads in: heritage engineering, luxury and brand prestige, build quality, and global recognition.
China leads in: EV-specific architecture, software-driven ecosystems, rapid innovation, vertical integration, and growth velocity.
What Europe needs to do:
Embrace software and digital-first development at scale, integrating connectivity, OTA updates, and AI-driven features.
Modernise EV production without being encumbered by legacy ICE processes.
Revitalise brand narratives to align with younger, tech-centric consumers and EV enthusiasts.
What China needs to do:
Cement quality and reliability standards to match global expectations and premium positioning.
Expand global brand awareness and cultural resonance beyond Asia.
Demonstrate consistent profitability while scaling international production and service networks.
The ultimate future of the industry will not be dominated by one region. Rather, the winners will combine the strengths of both approaches: European rigour and brand authority with Chinese agility, digital innovation, and EV-first industrial strategy. Consumers will benefit as competition accelerates innovation, reduces prices, and expands choice — from ultra-luxury performance cars to smart, affordable EVs.
The future of automotive
Europe’s car makers remain formidable, offering heritage, engineering precision, and global prestige. Yet the rise of Chinese automotive firms signals a new era where software, digital ecosystems, and EV-specific innovation matter as much as horsepower and build quality. China is not merely catching up — in many dimensions, it is redefining what it means to be a modern car company.
Of course it is not just a story of Europe vs China. Most significantly, there is Tesla. Any many other brands from around the world. As well as all the classic American brands, which are similar to the European paradigm, there are the Japanese, Koreans, Indians and many more. But the story is not really about nations, it’s about mindset and capability, vision and transformation.
The next decade will likely see a hybridisation of strengths: Europe adapting to become more agile, digitally fluent, and EV-centric; China expanding globally, proving quality and reliability at scale, and leveraging software ecosystems to redefine the automotive experience. The question is no longer simply who is better today, but who can best integrate engineering excellence with digital intelligence and global ambition to dominate the future of mobility.
In short: Europe retains the crown in heritage and refinement; China holds the scepter of innovation and growth.
If you’re a business leader reading this at the start of a new year, you are probably feeling two things at once: the tired refrain of “we must do more with less” and the electric promise that something genuinely different is arriving.
The paradox of our age is that constraint and possibility co-exist more intensely than ever. For leaders in 2026 the task is not simply to endure the level of uncertainty — it is to make a decisive, humane, strategic response: to shape a clear manifesto of what you will stop, start and double down on in the months ahead.
Below is my practical, optimistic and slightly provocative playbook of new year resolutions for leaders who want to thrive — not just survive — in 2026 and the years beyond.
Of course you’ll find lots more big ideas, bite-sized actions, and deep dives into leaders and companies getting it right — brought together through inspiring keynotes, practical workshops and leadership support at peterfisk.com.
The context … why 2026 demands a manifesto
We are not moving into a “new normal” so much as a world of ongoing re-definition. The engines of change — generative AI, new supply-chain architectures, climate pressures, demographic shifts, geopolitical competition and rapidly changing customer expectations — are accelerating. For leaders this means two simultaneous realities:
Technology is embedding itself everywhere. AI and machine learning are already present across core business functions: product, customer service, operations, HR and strategy. A large and growing share of organisations now report AI use in at least one function; but the jump from experimentation to scaled, enduring value is still work in progress. The use of AI is widespread, even if transformation at scale is rarer.
Innovation is not optional. The companies that lead their markets are not merely faster at iteration; they re-write the rules of how value is created. Lists of the world’s most innovative companies show that leadership in 2025-26 comes from combining technological depth with business model creativity. If you do not invest in purposeful innovation now, competitors will.
These two realities give us a simple leadership rule for 2026: be more human in your intent and more machine-smart in your execution.
A manifesto: 12 resolutions every leader should make for 2026
Below are twelve concrete, behavioural resolutions — a manifesto you can adapt for your organisation. Each comes with a short practical action and an example of how a leader might live it.
1. Resolve to make clarity your advantage
Why: In complexity, clarity is a compass. Without it, you are lost in change, and energy leaks into peripheral debates. Action: Publish a single-page strategic charter by end of Q1 that states your “where to play” and “how to win” for 2026, and cascade it into three measurable outcomes per team. Big choices give direction, while retaining agility. Leader example: A CEO announces three public outcomes (customer retention %, NPS and net new revenue from a new product) and links all Q1 OKRs to these metrics. The result: faster decision-making and 20% improvement in time-to-market.
Why: AI is an operational lever — powerful, but only when tied to human judgements. Action: Create a “value-first AI” map: list five business problems where AI could reduce cost, increase revenue or unlock strategic insight; pilot two, measure ROI in 90 days. Leader example: A retail COO uses AI to cut supply-chain waste and reduce stockouts. Early pilots show a 6–8% inventory efficiency gain — a clear financial justification for scale. (Remember: many organisations use AI; only some have it at scale).
Why: Speed without rhythm leads to exhaustion; rhythm without flexibility creates irrelevance. Action: Move to a tri-modal cadence — a weekly tactical check, a monthly strategic review, and a quarterly re-vision day dedicated to trends and bets. Leader example: An executive team swaps a bimonthly board update for a quarterly “future day” where external experts and customers brief the team; the board begins to fund two experimental bets every quarter.
4. Resolve to invest in human capital as a product
Why: Talent mobility and skill obsolescence mean roles — and careers — are becoming products you must design. Action: Create “skill pathways” for key roles (AI literacy, ecosystem partnerships, experience design), and allocate 3–5% of payroll to micro-learning and rotation programmes. Leader example: A services firm offers rotations that pair consultants with data scientists for six-week sprints. Retention and cross-selling increase.
5. Resolve to put purpose in your business model, not on your press release
Why: Sustainability and social licence are now business imperatives, not marketing decorations. Action: Translate one purpose objective into revenue terms (e.g. circular design reduces raw material spend by X) and report it publicly alongside financial KPIs. Leader example: A food manufacturer redesigns packaging for recyclability, reducing material cost and unlocking new retailer listings.
6. Resolve to redesign customer value as a continuous journey
Why: Customers prize flexibility, speed and human care; lifetime value comes from repeated delight. Action: Map customer journeys end-to-end, identify three “moments of truth” and apply design experiments to each. Leader example: A bank eliminates a 10-step mortgage process and replaces it with a two-hour “approval lane” supported by AI triage and human underwriters.
Why: Products increasingly live in networks of partners; the ability to orchestrate ecosystems creates defensibility. Action: Identify two partner categories (tech, distribution) and design a partner playbook that aligns incentives for customer outcomes. Leader example: A SaaS vendor launches a marketplace for integrations, turning the product into a platform and adding new recurring revenue streams.
Why: Incremental change won’t survive structural shifts; new models create optionality. Action: Dedicate a seed fund (1–2% of revenue) to test subscription services, “as-a-service” transformations, or outcome-based pricing. Leader example: A manufacturing firm pilots “machines-as-a-service” and discovers a 25% uplift in lifetime customer value.
9. Resolve to remove friction from the organisation
Why: Bureaucracy is expensive and slows adaptation. Action: Run a “friction audit” — a two-week process to map approvals, handoffs and decision delays; eliminate or automate the top three. Leader example: A company automates compliance checks with an AI agent, cutting approval times by half.
10. Resolve to make ethical design a board conversation
Why: Ethics and regulation will be strategic issues for AI, data use and customer trust. Action: Add an ethical risk score to all major initiatives and brief the board quarterly on ethical and regulatory posture. Leader example: A firm establishes an ethics committee that signs off on generative-AI use cases; this reduces reputational incidents and eases regulator discussions.
11. Resolve to reimagine performance for hybrid futures
Why: Output, not occupancy, must define performance in distributed organisations. Action: Replace time-based KPIs with outcome-based objectives; tie a portion of variable pay to cross-functional outcomes. Leader example: An insurer shifts underwriting KPIs from “cases processed” to “loss ratio improvements” and improves underwriting quality.
12. Resolve to take the courageous leap
Why: Many leaders will iterate; a few will leap. A courageous leap is a deliberate decision to commit resources to a future that is not yet visible. Action: Identify one transformative bet (new market, new capability) and create a six-month launch plan with committed funding and a rapid measurement cadence. Leader example: A European retailer commits to a full experiential overhaul of its flagship stores, integrating digital and physical experiences; footfall and conversion rates rise materially.
How to convert resolutions into a practical operating plan
Resolutions become meaningful when translated into the language of budgets, people and timelines. Use this simple three-part framework to operationalise your manifesto:
Signal (what you will be measured on) — Choose three organisation-level KPIs for 2026 (e.g. X% revenue from new offerings, Y% reduction in customer churn, Z% of decisions powered by AI).
Structure (who is responsible) — Assign an owner and a cross-functional delivery squad for each KPI; give them a light governance process and a fixed runway.
Speed (how you learn) — Adopt a 90-day sprint model with weekly learning check-ins and a hard stop for either scale or kill.
Two practical tools to adopt immediately:
A Strategy One-Pager for the whole company.
A Value-First AI Roadmap that links each pilot to a tangible business metric.
Data helps ground ambition in reality. Here are a few load-bearing statistics you should know as you plan for 2026:
AI usage is widespread but scaling remains work in progress. Recent industry surveys report that a very high share of organisations now use AI in at least one function, with many firms experimenting with AI agents and generative tools — but only a minority have scaled AI to capture full enterprise value. This dichotomy means leaders must focus on measurable pilots with the intent to scale.
Investment and hype outpace enterprise scaling. Private investment into AI ventures remains immense, and chip-makers and cloud providers are doubling down; yet some surveys note that only a modest proportion of companies have AI implemented at scale, underscoring the need for clear ROI and governance.
Innovation leaders are diverse and sector-spanning. Independent rankings of the most innovative companies show that leading firms combine deep technical capability with new business models and ecosystems — from Waymo in mobility to healthcare and consumer champions across many industries. If you want to learn how to lead in 2026, study the ways these firms combine focus with ecosystem play.
These are not theoretical points. They inform the choices in your manifesto: prioritise clear use cases for AI, insist on measurable pilots, and treat innovation as a repeatable operating competency.
Leaders to learn from, and what they will do in 2026
For leaders seeking practical illustration, it helps to look at people who are translating strategy into results today. Below are short, contemporary profiles of leaders — male and female, global in scope — and the kinds of moves they are likely to double down on in 2026.
Satya Nadella … the builder of platforms and productivity
Satya Nadella has steered Microsoft from a legacy software vendor to a platform leader where cloud and AI are central. Nadella’s consistent emphasis has been on empowering people and organisations through platforms that combine cloud scale with productivity tools. He frames AI as a productivity multiplier and stresses the need for responsible, measured adoption. In 2026, expect leaders like Nadella to press on with integrating AI across productivity stacks while investing heavily in security, customers and ecosystem partnerships.
Lesson: Invest in platform thinking: make your product the core of an ecosystem rather than a standalone point solution.
Jensen Huang … the energy behind AI infrastructure
Jensen Huang at Nvidia has made accelerated computing the backbone of the AI era. His public messages treat AI as infrastructure — as fundamental as electricity — and that framing has shaped investment and partnerships in 2024–25. In 2026, leaders attuned to Huang’s thinking will treat compute strategy and partnerships as strategic assets and will design products that anticipate rising compute needs.
Lesson: View technology infrastructure as strategic capital. Secure partnerships and invest early in capabilities that future use cases will demand.
Jane Fraser … the architect of disciplined global banking
Jane Fraser has reshaped Citigroup by confronting complexity head-on. As the first woman to lead a major U.S. bank, she has driven a multi-year simplification agenda — exiting non-core markets, tightening strategic focus, and reorganising Citi around a smaller number of global businesses where it can genuinely win. Fraser combines strategic toughness with cultural renewal, modernising risk, technology and talent while reinforcing client trust. In 2026, expect Fraser to double down on operational excellence, AI-enabled risk and compliance, and scalable wealth and institutional services that play to Citi’s global strengths.
Lesson: Simplification is a growth strategy. Focus your organisation on where it can lead — and execute relentlessly.
Debra Crew … the operator bringing discipline to iconic brands
Debra Crew brought deep operational rigour to Diageo, applying decades of experience from PepsiCo, Mars and consumer multinationals to one of the world’s most powerful brand portfolios. Her leadership emphasised execution, productivity and commercial performance at a time when global consumer companies faced inflation, shifting demand and supply-chain volatility. Crew’s tenure underscored how brand power alone is not enough without disciplined delivery. In 2026, leaders shaped by this approach will focus on portfolio optimisation, premiumisation with restraint, and data-driven route-to-market strategies that protect margins while sustaining brand equity.
Lesson: Even the strongest brands need operational discipline; execution is the multiplier of strategy.
Tan Su Shan … the scaler of digital banking and AI at work
Tan Su Shan represents the next generation of Asian banking leadership — pragmatic, technology-fluent and commercially focused. Having played a central role in DBS’s decade-long transformation into one of the world’s most digital banks, she now leads with a clear mandate: scale what works. DBS has embedded AI deeply across credit, risk, operations and customer engagement, delivering measurable financial impact rather than isolated experiments. In 2026, Tan will push further into AI-driven productivity, ecosystem partnerships and sustainable finance, reinforcing DBS’s reputation as a technology company with a banking licence.
Lesson: Digital transformation only matters when it delivers real economic value — scale proven use cases fast.
Elliott Hill … the restorer of sport, culture and brand energy
Elliott Hill returned to Nike with one defining advantage: deep institutional memory combined with a clear-eyed view of what had drifted. Having grown up inside Nike over decades, he understands that the brand’s power lies at the intersection of sport, performance and culture. His early moves signal a reset — refocusing on athletes, product innovation and emotional connection, while simplifying organisational layers and strengthening partnerships. In 2026, expect Hill to prioritise fewer, better innovations, sharper storytelling, and a more balanced approach between direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels.
Lesson: When brands lose momentum, return to first principles — purpose, product and the people you exist for.
Practical tools and rituals to embed the manifesto
Words without rituals slip away. Here are workshop formats and leadership rituals that embed change:
1. The 90-Day Value Sprint (two days to scope, eight weeks to pilot, two weeks to measure)
Kick-off with a cross-functional team and clear success metrics.
Use rapid MVE (minimum viable experiment) thinking: small, measurable, reversible.
Demo results to the leadership board and decide scale/stop.
2. The Future Day (quarterly)
Invite external provocateurs and customer panels.
Top three activities: scenario mapping, competitor micro-briefs, the bold bet review.
Use the day to shift course or amplify investment.
3. Ethical Risk Table (monthly)
A short, structured review of any AI, data or reputational risks arising from live projects.
Create a simple red/amber/green score and assign fixes.
4. The Talent Swap (micro-rotation)
Six-week rotations pairing business leaders with technologists.
Builds empathy and cross-functional capability.
These rituals transform manifesto words into managerial muscle.
The reinvention playbook … time to put it into practice
“Reinvention” can sound like marketing candy. In practice, reinvention is an engineered process. Here is a condensed playbook you can use:
Diagnosis — Map where your business sits on S-curves: which products are maturing, which are emerging.
Signal — Articulate a bold, measurable future state (three outcomes).
Scaffold — Build a dual-structure: core business teams and a small, empowered reinvention unit with separate funding and freedom.
Experiment — Run a portfolio of fast experiments that test assumptions (price, model, distribution).
Scale — Double down on what works and kill quickly what doesn’t.
Institutionalise — Bake new capabilities into the core: new partnerships, skills, and leadership metrics.
This is not an academic exercise; it is how companies move from incrementalism to structural change.
Measuring progress … what good looks like in 12 months
Choose a small set of leading indicators — the things you measure daily or weekly — in addition to lagging financial KPIs. Examples:
Percentage of revenue from new products or channels (target: 20%+ in 12 months for ambitious reinvention).
Number of AI pilots with validated ROI (target: 4 pilots with positive ROI).
Employee skill readiness score for priority skills (target: 70% of target cohort certified).
Partner ecosystem NPS (target: improvement of 10 points).
Tie incentives to a mix of short-term delivery and medium-term capability building.
What the courageous leap looks like
Imagine a mid-sized European manufacturer with a strong brand but slowing growth. The CEO commits to a courageous leap: transform from selling components to delivering “performance as a service” (outcomes, not parts). Steps taken:
A one-page strategy signed by the board.
A seed fund of 1% revenue for experiments.
A cross-functional team to pilot a subscription plan for a key client segment.
Two AI pilots to predict downtime and optimise maintenance.
Quarterly customer co-creation sessions.
Within 12 months the company has a marketable subscription, two paying pilot customers and a measurable reduction in churn among top clients. This is not hypergrowth; it is structural reinvention that creates optionality and scales as the market accepts the model.
Your leadership checklist for the first 100 days of 2026
Publish your one-page strategic charter.
Run a friction audit and remove the top three blockers.
Launch two AI pilots tied to clear financial metrics.
Create a talent pathway for two critical skills.
Convene the first Future Day and publish three public outcomes.
Set up an ethics oversight process for AI and data.
Do these six things and you will have moved from aspiration to disciplined action.
How I can help … keynotes, workshops and strategic facilitation
If you want inspiration, structure and hands-on execution support, that’s precisely what I offer through keynotes, strategy work and workshops — practical sessions that convert trends into tangible business options. Here’s how I work with leaders and teams:
Inspiring keynote: A vivid, evidence-rich talk that frames the question (megatrends, 26 trends for 2026), mobilises the team and sets the agenda for change. The goal is to accelerate alignment and create urgency with a clear call to action.
Practical strategy workshops: Tailored, interactive sessions that produce a one-page strategy, a 90-day implementation plan and a risk-calibrated portfolio of experiments. These workshops are designed for leadership teams and the top 50–100 change agents in your organisation.
Leadership advisory: Ongoing support to accelerate the “reinvention playbook” — from designing new business models and ecosystem strategies to building AI literacy and ethical governance.
Custom masterclasses: Deep dives on topics such as “AI for commercial impact”, “Designing new business models” and “Leading through disruption”.
If you want to explore how we can work together, you can find practical resources, case studies and booking details at peterfisk.com. My work blends inspirational framing with practical, measurable plans that leaders can deploy immediately.
Final thought … be a leader who chooses the future
Leaders in 2026 will be judged not by how closely they cling to the past but by how intelligently they choose future possibilities. Choosing the future means three things:
You must be a steward of both present value and future value. Balance today’s cash flows with capacity to pivot.
You must design experiments as organisational routines. Reinvention is not a project; it is a muscle.
You must lead with human purpose and machine speed. Technology amplifies what leaders already care about; it does not replace that compass.
In the words of one modern CEO: “AI is the defining technology of our generation.” Use that claim as a challenge. Let it sharpen your purpose and your practice. Bookend your year with a manifesto and an outcomes sheet, and hold your leadership team to it.
If you would like, I can help you draft a bespoke one-page manifesto for your organisation, a 90-day sprint plan for two value-first AI pilots, or a tailored keynote to align your executive team around the resolutions above. Visit peterfisk.com to see examples and get in touch — or, if you prefer, tell me here which three resolutions you want to start with and I’ll draft a ready-to-use one-page strategy and sprint plan for you.
Happy new year!
How the long-run GDP research of Angus Maddison and the updated datasets from The Maddison Project at the University of Groningen frame the case that AI could accelerate healthcare, science, and innovation cycles enough to shift the global growth rate itself.
For most of human history, economic progress was so slow that it was almost invisible. A farmer in 1200 lived much like a farmer in 800. A merchant in 1500 was not dramatically richer than one in 1000. Growth existed, but it did not compound in a meaningful way.
That long stagnation—and the dramatic escape from it—is best understood through the work (between 1970 and 2010) of Angus Maddison. Over several decades, Maddison painstakingly reconstructed historical GDP and population data across countries going back nearly two millennia. His estimates, later refined and extended by The Maddison Project at the University of Groningen (2013-2020), gave economists something they had never truly possessed before: a quantitative map of civilization-scale growth.
That map reveals a startling pattern. For roughly 1,800 years, global per capita income barely increased. Annual growth hovered near zero—around 0.05–0.1%. At that pace, it would take a millennium for incomes to meaningfully double. This was the Malthusian world: technological improvements mostly translated into larger populations, not higher living standards
The First Acceleration: Industrialization
Around 1800, the Industrial Revolution changed the trajectory of growth. Mechanization, steam power, and factory production pushed leading economies toward sustained 1–2% annual per capita growth.
That shift may sound incremental, but compounding magnifies it dramatically:
1% annual growth ≈ 2.7× expansion per century
2% annual growth ≈ 7× expansion per century
For the first time in recorded history, living standards multiplied within a few generations. The growth curve bent upward.
The Second Acceleration: The 20th Century
The 20th century brought electrification, internal combustion, telecommunications, aviation, pharmaceuticals, and computing. Some advanced economies sustained 2–3% annual per capita growth for decades.
At 3% growth, output rises nearly 20× over a century.
The Maddison data thus reveals a pattern: growth is not linear. It occurs in rare step changes. When the underlying growth rate shifts even slightly, the long-term consequences are transformative.
That historical pattern sets the stage for the AI question.
The AI Extrapolation: Where “20× per Century” Comes From
The Maddison dataset does not predict AI-driven growth. The “20× per century” thesis is a modern extrapolation grounded in the mathematics of compounding.
If AI helps sustain:
~3% long-run annual per capita growth → ~20× per century
~4% growth → ~50× per century
~5% growth → >100× per century
The claim is not that this will happen automatically. The claim is that AI, as a general-purpose technology, could plausibly raise the long-run growth rate in the way steam power or electricity once did.
The core distinction is this:
Industrialization automated physical labor.
AI has the potential to augment or automate cognitive labor.
If cognition itself becomes scalable, the growth implications are different in kind, not just degree.
Healthcare: Compressing the Timeline of Discovery
One practical area where this matters is healthcare.
Drug development today often takes more than a decade. AI systems capable of predicting protein structures, simulating molecular interactions, and optimizing trial design could shorten that cycle.
The economic effects would compound:
Faster development of treatments
Lower long-term healthcare costs
Healthier, more productive populations
Longer working lives
In the 20th century, public health improvements significantly contributed to growth. AI could accelerate that channel again—by compressing innovation timelines.
Science and Energy: Unlocking New Constraints
Economic history shows that energy abundance is tightly linked to growth accelerations. Steam power, fossil fuels, and electrification all lifted production ceilings.
AI-assisted research could accelerate breakthroughs in:
Advanced materials
Battery storage
Nuclear fusion
Carbon capture
If discovery cycles shorten and experimental iteration speeds up, scientific progress itself accelerates. The result is not just higher output—it is a faster pace of unlocking new production possibilities.
Innovation Cycles: Speed as a Growth Variable
Perhaps the most radical implication concerns innovation speed.
Past general-purpose technologies required decades of infrastructure buildout. Electrification required new grids and redesigned factories. The internet required global networks and new business models.
AI, by contrast, is software. It can scale globally in years.
If AI reduces the time required for:
Software development
Legal drafting
Engineering design
Supply chain optimization
then the gap between idea and implementation shrinks. Shorter cycles mean faster feedback. Faster feedback means more rapid productivity gains.
In that world, growth feeds on itself.
The 20x Century
The difference between 2% and 4% annual growth is not dramatic in a single year. Over a century, it is the difference between a world that is seven times richer and one that is fifty times richer. Compounding turns marginal percentage shifts into civilizational divergence.
None of this is guaranteed. The Maddison data also teaches caution. Sustained growth accelerations are rare. They require institutional stability, capital investment, diffusion of knowledge, and political accommodation. The Industrial Revolution produced upheaval before prosperity generalized. AI could generate its own social and labor disruptions that shape its long-run trajectory.
But the broader perspective remains powerful. When plotted over two thousand years, economic history looks like a staircase: a long flat stretch, a sharp upward step around 1800, another acceleration in the 20th century. Each step corresponded to a general-purpose technology that changed the constraints of production.
The work of Angus Maddison provided the long arc. The Maddison Project at Groningen refined it and extended it. The “20× per century” AI hypothesis is an attempt to apply that long-run lens forward.
The essential question is not whether AI improves productivity at the margin. It almost certainly will. The deeper question is whether it alters the slope of the growth curve itself.
If it does—if AI meaningfully augments cognition, accelerates science, and compresses innovation cycles—future historians may look back on the early 21st century as another clear discontinuity in the data. And what appears today as a small shift in annual growth rates may ultimately define the economic character of the century.
2026 is the year the future gets real. Not just in terms of the ever -ccelerating technological possibilities, but in the practical, commercial, human reshaping of economies, cultures, consumption, work, and leadership.
The turbulence of the past decade — pandemic, inflation, supply chain shocks, climate chaos, geopolitical fragmentation, demographic disruption, and AI’s sudden ignition — converges into a moment where every business must rethink what it does, how it creates value, and what it stands for.
We are witnessing not merely incremental shifts but the remapping of human priorities, the redesign of market systems, and the reinvention of business models.
Consumers are more intentional, selective, contradictory, and experimental. Technology is more ambient, embedded, personalised and intelligent than ever before. Brands are increasingly porous, community-driven, and culturally entangled. Economies are shifting north, south, east and west. Work is becoming more fluid. Talent is becoming borderless. And companies are being judged not only on what they make, but on the ecosystems, behaviours, and impact they generate.
I spend my working life searching the world for new ideas, opportunities and innovations; working with some of the most interesting business leaders from each continent, scanning the latest trends and reports. My projects in 2025 have taken me from banking in Brazil to retail in Mexico, insurance in Japan to fertiliser in Morocco, tech in Germany to food in Saudi Arabia, construction in Egypt and luxury goods in Switzerland.
So here is my curation of the 26 most impactful business trends for 2026 — those that will shape markets, define industries, influence customers, and accelerate or threaten growth. They span consumer culture, technology, business models, leadership, economics, marketing and brand behaviour. Together, they provide a strategic lens for leaders preparing to navigate the most opportunity-rich — and risk-filled — commercial landscape in decades.
Trend 1: Algorithmic Everything
AI and algorithmic systems are the operational backbone across industries. Algorithms anticipate needs, optimise supply chains, orchestrate workflows, and personalise services. From healthcare to fashion, logistics to marketing, organisations embedding AI as a strategic foundation transform operations and decision-making. Algorithmic mastery accelerates innovation, reduces human error, and generates predictive insights that redefine competitive advantage. Businesses converting AI into an enterprise-wide platform gain continuous improvement loops, operational resilience, and new business models.
Leadership actions: Executives must prioritise AI literacy, integrate predictive intelligence into strategy, and align teams around human-machine collaboration. Decision-making increasingly relies on algorithmic insight.
Example: Relativity Space (USA) Relativity Space uses AI-driven generative design and autonomous 3D printing to produce rockets. Each print cycle informs material science and engineering improvements, compressing timelines from years to months. Predictive maintenance, rapid prototyping, and scalable production illustrate how algorithmic intelligence transforms manufacturing and strategy.
Trend 2: Biofused Living
Biotechnology, materials science, and computation converge to create regenerative, circular systems. Products self-heal, biodegrade, or convert waste into resources, transforming production in food, fashion, construction, and energy. Bio-design enables sustainable, resilient operations and functional, ethical, ecological products that resonate with conscious consumers. Living systems shift sustainability from marketing claim to operational strategy, driving circularity, efficiency, and long-term resilience. Companies embedding biofused processes unlock value while reducing environmental impact, bridging science, design, and consumer engagement.
Leadership actions: Leaders should foster cross-disciplinary innovation, invest in R&D, and integrate sustainability into strategy as a source of growth and differentiation.
Example: Bolt Threads (USA) Bolt Threads creates sustainable textiles using engineered proteins, including spider silk and mycelium leather. These materials are biodegradable, high-performance, and reduce environmental impact. By integrating bio-design into fashion, Bolt Threads demonstrates regenerative production while delivering premium, innovative products.
Trend 3: Cognitive Experiences
Consumer experiences increasingly combine neuroscience, behavioural design, AI, and sensory engagement. Experiences adapt dynamically to attention, emotion, and context, enhancing memory, engagement, and satisfaction. Retail, hospitality, entertainment, and digital platforms optimise cognition while creating emotional resonance. Functional utility and experience blur, making experiences as valuable as products. Organisations mastering cognitive design improve loyalty, retention, and cultural impact. Adaptive experiences turn routine interactions into personalised, emotionally meaningful journeys, providing differentiation in attention-fragmented markets.
Leadership actions: Leaders should integrate behavioural science into product and service design, invest in adaptive experience technology, and track emotional engagement as a KPI.
Example: Calm (USA) Calm delivers AI-driven, personalised meditation and wellbeing experiences. The platform adapts content to users’ stress levels, moods, and goals, blending neuroscience, behavioural design, and digital interface. This demonstrates cognitive experiences enhancing emotional and mental engagement while fostering loyalty.
Trend 4: Decentralised Networks
Power, commerce, and value creation shift from hierarchies to distributed digital, physical, and hybrid networks. Peer-to-peer marketplaces, community platforms, and decentralised governance enable scalability, resilience, and co-creation. Organisations acting as ecosystem orchestrators gain influence through network effects rather than command-and-control structures. Distributed systems empower smaller players, enhance participation, and foster innovation. Businesses leveraging networks can access diverse talent, engage consumers directly, and unlock scalable growth. Distributed networks are reshaping commerce, work, and content creation.
Leadership actions: Executives should embrace platform thinking, facilitate community engagement, and enable value creation through network orchestration rather than direct control.
Example: Aragon (Spain) Aragon builds decentralised governance platforms using blockchain, enabling organisations and communities to manage resources and decision-making without centralised control. This empowers distributed collaboration, autonomy, and scalable ecosystems, illustrating how decentralised digital worlds redefine organisational structures.
Trend 5: Emerging Affluence
Rapidly growing middle and affluent classes in Africa, Asia, and Latin America redefine global consumption. Digitally connected, aspirational, and culturally influential, these consumers drive demand for accessible luxury, wellness, mobility, and fintech solutions. Businesses must design offerings that respect local context while meeting aspirational expectations. Emerging affluence often leapfrogs Western models, creating opportunities for innovation in pricing, service, and digital infrastructure. Companies that understand cultural nuance and income elasticity unlock sustainable growth while engaging diverse consumer identities.
Leadership actions: Leaders should prioritise local market insight, cultural relevance, and scalable digital infrastructure to capture emerging middle-class demand.
Example: Mercado Libre (Argentina) Mercado Libre provides e-commerce, payments, and logistics infrastructure across Latin America. By addressing middle-class needs for convenience, trust, and cultural relevance, it enables participation in modern digital economies. Starting as a marketplace like eBay, it now dominates fintech and e-commerce, illustrating how understanding local contexts drives growth.
Trend 6: Fluid Workforces
Workforces are increasingly modular, global, and hybrid. Talent flows between projects, companies, and platforms, supported by AI augmentation. Hybrid human-machine teams, freelancers, fractional executives, and automated agents provide agility, scalability, and resilience. Organisations must manage dynamic teams across geographies while fostering purpose, autonomy, and culture. Flexible workforces allow rapid response to market changes, cross-disciplinary problem-solving, and operational efficiency, redefining talent as a strategic, movable asset.
Leadership actions: Leaders need to focus on culture, engagement, and ecosystem orchestration rather than direct oversight. Recruitment, retention, and upskilling strategies must embrace flexibility and autonomy.
Example: Upwork (USA) Upwork connects freelancers with companies worldwide, enabling flexible, project-based work. The platform supports distributed teams and adaptive talent allocation, demonstrating how fluid workforce models drive agility, scalability, and market responsiveness.
Trend 7: Green Supertech
Climate innovation now relies on advanced engineering and science rather than incremental sustainability. Fusion energy, carbon capture, precision agriculture, renewable energy, and battery breakthroughs drive decarbonisation at scale. Companies integrate technology, infrastructure, and industrial capacity to deliver profitable environmental solutions. Green supertech turns sustainability from narrative to operational imperative, creating measurable environmental impact while generating new business models. Organisations mastering these technologies achieve competitive advantage, system-wide transformation, and long-term resilience in climate-conscious markets.
Leadership actions: Executives must invest in frontier climate technologies, integrate sustainability into core strategy, and measure impact rigorously. Strategic adoption of green supertech defines market leadership.
Example: Climeworks (Switzerland) Climeworks captures CO₂ directly from air and provides carbon removal services for businesses. Its modular technology delivers measurable impact while creating scalable climate solutions. Climeworks demonstrates how advanced environmental technology can combine profit with purpose, setting a benchmark for green innovation.
Trend 8: Human Augmentation
Technology increasingly enhances physical, cognitive, and emotional capabilities. Wearables, exoskeletons, neurotech, and AI-enabled interfaces improve productivity, performance, wellness, and decision-making. Human+ solutions extend lifespan, enhance skill sets, and transform work structures. Companies embedding augmentation into products and services unlock new markets while improving quality of life. Ethical considerations—privacy, accessibility, autonomy—are central as augmented humans redefine societal norms, job expectations, and personal capabilities.
Leadership actions: Leaders must balance innovation with ethics, invest in workforce augmentation, and prepare teams for hybrid human-machine collaboration.
Example: Mizuno (Japan) Mizuno’s Well-Aging programs combine wearable technology, mobility support, and social engagement for older adults. This initiative extends independence, resilience, and quality of life while creating a market for human-centric performance solutions.
Trend 9: Identity Consumption
Consumers increasingly make choices reflecting personal, social, and ethical identity. Purchases convey values, lifestyle, and cultural affiliation. Identity-driven markets shape fashion, wellness, digital products, and sustainability. Brands that authentically align with identity codes cultivate loyalty, advocacy, and emotional resonance. Social media amplifies expression, making identity a strategic asset. Understanding fluid, multi-layered identities enables companies to co-create products, services, and experiences that deeply engage consumers.
Leadership actions: Leaders should prioritise authenticity, culture alignment, and personalised engagement strategies to capture identity-conscious markets.
Example: NewJeans (South Korea) NewJeans blends fashion, gaming, and lifestyle collaborations to create identity-rich consumer experiences. Fans adopt products as self-expression, merging digital-native aesthetics with cultural relevance. The brand exemplifies how identity-driven engagement drives loyalty, advocacy, and market influence.
Trend 10: JoyTech
Technology increasingly provides emotional, sensory, and lifestyle benefits beyond productivity. Smart devices, entertainment platforms, and services are designed for delight, engagement, and wellbeing. JoyTech integrates play, creativity, and emotional resonance into daily life. Companies embedding joy into design capture attention, loyalty, and cultural influence. Emotional technology turns small, interactive moments into memorable experiences, differentiating brands in saturated markets and establishing long-term preference.
Leadership actions: Leaders should integrate joy into product design, measure emotional engagement, and explore playful, sensory experiences as a differentiator.
Example: Beat Saber (Slovakia) Beat Saber combines VR, music, and motion-based gameplay to deliver immersive, joyful experiences. Users interact physically and socially, blending entertainment with exercise. The platform illustrates how emotional, playful technology drives engagement and global cultural impact.
Trend 11: Kinetic Cities
Urban environments are becoming adaptive systems integrating mobility, energy, climate resilience, and digital infrastructure. Smart grids, autonomous transport, real-time optimisation, and responsive buildings redefine urban living. Kinetic cities address congestion, pollution, extreme weather, and social equity while creating livable, resilient spaces. Urban systems operate as continuous feedback loops, merging physical space with digital intelligence, unlocking new service and business ecosystems.
Leadership actions: City leaders and businesses must invest in integrated infrastructure, coordinate across sectors, and leverage data for urban resilience and efficiency.
Example: Uber Elevate (USA) Uber Elevate pilots electric VTOL aerial mobility integrated with smart traffic networks. By combining infrastructure, technology, and analytics, it demonstrates how kinetic systems can transform urban transport, accessibility, and sustainability.
Trend 12: Liquid Learning
Learning is continuous, adaptive, and embedded in daily work. AI personalises education, simulations replicate real-world scenarios, and micro-credentials create stackable skills. Learning flows across careers, devices, and contexts, enabling lifelong adaptability. Organisations embedding liquid learning into culture and operations gain agility, resilience, and innovation capacity. Employees continuously upskill while performing work, turning knowledge into a strategic asset and preparing for rapidly changing markets.
Leadership actions: Leaders should integrate learning into workflow, provide AI-enabled personalisation, and foster a culture of continuous skill development.
Example: Degreed (USA) Degreed provides a platform that aggregates courses, articles, videos, and on-the-job experiences into personalised learning journeys. AI recommends skills to acquire based on role, career goals, and performance data, enabling continuous, just-in-time upskilling. Companies using Degreed embed learning into daily work, creating agile, future-ready teams.
Trend 13: Market Convergence
Market Convergence describes how once-separate industries, categories, and value chains increasingly overlap, collide, and merge. Boundaries between technology, finance, retail, healthcare, mobility, media, and energy are dissolving as platforms, data, and ecosystems connect multiple needs into unified experiences.
Consumers no longer think in categories; they expect solutions that combine services, products, and experiences seamlessly.
Growth comes from recombining capabilities—payments embedded in commerce, health integrated into insurance, mobility bundled with energy. The winners are those who redefine markets instead of protecting them.
Leadership actions:
Map where your industry is converging with others and identify adjacent capabilities to integrate or partner with. Shift strategy from category defence to ecosystem design. Build collaboration muscle, platform thinking, and flexible governance to compete across blurred market boundaries.
Example: Ant Group (China)
Ant Group exemplifies Market Convergence by integrating payments, finance, commerce, credit, insurance, and lifestyle services into a single digital ecosystem. Originating in fintech, it expanded across retail, mobility, and everyday services, reshaping consumer expectations. Ant demonstrates how convergence creates powerful new markets by unifying fragmented needs into seamless platforms.
Trend 14: New Middle
Urban middle classes in Southeast Asia, India, and Latin America are reshaping purchasing patterns. These consumers value quality, affordability, convenience, and digital access. Emerging middle markets drive innovation in financial inclusion, mobility, healthcare, and retail. Brands must combine local insight with scalable digital infrastructure to win loyalty and growth. Understanding income elasticity, aspirational consumption, and digital adoption is key for early market leadership.
Leadership actions: Leaders should design culturally relevant products and services, leverage digital channels, and scale infrastructure to reach rapidly growing middle-class segments.
Example: Jumia (Nigeria) Jumia provides online shopping, payments, and logistics solutions tailored to African middle-class consumers. By improving accessibility and affordability, it enables participation in digital commerce while building scalable infrastructure and market trust.
Trend 15: Optimised Wellness
Wellbeing is evolving into integrated systems combining mental, physical, emotional, and social health. Digital platforms, AI diagnostics, and personalised wellness services make holistic health accessible and measurable. Consumers and organisations expect proactive interventions and continuous monitoring. Optimised wellness integrates performance, longevity, and emotional satisfaction, turning health into a strategic differentiator. Companies providing seamless, data-driven wellness ecosystems increase loyalty, engagement, and brand relevance.
Leadership actions: Leaders should embed wellness into products, workplace culture, and digital services, measuring impact and engagement as part of strategic priorities.
Example: Cerebral (USA) Cerebral provides mental health services via digital therapy, medication management, and continuous care. By reducing stigma and improving accessibility, it makes wellness habitual, personalised, and measurable, exemplifying scalable holistic health solutions.
Trend 16: Positive Business Models
Businesses are embedding ecological and social impact into core strategy. Operations, products, and supply chains are designed to restore ecosystems, enrich communities, and enhance planetary resilience. Circular design, biomimicry, renewable inputs, and ethical sourcing become standard. Net positive business models balance profitability with stewardship, creating shared value for stakeholders, and enable companies to become platforms for good. Companies adopting regenerative strategies redefine competitive advantage, aligning environmental and societal contributions with long-term business success.
Leadership actions: Leaders should integrate regenerative practices into strategy, measure environmental and social impact, and communicate authenticity to stakeholders.
Example: Interface (USA) Interface pioneers regenerative flooring, combining recycled materials, modular design, and biomimicry. Its operations achieve net-positive impact while maintaining profitability, showing how sustainability can drive competitive advantage and commercial success.
Trend 17: Quantum Ready
Quantum computing is moving from experimental labs to strategic applications. Early use focuses on optimisation, cryptography, simulation, and materials discovery. Organisations develop quantum-literate teams, hybrid workflows, and experimental algorithms to prepare for disruption. Quantum-readiness accelerates innovation, reduces complexity, and provides first-mover advantages in logistics, energy, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing. Early strategic exploration enables problem-solving capabilities beyond classical computing, creating competitive differentiation and future-ready infrastructure.
Leadership actions: Leaders should invest in quantum R&D, train teams in quantum literacy, and explore hybrid algorithms for operational advantage.
Example: D-Wave (Canada) D-Wave provides quantum annealing systems for optimisation problems in logistics, energy, and finance. Companies use D-Wave’s platforms to experiment with quantum algorithms, accelerating problem-solving and operational efficiency. This highlights practical enterprise applications of quantum computing beyond theoretical research.
Trend 18: Recommerce Revolution
Resale, rental, and refurbishment are mainstream, driven by circular economy principles. Consumers demand convenience, trust, and quality when engaging with pre-owned goods. Recommerce spans fashion, electronics, furniture, and luxury, growing faster than conventional retail. Platforms, peer-to-peer marketplaces, and authentication services facilitate engagement while reducing waste. Companies integrating recommerce unlock revenue streams, build community, and enhance credibility. Circular consumption becomes strategic rather than niche.
Leadership actions: Leaders should design recommerce options, build trust through verification, and integrate circular principles into business models for growth and loyalty.
Example:The RealReal (USA) The RealReal is a luxury consignment platform that authenticates and sells pre-owned designer goods. It provides trust, verification, and convenience, making high-end resale mainstream. This example shows recommerce can scale globally, combine sustainability with premium brands, and generate new revenue streams.
Trend 19: Small Luxury
Consumers seek small, emotionally resonant indulgences that deliver status, pleasure, or wellbeing without extreme cost. Small (or “soft”) luxury spans boutique experiences, skincare, fashion, speciality foods, and personalised services. These products offer authenticity, sensory delight, and storytelling, turning everyday indulgences into identity statements. Micro-luxuries satisfy aspirational desires while remaining accessible, amplified by social media visibility. Emotional resonance and narrative depth are essential for brand success.
Leadership actions: Leaders should focus on craft, storytelling, and emotional design to create premium-feel experiences that engage aspirational consumers.
Example: Sulwhasoo (South Korea) Sulwhasoo combines traditional herbal expertise with premium packaging and ritualised use. Its products create accessible luxury experiences, blending heritage, craftsmanship, and emotional satisfaction, appealing to aspirational global consumers.
Trend 20: Time-Shifted Living
Time-Shifted Living reflects how people reorganise life around flexibility rather than fixed schedules. Work, consumption, entertainment, learning, and wellness increasingly happen asynchronously—on demand, remotely, and across time zones.
Technology enables people to reclaim control over when and how they engage, breaking traditional boundaries between work and life. This shift reshapes cities, offices, retail, education, and media, rewarding organisations that design for flexibility, availability, and responsiveness.
Leadership actions:
Redesign systems around flexibility and outcomes, not fixed schedules. Enable asynchronous collaboration, on-demand services, and modular engagement. Rethink performance metrics, customer access, and employee wellbeing to align with time sovereignty rather than traditional nine-to-five models.
Example: Netflix (USA)
Netflix epitomises Time-Shifted Living by enabling global audiences to watch content anytime, anywhere. Its on-demand model breaks linear scheduling, empowering users to control when and how they engage. This flexibility reshaped entertainment consumption worldwide and set new expectations for convenience, personalisation, and autonomy across digital services.
Trend 21: Unbundled Choice
Unbundled Choice describes the disaggregation of traditional products and services into modular components that consumers can mix, match, and pay for selectively. Rather than buying bundled offerings, people choose exactly what they need—features, access, time, or outcomes.
This trend reflects demand for transparency, control, and fairness. Digital platforms accelerate unbundling by reducing distribution costs and enabling customisation at scale. Industries from finance and education to media and mobility are being reshaped as value is atomised and reassembled around individual needs. For organisations, unbundling creates new revenue streams, sharper value propositions, and opportunities to serve niche segments. However, it requires clear articulation of what truly creates value.
Leadership actions:
Audit where value is bundled unnecessarily. Break offerings into clear, modular components and price transparently. Use data to understand which elements customers truly value, and design flexible models that allow recombination without eroding trust or coherence.
Example: Revolut (UK)
Revolut delivers Unbundled Choice by offering modular financial services—payments, savings, crypto, insurance, and subscriptions—allowing users to choose what they need. This flexibility challenges traditional banking bundles and gives customers control, transparency, and personalised value within a single digital
Trend 22: Value from the Void
Value from the Void captures how scarcity, absence, and minimalism become sources of meaning and economic value. In an always-on world, emptiness—silence, space, simplicity, and restraint—becomes desirable. Brands create value by removing noise, features, or excess, offering clarity, calm, and focus instead.
This trend applies to design, digital products, wellness, luxury, and leadership itself. Less becomes more when it restores attention, energy, and purpose. Value from the Void challenges growth-through-addition models, replacing them with intentional subtraction. Companies that understand this create differentiation by knowing what not to do, not say, or not sell—transforming restraint into strategic advantage.
Leadership actions:
Practice strategic subtraction. Identify complexity that no longer adds value and remove it. Design for clarity, calm, and focus. Reward teams for simplification and discipline, and measure success not only by growth, but by reduction of friction and noise.
Example: B&O (Denmark)
Bang & Olufsen turns simplicity and emptiness into value through elegant, minimalist audio products. By reducing visual and functional clutter, it creates emotional and sensory impact, positioning luxury as both restraint and experience.
Trend 23: Weightless Growth
Growth increasingly comes from intangible assets such as brand, data, IP, and networks. Organisations focus on digital platforms, ecosystems, and content rather than physical expansion. Weightless growth reduces capital intensity while increasing speed and scalability. Intellectual property, community influence, and software-as-infrastructure are primary levers. Companies mastering weightless growth capture value through relational and informational assets, enabling high-margin, networked expansion.
Leadership actions: Leaders should prioritise intangible asset development, platform strategy, and network effects over physical scale to drive sustainable growth.
Example: Spotify (Sweden) Spotify scales globally via curated playlists, algorithms, and community networks rather than physical assets. Its value derives from data, brand, and network effects, exemplifying weightless growth at scale.
Trend 24: Xenostalgia Futures
Xenostalgia merges nostalgia with forward-looking innovation. Products and experiences evoke past eras—retro interfaces, analog warmth—while integrating modern technology. This emotional anchoring provides comfort and cultural resonance, balancing novelty with familiarity. Companies leverage xenostalgia to engage multiple generations, create storytelling depth, and differentiate products. Applied across fashion, tech, and media, xenostalgia strengthens brand identity while embracing innovation.
Leadership actions: Leaders should combine heritage design cues with modern innovation to evoke emotional resonance while appealing to forward-looking markets.
Example: Nothing (UK) Nothing blends retro-futurist aesthetics with modern tech through transparent hardware and minimalist design. Its products feel familiar yet innovative, exemplifying xenostalgia-driven design for engagement and differentiation.
Trend 25: Youthquake Cultures
Younger generations disrupt industries with digital fluency, creativity, and social activism. Sustainability, inclusivity, and identity fluidity shape aesthetics, behaviour, and products. Youth-driven networks accelerate trend adoption, influence markets, and redefine brand relevance globally. Authentic engagement enables co-creation, virality, and long-term cultural resonance. Organisations tapping into youth movements gain energy, creativity, and advocacy while embedding themselves in cultural zeitgeist.
Leadership actions: Leaders must authentically engage youth, foster co-creation, and embrace cultural experimentation to remain relevant and innovative.
Example: TikTok (China) TikTok empowers young creators to produce, remix, and share content worldwide. Its algorithm amplifies creativity, cultural trends, and activism, illustrating youth-driven platforms’ global influence on markets and culture.
Trend 26: Zero-Friction Experiences
Experiences are designed to eliminate effort, delay, and complexity. Seamless integration of payments, mobility, smart homes, and services creates anticipatory, intuitive interactions. Ambient intelligence reduces cognitive load while enhancing convenience, speed, and trust. Zero-friction design reshapes retail, finance, healthcare, mobility, and home ecosystems. Automation, AI, and connectivity allow services to feel immediate, personalised, and effortless, enabling people to focus on meaningful activities.
Leadership actions: Leaders should integrate automation, AI, and service design to remove friction and enhance convenience, satisfaction, and loyalty.
Example: Nuro (USA) Nuro uses autonomous vehicles to deliver groceries and essentials directly to consumers. Its AI-driven logistics remove barriers of time, transport, and human interaction, creating seamless, frictionless experiences that redefine service delivery.
Connecting the dots … the 5 metashifts that matter
Across the 26 trends, five structural meta-shifts emerge. These are the deep undercurrents — the forces that weave through industries, geographies, and consumer cultures, giving shape to the new global economy. They explain why the trends are happening, and where markets will move next.
Together, they define the new rules of competition, value creation and leadership.
Metashift 1: Consumption becomes cultural rather than transactional
The old logic of buying as a functional exchange based on price, convenience, or availability, is being replaced by a cultural logic built on identity, emotion, aspiration and belonging. People don’t simply “purchase”; they perform who they are through what they choose.
Consumers increasingly seek:
Narratives that reflect their values
Products that express identity
Brands with emotional resonance
Experiences that feel meaningful, connective or status-enhancing
It’s not just Gen Z; this shift spans generations. Consumption becomes a form of cultural participation. Fashion, food, finance, travel, mobility, even utilities are reframed through the lens of lifestyle, symbolism and self-construction.
This accelerates:
The micro-culture explosion
The rise of “meaningful premium”
Purpose-led demand
Local cultural fusion in global markets
The revival of craft, personalisation and story-driven commerce
In this world, companies win by designing for identity, not just demand.
Metashift 2: Technology becomes invisible, ambient and intelligent
AI no longer sits inside tools — it dissolves into the environment.
Intelligence becomes:
Secure-by-design — trusted, governed and accountable
Consumers stop thinking about “using AI”. They simply experience smarter journeys, anticipatory interfaces, seamless automation and personalised worlds. Business becomes algorithmically tuned, from supply chains and pricing to creativity and customer dialogue.
This shift enables:
Mass personalisation at affordable cost
Dynamic business models
Zero-friction services
Predictive operations
Hyper-resilient systems
More imaginative human roles
Technology fades from sight but strengthens everything it touches.
Metashift 3: Work becomes fluid, borderless and machine-augmented
The workplace of 2026 looks more like an ecosystem than a company. Talent moves fluidly between projects, platforms and geographies. The best work blends:
Human imagination, ethics, empathy and creativity
Machine intelligence, speed, pattern detection and simulation
Employees expect autonomy, meaning, growth and wellbeing. AI becomes a partner rather than a tool. Organisations that resist this shift suffer talent drain and creative stagnation.
This shift fuels:
The rise of talent marketplaces
Poly-skilled careers
Exponential productivity for small teams
Human-only work becoming more valuable
Continuous reskilling becoming cultural rather than remedial
The companies that thrive are those that build high-human organisations augmented by high-intelligence systems.
Metashift 4: Business models shift from products to ecosystems
The world is moving from discrete offerings to interconnected value networks.
A business is no longer defined by what it sells, but by the ecosystem it enables.
This means:
Evolution from linear to circular systems
Data-rich, multi-sided platforms
Modular value chains
Network economics replacing unit economics
Partnerships replacing ownership
Ecosystems expanding into adjacent sectors
Ecosystems enable faster innovation, greater customer lifetime value, richer insight cycles and defensible competitive advantage. They are the architecture of tomorrow’s global winners.
Metashift 5: Brands become communities, citizens and cultural participants
Brands can no longer rely on messaging alone. They must act their values, contribute to society and participate in culture. The power centre shifts from companies to communities.
Winning brands in 2026:
Build belonging, not just awareness
Represent movements, not markets
Create participation, not passive consumption
Signal values, not just benefits
Contribute to social, cultural or planetary progress
From global giants to niche collectives, the brands shaping 2026 are cultural engines — shaping identity, supporting creativity, enabling self-expression and fostering shared experience.
What should business leaders do now?
To win in this new landscape, leaders must rethink what value means, how organisations create it, and how they amplify it in the market. These are the urgent moves that determine who thrives, and who falls behind.
Here are my 7 practical imperatives for business leaders to build advantage in 2026 and beyond:
1. Reinvent value around meaning, wellness, identity and joy
People are buying experiences that enrich their lives emotionally, mentally and socially. Define your value proposition not around features, but around how it helps people feel, express, belong and grow. Shift from utility to significance.
2. Build ambient AI into products, processes and experience design
Move beyond AI tools to AI infrastructure. Make intelligence a default setting: powering personalisation, predicting demand, accelerating creativity, enhancing service and reducing friction. Invisible AI is the new competitive baseline.
3. Transition from linear businesses to ecosystems and platforms
Ask: what can we enable, not just what can we sell? Identify partners, data layers, communities and complements. Build multi-sided growth engines that unlock new revenues, reduce risk and scale faster than standalone offerings.
4. Design for fragmentation — micro-audiences, micro-cultures, micro-moments
Mass markets are dissolving. Segment by culture, not by demographics. Build portfolios of tailored propositions, dynamic content, adaptive pricing, location-specific formats and culturally attuned storytelling. Relevance now lives at the edges.
As AI automates more knowledge work, the human differentiators become more valuable. Build organisations where imagination thrives, ethics guide decisions, creativity is systemic, and empathy shapes product design. Human value becomes brand value.
6. Champion climate adaptation and resilience as economic opportunity
This is no longer CSR — it is strategy. Climate volatility is reshaping supply chains, insurance, energy, real estate and consumer priorities. Invest in resilience systems, low-carbon models, and climate-positive innovation. Profit lies in prevention and regeneration.
7. Make your brand a community engine, not a communications function
Shift from broadcasting to belonging. Build platforms for participation, spaces for conversation, and rituals that unite people. Act less like a corporation and more like a cultural catalyst. Brands that create connection will dominate the decade.
Make your 2026 a great year!
2026 is not the destination — it is the inflection point. A moment when technology, humanity, culture, nature, and ambition collide to create entirely new possibilities for value, impact and growth. The businesses that thrive will be those that embrace reinvention, act boldly, learn fast, collaborate widely, and place human potential at the heart of their strategy.
How was your 2025? For me, it felt like a year of economic recalibration, and tech acceleration.
After the inflationary shocks of recent years, uncertainty and complexity became the normal, and global markets transitioned to a new era of AI-enabled productivity and innovative possibilities.
From Campari in Italy to Cartier in Switzerland, Mercedes Benz in Germany to Minibea Mitsui in Japen, Orascom in Egypt to Oxxo in Mexico, “reinvention” was on the mind of every business leader I worked with.
It’s only when you look back that it’s really possible to see what a pivotal year 2025 has been. The $5 trillion valuations and thinking machines, agentic workflows and premium humanity, regenerative business models and hyper-personalisation, China’s EV revolutionaries and Dyson’s incredible Airstrait.
So here is what I learnt in 2025, as I travelled around the world, working with incredible companies and impressive business leaders. What did you learn from 2025, and are you ready to go further, even faster, in 2026?
January 2025 … Building brands with more spritz
My year started with a Spritz, or more correctly, with a project exploring the future of Campari, where Aperol Spritz has dominated their portfolio for the last two decades. What next, in a world of shifting tastes, social behaviours and aspirational wellness? Campari is still a Milan-based family business, and I worked with the Italian company’s leaders around the world to explore new innovative ideas in drinks concepts, brand experiences and business models. Key will be to take a more consumer-centric approach, recognising different audiences and cultures, then driving occasions and experiences, then products.
What will you do next? … AI rocket ships and quantum speed, hairy mammoths and Olympic champions. Now is a time of great acceleration. My take on the biggest ideas shaking up markets, and the minds of business leaders.
The Rise of Jio … from free phone to super app, and now India’s lifestyle brand, created by the petrochemical giant Reliance … How to reimagine your future with new audiences, in new sectors, with new brands and business models
Be More Human … How technical brands are finding their voice: how auto brands look beyond the car, pharma brands look beyond the pill, tech brands look beyond the spec, to engage and inspire, build empathy and desire.
Across the Alps in Switzerland, I explored the future of commodity trading with Holcim, and the changing nature of supply chains and commercial strategies for the world’s leading cement business. I also helped their finance teams to step up in their role from reporting the past to envisioning the future, to help leaders focus on the best innovation opportunities for value creation, rather than just revenue or profit, and how to engage shareholders in their “NextGen Growth” strategy. While cement has been a major carbon emitter, this is a great example of putting sustainability at the core of strategy, innovation and growth.
Also in January …
AI as industrial agent … The Economist’s The World Ahead 2025 gave us a deep dive into the “Trump Effect” on global trade when his planned tariffs were just bluster, and the transition of AI from “creative toy” to “industrial agent.”
Sovereign tech … BlackRock’s 2025 Global Outlook introduced its mega forces framework, urging investors to pivot toward AI infrastructure and “Sovereign Tech” as traditional business cycles break down.
$4 trillion business … Nvidia became the first company to achieve a $4 trillion market valuation, driven by the announcement at CES 2025 of its massive rollout of its “Blackwell” chips
Geopolitical tech … France and the UAE announced national “AI sovereignty” funds to build localised infrastructure, moving away from US-based clouds.
February 2025 … Das Beste oder Nichts
Adidas stepped up in 2025 with more world marathon majors medals than any other running shoe brand, and in Nuremberg, I worked with their Global Runningteam to explore what’s next. Led by SVP Alberto Uncini Manganelli, they recognised that the real challenge is not just to create great products, but to enable consumers to achieve more. One example was their launch of the world’s first dedicated treadmill shoe, the Treadwell, months in advance of the announcement by World Athletics a few months later of the first World Treadmill Running Championships in 2026, where anybody can compete against the world’s best asynchronously, on a treadmill.
Coaching Champions … Emmanuel Wanyonyi, the young Kenyan 800m runner, was one step away from an Olympic gold medal at Paris 2024. Claudio Berardelli, his coach, thought about what to say to him.
The Fender Guitar Experience … Transforming guitar culture through digital ecosystem-based innovation, from online learning to community building, new business models and enhanced brand experience.
The AI Pioneers… 10 pioneering companies redefining business through AI and technology … ASML, Deepseek, GitLab, Illumina, KlimaDAO, Rocket Lab, Shopify, Slack, 37 Signals, and Waymo.
A little further north in Germany I worked with the leaders of Mercedes Benz, in partnership with St Gallen Business School, to explore automotive futures, in a market increasingly dominated by Chinese EVs. We explored new strategies and innovations, looking for inspiration into sectors like consumer electronics, retail and entertainment. For the German business, this meant a focus on AI-driven driving experiences beyond the powertrain.
Also in February …
Organisational stagility … Deloitte’s 2025 Global Human Capital Trends coined the term “stagility” meaning the need for companies to balance structural stability with extreme agility as AI eliminates traditional entry-level roles.
Delivering agentic AI … Gartner’s Top Strategic Tech Trends for 2025 highlighted “Agentic AI” and “Spatial Computing” as the two technologies that will define corporate spending for the next 36 months.
Unilever splits … the UK/Dutch consumer giant announced the spin-off of its ice cream business (to be know as the Magnum Ice Cream Company, including Ben & Jerry’s) pivoting entirely towards beauty and well-being and home care
Super Bowl economy … a record $20 billion was spent on Super Bowl-related commerce, with Temu and TikTok Shop dominating the ad slots.
March 2025 … “Future Junkies” in Manhattan
“Future Junkies”launched in New York in March, my new project to explore how the world’s best leaders are reimagining the future. Junkies are obsessives, and these leaders (think of Nvidia’s Jensen Huang who started 30 years ago dreaming of his superpowered chips, or OpenAI’s Sam Altman obsessed with what’s next). The project explores the diversity of emerging trends, and how leaders can build a forward-looking mindset that flows into strategies, innovations and action. It’s a research platform for new keynote events and workshops, and also a living futures book, constantly updated with the latest ideas and trends, insight and foresight.
The Great Reinvention … How every industry is being radically shaken up, and rapidly reinvented. Who will be the winners and losers, what will matter most, and what comes next?
The B2B Superpowers… ABB to Biontech, Climeworks and DSM, Fedex to Holcim, Illumina and Nvidia, Open AI to Stripe, Vestas and Waymo. Who are the most inspiring B2B companies, and how are they reinventing themselves?
Iberdrola has seen dramatic growth in market value over the last year, as one of the leaders in the clean energy revolution. Partnering with Headspring, I worked with their leaders from around the world to explore how to accelerate decarbonisation, and their own business. We dived deep into the strategies of peers like Next Era Energy and Schneider Electric to explore the changing business models, and what’s working and what’s not. We explored my model of the 4Ds of the energy transition – decarbonised, digitalised, deregulated and decentralised – and what they mean together.
Also in March …
BYD’s international surge … the Chinese EV giant officially opened its first major factory in Hungary, radically undercutting European automakers on price.
Accelerating clean energy … IEA’s Global Energy Investment 2025 reported that for the first time, investment in “Grid Modernization” and “AI Data Center Cooling” surpassed investment in new solar capacity.
Simpler sustainability … a global trend of deregulation saw the US and UK slash ESG reporting requirements for small businesses to stimulate startup growth.
Tech billionaires … Forbes’ World’s Billionaires List 2025 highlighted a massive shift in wealth toward “compute barons”, meaning individuals whose net worth is tied to semiconductor supply chains and datacenter ownership.
April 2025 … Megatrends accelerated by tech convergence
Megatrends 2035 is my new report defining the 6 dynamic forces shaking up every industry. While AI dominates, its impacts is as much in accelerates the convergence of other technologies, like genomics, robotics, networks and batteries. And also in offering new ways to address other megatrend challenges like climate change, ageing populations, dense urbanisation, and geopolitical fragmentation.
Megatrends 2035: The 6 dramatic forces shaking up every market and driving every business to reinvent itself, from demographic revolution to exponential intelligence, regenerative systems and humanity rising.
The New Leadership DNA … How do the world’s most inspiring business leaders thrive in a world of relentless change? Inspired by Satya Nadella and Sam Altman, Jessica Jackley and Mary Barra, Melania Perkins and Nik Storonsky.
Performer Transformers … the art of delivering today and creating tomorrow. How today’s best leaders need to have a dual mindset, connecting short and long-term focus in a world of continual change and reinvention
NTT Data is consistently ranked as one of the world’s most innovative companies, but the Japanese tech business is less well known than most innovators. Its transformation seeks to align its global capabilities to deliver mega client projects. For me, the real challenge is to help corporate clients themselves to see the opportunities of AI and convergent tech, positioning NTT Data as a strategic partner in business transformation rather than just a very smart IT supplier.
Also in April …
Liberation day … Trump introduced sweeping new import tariffs, based on bilateral trade “imbalances” and therefore penalising countries with strong exports to the US, and causing the worst stock market falls since Covid-19.
Spatial first … Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro launched as a “spatial-first” device, featuring a 3D-capture camera as the new industry standard, and yet many consumers still wonder whether Apple’s launches are getting ever-more incremental.
Waymo innovative … Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies 2025report awarded top honours to Waymo and Nvidia. OpenAI and Mistral AI, followed, emphasising the rise of “Sovereign AI” startups in Europe and Asia.
Smarter growth … IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook still shows global growth at around 2-3% (1% or less in Europe), but with more optimism, driven by AI-driven productivity gains in the service sectors of developed economies.
May 2025 … Leading in the footsteps of Columbus
Every year I work with a small group of global executives to explore their futures, transform their organisations, and themselves. This year’s 6 month Global AMPprogram, organised with IE Business School, came to a climax in beautiful Segovia, in northern Spain. In a historic room, where Christopher Columbus was asked by the Spanish Queen, Isabella, to explore the Americas in 1492, we mapped out new strategies for the reinvention of businesses from Argentina to Sweden, energy to retail.
Space Thinking… reframing markets as spaces not sectors … talking in the customer’s language, anticipating unmet needs, designing propositions that resonate, and driving innovation and profitable growth
A Guided Tour of Europe’s Innovators … 15 Inspiring Cities and 15 Innovative Companies: from Adyen in Amsterdam to DeepMind in London, Too Good to Go in Copenhagen and GoodAI in Prague
The Net Positive Playbook … building a new generation of businesses that give more than they take, reinventing organisations for sustainable growth
Transformationis the new business leaders’ superpower. So it was great to continue my great partnership with StrategyTools to deliver the “Transform!” business simulation where business leaders, as competing exec teams of leading companies, race to reinvent themselves, and create $60 billion of market value. Simulating 10 years in 10 weeks, they rapidly learn how to master P&Ls and DCFs, acquisitions and mergers, changing regulation and employee strikes, to create a business fit for the future.
Also in May …
AI literacy … LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report 2025 revealed that “AI Literacy” has officially replaced “Digital Literacy” as the most requested skill in global job postings.
Fortune 500 … Walmart retained the #1 spot (still generating more revenue than Amazon, but Amazon is three times more valuable), while 15% of the list’s total profit now comes from companies that didn’t exist 30 years ago.
June 2025 … Futures inspired by the past
Orascom is one of Egypt’s most interesting companies, a construction business that has focused on creating entirely new towns and cities, designing an entire infrastructure, from homes to infrastructure, shopping malls to entertainment. Back in 2018 I first worked with them at their ready-made La Gounatown, on the Red Sea, and subsequently in other locations like Montenegro. Now, thinking far beyond being a construction company, they are ready to explore even more ambitious ideas for urban development in an accelerating digitally-enabled world.
Next Generation Business Models… redefining value, ownership, scale, and trust; powered by AI and data, decentralised and human, plus sustainability; Bytedance and Earthchain, KlimaDAO and On, Ping An and Soul Machines.
Ecosystems Inc… How the music industry was reinvented through ecosystems, from Napster and Spotify, to TikTok and Fortnite, and what this means for every industry.
“There’s nothing like this” … how Taylor Swift embraced anti-fragility, blue oceans, socialised branding, analytics and AI, and platform reinvention, and some of my other favourite business books to read.
I was also inspired by Mitsis, the largest privately-owned hospitality business in Greece. It started in 1954 as a family textiles business in Athens, until its sweaters gave way to swimwear in the 1970s, with the development of an impressive all-inclusive hotel chain, plus other business in publishing and winemaking. Mitsis resorts, with my favourites in Crete and Rhodes, are distinctive for their “filoxenia”, combining local cultures, modern architecture and genuine Greek hospitality.
Also in June …
The 3:2 worklife … a new global survey confirmed that 85% of Fortune 500 companies have settled on the “3 days in, 2 days out” hybrid work model
Future jobs … World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 predicted that 22% of current total jobs will be “transformed” by structural labour-market shifts, primarily AI and green transitions, by 2030.
Creative leaders … Cannes Lions used to be an ad agency blast, but the annual Festival of Creativity is increasingly a meeting place for CEOs who seek to fuse creativity and technology to reinvent business, not just to create ads.
Product authenticity … the new EU Digital Product Passport became mandatory for textiles sold in Europe, forcing a massive supply chain audit.
July 2025 … Businesses as platforms for change
At the OECD in Paris, I worked the some of the world’s leading international organisations seeking to enable change in our world, bringing together governments and companies to address the challenges and opportunities of those six megatrends. I particularly focused on projects in emerging markets, from Asia to Latin America, where a little organisation and investment nudge can connect private and public sectors to make a huge difference to local societies, driving new entrepreneurial action.
The Leader’s Leap… stepping up from being a manager to leader is more significant and difficult than most people imagine; navigating chaos, innovative problem-solving, driving growth.
Customer Psychology … from neuroscience to nudges, 95% of consumer decisions are subconscious, most in less than 2 seconds, and 80% of product launches fail. So how can business know people better than they know themselves?
Reinventing business with a future mindset … anticipatory living and shapeshifting organisations, meta systems and fractal growth loops … 10 radical pathways to more enlightened business transformation
CEOs have a huge challenge in today’s dynamic markets, addressing a diversity of competing forces, while also seizing the best new opportunities. Working with the new country-based CEOs of Vodafone, we sought to make sense of their dynamic markets, and how to align investment and resources to survive today and thrive tomorrow. Not easy, but an exciting journey to map out and lead their teams forwards with new visions and approaches.
CEO fear mass extinction … PwC’s Global CEO Survey said that 45% of CEOs believe their current business model will not be viable in 10 years without a total AI pivot.
The “sovereign search” breakout … Perplexity AI reached 100 million monthly users, marking the first real threat to Google’s search dominance in 25 years.
US tariff impact … reports showed 32% of trading businesses were already seeing 18% cost increases due to the newly implemented, and constantly renegotiated, US trade barriers.
Global 500 … Walmart is #1 for the 12th year (still generating more revenue than Amazon, although Amazon is 3 times more valuable). Aramco is the world’s most profitable company ($105 billion), but 3 times less valuable than Nvidia.
August 2025 … Reinventing everything, everywhere
Japan’s Minebea Mitsuistarted out 75 years ago as one of the world’s leading ball bearing manufacturer. After multiple reinventions – enabled through acquisitions, integrations and transformations – it is now precision electronic components business supporting the future of AI and energy, EVs and robotics. I helped MM explore how to fuse these capabilities with new sustainable models which enable companies to go beyond net zero.
The Curious Leader’s Guide to the Future … 250 forces shaping tomorrow, from AI and ageing to batteries and brains, climate and crypto to DAOs and DNA; the ideas and innovations driving every business future
Reinventing Business with AI… the 5 big shifts enabled by AI that can reinvent every business, inspired by TikTok and L’Oreal, Insilico to PingAn, Enel and Inditex, Amazon and Coke
The Hire-Wire Act of Leadership… Leading in a world of intense competition and relentless change; being visionary and innovative, learning to adapt and endure; inspired by Taylor Swift, Roger Federer, Beyoncé, Lionel Messi and more
“Reinvention” has become my keyword this year. And so I’ve spent much time over recent months researching and writing my next book, The Reinvention Playbook. Over my previous 10 titles, I’ve developed a model that combines deep insight and interviews into what’s actually happening in companies, with the practical frameworks to apply them to your business. Of course, reinvention is not new – Lamborghini went from world’s leading tractor company to supercars, Samsung went from grocery stores to smartphones – but it has become the new superpower of business leaders in a world of relentless change.
Also in August …
Humanoid robotics pilot … Tesla deployed the first 1,000 “Optimus” robots into its Texas Gigafactory for assembly line testing. 2026 will see a significant pivot to physical AI, fusing intelligence with robotics.
BlackRock’s tokenization fund … the “BUIDL” fund reached $5 billion in assets, proving that “Real-World Asset” (RWA) tokenization is now institutional grade.
Nvidia brand … in Interbrand’s Best Global Brands 2025 reported Apple and Microsoft continued to lead, but Nvidia saw the largest leap in brand value in the history of the report.
Algorithmic advertising … AdAge’s World’s Largest Advertisers 2025 highlighted the shift from “broadcast spending” to “algorithmic placement” with retail media networks (Amazo and Walmart) taking the lead.
September 2025 … Finding new growth and innovation
Insurancemight seem like an industry immune to change, but with a dramatic increase in risks and payouts due to climate change – think of the floods in Europe, and wildfires in LA, earlier this year – it is embracing the latest AI-enabled predictive technologies to transform its business models from paying claims to helping clients reduce risks.
The New Growth Playbook… Unlocking the new growth engines that enable businesses to thrive … accelerating growth in a world of relentless change and incredible opportunity.
The Super Innovators … 10 radical ways to disrupt conventions, embrace deeper insights, unlock valuable assets, and stretch innovation for more dramatic impact.
Leading in the Age of Paradox… “There’s never been a better time, but there’s never been a worse time.” Thriving in a world of challenge and uncertainty, change and opportunity.
In Berlin, in the street that once had the wall running down it, I worked with Eurapcoto explore how companies like Allianz and Swiss Re are reinventing insurance by embracing AI to anticipate risks and build new parametric and inclusive business models. In Austria, Uniqa has become an innovator in healthcare services from hospitals and well-being, across Central and Eastern Europe. Meanwhile in Japan, I worked with their leading insurer, Sompo, on its growing portfolio of services for better living, with less risk.
Also in September …
Lawyers against AI … Pentarc is a major new IP law firm based in Munich, and the largest spin-off in European history, occurred as legal firms restructured to handle the “AI patent wars.”
Starlink global coverage … SpaceX announced that Starlink now covers 99.9% of the Earth’s surface, fundamentally enabling the “Remote Everything” economy.
Mistral AI’s $10B valuation … the French AI startup became the “European champion” of AI securing a valuation that rivals Silicon Valley’s heavyweights.
Wealth transfer … UBS’ Global Wealth Report 2025 analyzed the “Great Wealth Transfer” noting that $84 trillion is currently moving to GenZ and Millennials, who prioritise impact investing.
October 2025 … Data, networks and the “Nexus Effect”
“The Nexus Effect” is an idea that I have worked on for sometime, how organisations can embrace the idea of network thinking to create more integrated and personalised services for consumers, through platform and community-based models. Nestle Purina, one of the world’s leading petcare companies, embraced the concept as their new strategy, and in Barcelona I worked with their European leaders to explore how it can transform their business, from product to consumer, services and experiences, over the coming years.
The Nexus Effect … How brands and business can multiply their impact by unlocking the power of connections; today’s economy is no longer defined by the simple transaction of product for price, but by networks of value, communities to ecosystems, enabled by data and networks, that bind customers and companies together in ongoing relationships.
The AI-Enabled Leader… how AI is rapidly transforming the way leaders think, decide and act; a new leadership mindset, with inspiration from Apple and Inditex, LVMH and Kering, Ferrari and Nvidia
Breakthrough Ideas for Business Leaders … reshuffle and regenerate, courage and the hive mind, from paradoxes and polarities, to proximity and spaciousness, with net positive impact
In Zurich, I worked with the leaders of Richemont, one of the world’s leading luxury businesses, with brands like Cartier and Jaeger-LeCoultre. How will AI transform their world, from artisan craftsmanship to personal relationships? Rather than AI automation, it will be a story of human augmentation, from digital-twinned design to blockchain authenticity, ultra-niche marketing to price optimisation. Like every industry, AI will be transformative, but in relevant and valuable ways.
Fat jabs … Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharma giant, won a landmark patent battle for Wegovy, securing its dominance in a market now estimated at $100 billion.
Reglobalisation … WTO’s World Trade Report 2025 explored “re-globalisation” where trade is growing between “politically aligned” nations (aka friend-shoring) rather than the cheapest providers.
End of the MBA … FT’s Executive Education Rankings 2025 showed a surge in demand for short-form “AI Leadership” courses over traditional two-year MBAs. Indeed, MBAs have become increasingly commoditised and first degree-like.
November 2025 … How to build a future megacity
12 years ago I created the annual Future Book Forum with my client, Canon Europe. They wanted to sell next generation printing machines to printers, but I argued that they should really be selling the benefits of digital printing to the decision-makers, the publishers. Imagine a world where every book can be personalised, printed locally on demand, with zero waste. It’s taken a decade, but as I opened this year’s event, it became clear that the publishing world is being rapidly transformed, from stackable content to enriched experiences.
The Dual OS of Business … How the best organisations reinvent themselves to perform and transform, simultaneously and continuously, to exploit today and explore tomorrow. This new operating system challenges and transforms how a business approaches strategy, investment, leadership, prioritisation, and delivery.
The Regenerative Revolution … Reinventing business for people, planet and profit; from Acciona and Arket, to Greiner and Interface, Veja and Vestre; going beyond sustainability to create net positive futures
How to be Future Ready … from strategic foresight to dynamic strategy, agile organisations and cultural plasticity: the best ways to shape your future, and shift before you have to
KAEC, or the King Abdullah Economic City, is one of the most ambitious megacity construction projects in the world, located just north of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on the Red Sea. With a super-port ready to connect Asia and Europe, and a perfectly located manufacturing hub it has huge potential. We explored alternative commercial Smart City models, from the classic city designs of Amsterdam and Copenhagen, to vibrant new cities like Songdo, the South Korean port city, and Tangier, as a gateway to Africa.
Also in November …
Personal Shopping … 70% of Black Friday purchases were driven by “hyper-personalized” AI ads, with conversion rates doubling compared to 2024.
TexMex Business … Trump’s “Border Commerce” Plan included new announcements regarding North American trade routes and led to a 15% surge in Mexican logistics stocks.
Green Compute … UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report 2025, released ahead of COP30, highlighted that “Green Compute” (low-energy AI) is now a critical component of national carbon targets.
COP30 “green surge” … The climate summit in Brazil led to $1 trillion in new “regenerative finance” commitments from global banks.
December 2025 … Changing world, leading change
Azerbaijan is often described as the land of fire, symbolised by huge flaming oil fields visible on your arriving flight, to the vast digitally-flaming modern tower blocks in the heart of Baku. It is a small country with big ambitions, and Pasha Holding is one of its largest businesses. From banking and insurance to real estate and hospitality, I worked with Pasha’s leaders to understand the convergent opportunities of AI and human talent, and how to reinvent business models and operations in a world of new capability and expectation.
Strategic Jazz… My new article “from Sting’s improvisation to strategy’s adaptiveness” explored dynamic strategy, combining direction/focus and agility/change with a strategy process.
Trend Kaleidoscope 2026 … curating and connecting all the trend reports for business leaders; from I acceleration and consumer ambivalence, lifestyle fluidity and global slowbalisation
26 Trends for 2026 … my A-Z of how 2026 will be a pivotal year of big shifts for business: remapping of human priorities, redesign of market systems, reinvention of business models.
I ended my year in Morocco, including a road trip in torrential rain from Marrakesh to Rabat. Morocco has the world’s largest reserves of phosphate rock, around 50 billion tonnes, 70% of the world’s total. As a result, OCP has become a global leader in fertiliser, and potentially much more. In Ben Guerir, I visited the stunning UM6P, a vast new campus focused on applied sciences and entrepreneurship – from coding labs, to startup accelerators, test farms and solar energy park. Meanwhile the Jorf Lasfar industrial complex near Casablanca is an impressive example of a sustainable, closed loop industrial ecosystem, including 100% clean energy, water desalination and hydrogen production. A rapidly changing business, with a dynamic strategy.
Also in December …
Nvidia’s unstoppable year … Nvidia ended 2025 as the world’s most valuable company (having hit $5 trillion market cap in October, then falling back slightly)
TikTok survives in USA … US authorities finally allowed TikTok, the Chinese subsidiary of Bytedance, to continue operating in the US under new “localised data” laws.
Global business health … Global GDP grew at a resilient 2.9% at end of 2025, defying “recession” predictions as AI-driven productivity gains began to show in national data.
More change ahead … WEF’s review of 2025 summarised how regenerative business and sovereign AI reshaped the corporate world, while The Economist’s predictions for 2026 included a “robotics inflection point”.
Top 10 Business Concepts of 2025
Business has evolved from experimenting with “future tech” to institutionalising it as a core economic pillar. Here are my top 10 business concepts of 2025:
1. Sovereign AI
Sovereign AI is the strategic movement by nations and corporations to build, host, and control their own artificial intelligence infrastructure, models, and datasets. Unlike the early 2020s, which relied on US-based “Big Tech” clouds, 2025 is defined by “digital borders.” Countries are prioritizing AI systems that reflect their local languages, cultural nuances, and legal frameworks (like GDPR) to avoid foreign dependency. This ensures that sensitive data never leaves national or corporate jurisdiction, protecting against geopolitical shifts and ensuring that the “brain” of a nation’s economy remains under its own control.
Example: Iliad (France) … Through its “Kyutai” nonprofit lab, it has built Europe’s first open-source AI models to ensure European data sovereignty.
The era of “chatting” with AI is over; 2025 is the year of “AI Agents.” Agentic Workflows involve multiple specialized AI agents working together autonomously to complete complex, multi-step business objectives without constant human prompting. For instance, an “Agentic Sales Team” might include one agent to research leads, another to draft personalized emails, and a third to manage the calendar, all collaborating in the background. This shift moves AI from a passive assistant to an active participant in the workforce, focusing on goal-oriented execution rather than just answering questions.
Example: Microsoft … Their “Copilot Studio” allows enterprises to build autonomous agents that manage end-to-end supply chain logistics.
As AI-generated content and services become the “commodity” standard, businesses have begun charging a “Humanity Premium” for products and services guaranteed to be human-led. This marketing concept flips the script on automation: human empathy, artisanal craft, and physical presence are now marketed as luxury status symbols. Whether it is a “Hand-Knitted” garment or “Human-Only” customer support, brands are using certification labels to prove no AI was used in the process. This has created a bifurcated market where automation is cheap and “Human-Made” is the new high-end.
Example: Brunello Cucinelli … The Italian luxury brand maintains its ultra-high valuation by emphasising “Humanist Capitalism” and artisanal hand-crafting.
Driven by EU regulation, the Digital Product Passport is a mandatory “digital twin” for physical goods. By scanning a QR code or RFID tag, consumers and recyclers can access a product’s entire history—including raw material sourcing, carbon footprint, repair instructions, and recycling protocols. This concept has transformed global supply chains from a “take-make-waste” model to a circular one. Companies no longer just sell a product; they manage its lifecycle. In 2025, the DPP has become the global standard for transparency, forcing even non-EU companies to comply to maintain market access.
Example: H&M Group … Now provides “Digital IDs” for garments to facilitate their “Re-wear” and recycling programs.
The “meeting-first” corporate culture collapsed in 2025, replaced by Asynchronous Mastery. This concept prioritizes “deep work” by making live meetings the exception rather than the rule. Employees communicate via recorded video memos (Loom), threaded documentation (Notion), and shared project boards (Monday). This allows global, distributed teams to collaborate across time zones without the “Zoom fatigue” that defined the early 2020s. Mastery in this context means a company’s ability to move projects forward without every stakeholder needing to be online at the same time, significantly boosting productivity and employee satisfaction.
Example: GitLab … An “all-remote” pioneer that operates almost entirely through public documentation and asynchronous workflows.
RWA Tokenization is the process of bringing “off-chain” assets—such as real estate, gold, fine art, or government bonds—onto the blockchain as digital tokens. This allows for fractional ownership, where a retail investor can buy 1% of a commercial skyscraper or a rare painting. In 2025, this has moved from a crypto-niche to a $30 billion institutional standard. By automating the legal and financial layers through “smart contracts,” RWA tokenization reduces transaction costs, increases market liquidity, and allows for 24/7 global trading of assets that were previously locked in slow, paper-based systems.
Example: BlackRock … Their “BUIDL” fund tokenizes US Treasury bills, allowing for instant settlement on the Ethereum blockchain.
Moving beyond “Sustainability” (which aims to do less harm), Regenerative Business Models aim to leave the environment and society better than they were found. This involves “Net Positive” goals, such as sequestering more carbon than emitted or returning cleaner water to the ecosystem than was taken. In 2025, companies are rewarded by investors for “restorative” supply chains. This concept treats nature not as a resource to be extracted, but as a stakeholder to be nurtured. It is the evolution of ESG into a more proactive, biology-integrated form of capitalism.
Example: Patagonia … Their “Worn Wear” and “Regenerative Organic” initiatives actively restore soil health and reduce textile waste.
As AI began managing human workflows—scheduling shifts, tracking productivity, and even assisting in hiring/firing—the concept of Algorithmic Transparency became a legal necessity in 2025. This ensures that employees have the “Right to Explanation” regarding how an automated system made a decision affecting their livelihood. Businesses must now maintain “human-in-the-loop” oversight, preventing “death by algorithm.” This concept balances efficiency with worker rights, requiring companies to publish “Algorithm Registers” that detail what data is collected and how it is used to monitor or reward staff.
Example: Uber … Under new EU “Platform Work” directives, they have implemented features explaining fare and route logic to drivers.
In 2025, marketing has moved from “Segmenting” (targeting groups) to “Individualizing” (targeting the person). Hyper-Personalization at Scale uses generative AI to create unique websites, ads, and product recommendations for every single user in real-time based on their current mood, biometric data, and past behavior. A website might change its layout, colors, and tone of voice instantly to match the person viewing it. This concept has vastly increased conversion rates, as consumers no longer see “generalized” ads, but rather products that appear to be custom-tailored to their specific needs at that exact moment.
Example: Coca-Cola … Their 2025 “Create Real Magic” platform uses AI to generate individualized digital ads for millions of fans simultaneously.
Compute-Standard Valuation is a new economic theory used to value tech-heavy companies not just by revenue, but by their “Compute Reserves”—the amount of GPU power and high-quality proprietary data they own. In 2025, “Compute” is considered the new “Oil.” Investors look at a company’s ability to process AI models as a leading indicator of future growth. This has led to “Compute Hoarding,” where firms like Meta or Tesla are valued higher because of their massive H100/Blackwell chip clusters, which are seen as the “hard assets” of the digital age.
Example: Nvidia … Their valuation reflects their role as the sole supplier of the “compute currency” that powers the entire 2025 global economy.
Amidst all the focus on technologies, changing markets and profitability, it’s easy for companies to stop growing. Growth remains the key driver of value creation, and the growth engines available to a company are more diverse and powerful than ever:
1. OpenAI (USA): Transitioned from a research lab to an enterprise powerhouse. In 2025, their “GPT-5” enterprise integration led to a 300% revenue surge as corporations replaced legacy software with agentic AI systems.
2. BYD (China): Surpassed Tesla in global EV sales by dominating the “affordable luxury” segment in Europe and Southeast Asia, growing their export volume by 150% this year alone.
3. Perplexity AI (USA): The “search disruptor” saw exponential user growth as people abandoned traditional ad-cluttered search engines for direct, AI-cited answers, achieving a 400% increase in daily active users.
4. Eli Lilly (USA): Driven by the global rollout of “Zepbound,” their growth is fueled by the metabolic health revolution, making them the fastest-growing pharmaceutical giant in history by market cap.
5. Scale AI (USA): As every company rushed to build “Sovereign AI,” Scale AI became the essential provider of “RLHF” (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback), doubling their workforce to meet data-labeling demands.
6. Mistral AI (France): The “European AI Champion” achieved massive growth by offering lightweight, open-source models that appeal to privacy-conscious EU governments and industrial giants.
7. Arm Holdings (UK): Their energy-efficient architecture became the standard for AI-capable PCs and smartphones, leading to a record-breaking year for license royalties as the “Edge AI” era began.
8. Grab (Singapore): Successfully pivoted to a “Super-App for Finance,” seeing 80% growth in its digital banking division across Southeast Asia, moving far beyond its ride-hailing roots.
9. Databricks (USA): Profited from the “Data Maturity” phase of 2025, helping companies organize messy internal data to make it “AI-ready,” leading to a highly anticipated and record-breaking IPO.
10. NuBank (Brazil): Now the most valuable financial institution in Latin America, they grew by 60% by expanding into Mexico and Colombia with frictionless, mobile-first credit products.
From Apple’s intelligence to Dyson’s hair straighteners, Samsung’s ring and Sony’s EV, product innovations were straight out of sci-fi movie of a decade ago. AI is now embedded in almost every walk of life, often without us realising:
1. Apple Intelligence (Vision Pro 2): The first wearable to replace the laptop for many professionals, featuring “Eyes-Free” AI navigation and ultra-high-definition spatial multitasking.
2. Dyson Airstrait 2.0: A masterclass in “hard-tech” engineering that uses high-pressure air to style hair without heat damage, becoming the fastest-selling beauty tool in history.
3. The “Humanoid” Optimus (Gen 3): Tesla’s first commercially available robot for light industrial work, marking the beginning of the “Robotics-as-a-Service” (RaaS) business model.
4. Meta Orion Glasses: The first true AR glasses that look like standard frames, allowing users to see digital “holograms” over their real-world environment during business meetings.
5. Google Gemini 2.0 Ultra: The first “Omni-Model” that can see, hear, and speak in real-time with zero latency, effectively acting as a personal chief of staff for millions.
6. Rivian R2: The “Electric Jeep” for the masses; its launch was the most successful automotive debut of 2025, proving that affordable EVs can still be “cool.”
7. Samsung Galaxy Ring: The product that took “Health-Tech” mainstream by providing hospital-grade sleep and stress tracking in a device that never needs to be taken off.
8. Sony “Afeela” EV: A collaboration with Honda, this car is the first “Computer on Wheels,” designed for autonomous transit where the interior serves as a mobile cinema/office.
9. Starlink Mini: A backpack-sized satellite dish that brought high-speed internet to the most remote “Digital Nomad” locations on earth, fundamentally changing the “Work from Anywhere” concept.
10. Adobe GenStudio: A specialized “AI-First” creative suite that allows brands to generate 1,000 unique, brand-safe ad variations in seconds, revolutionizing the marketing agency model.
Top 10 Ad Campaigns of 2025
While ads are no longer the powerful marketing tool they were, they are still cultural icons narrating brand stories. They reflect changing attitudes and expectations of consumers, and the roles of business in people’s lives:
1. Dove: “Keep Beauty Real” — A global pledge not to use AI-generated women in their ads. It sparked a worldwide conversation about the “Humanity Premium” in marketing.
2. Duolingo: “The Duo Layoff” — A viral prank where the mascot “Duo” was supposedly replaced by AI, only to return and prove that “Human Motivation” is irreplaceable for learning.
3. Nike: “Winning Isn’t for Everyone” — A gritty, elite-focused campaign for the 2025 World Games that abandoned “lifestyle” vibes to return to Nike’s high-performance roots.
4. Spotify: “Your 2025 AI-Ears” — An evolution of “Wrapped” that used AI to generate a podcast summarizing your year in music, narrated by a voice clone of your favorite artist.
5. Coke: “Masterpiece 2.0” — A seamless integration of classical art and modern AI, where museum paintings come to life to share a Coke, showcasing the “Human-AI Synergy.”
6. Lego: “Adults Welcome” — A series of high-design ads targeting “Kidults” (adult collectors), turning Lego sets into home décor status symbols for the millennial generation.
7. Airbnb: “Live Like a Legend” — A campaign offering stays in famous fictional locations (like the Up house), focusing on “Experiential Luxury” over mere accommodation.
8. IKEA: “The Circular Sofa” — A campaign promoting their new “Buy Back” program, where they showed sofas from 1980 still in use, emphasizing durability over fast furniture.
9. Cadbury: “Generosity Maps” — An AI-powered app that allowed users to find and support local “mom-and-pop” shops in their neighborhood, positioning the brand as a community builder.
10. Patagonia: “Don’t Buy This AI” — A bold campaign criticizing the carbon footprint of large AI models, urging tech companies to use “Regenerative Compute” infrastructure.
Top 10 Business Transformations of 2025
Business transformation is my leadership superpower. The ability to fundamentally transform the core of your business in some significant way. Not all of these are entire journeys, but they are key pivotal moments as some of the most venerable companies seek to reinvent themselves in a changing world:
1. Walmart: Transformed from a “Big Box Retailer” into a “Logistics and Data Company” using its 4,000 stores as automated “Micro-Fulfillment Centers” for 30-minute drone delivery.
2. Siemens: Pivoted to “Industrial Metaverse” solutions, allowing factories to be designed and tested entirely in digital twins before a single brick is laid.
3. Mercedes-Benz: Shifted from “Selling Cars” to “Software-as-a-Service,” where vehicle features (like extra horsepower or AR-HUD) are unlocked via monthly subscriptions.
4. Philips: Completed its 10-year transformation from a lighting company to a “Health-Tech” leader, focusing entirely on AI-driven diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring.
5. Disney: Transformed “Disney+” into a “Spatial Media” platform, allowing users to “step into” scenes of movies using VR/AR, blurring the line between cinema and theme parks.
6. Maersk: The shipping giant integrated “Blockchain and AI” to create a paperless global supply chain, reducing administrative time for cross-border shipping by 90%.
7. Accenture: Re-trained 700,000 employees in AI literacy, transforming from a traditional “Consultancy” into an “AI Implementation Partner” for the Fortune 500.
8. Goldman Sachs: Replaced 20% of its entry-level analyst tasks with “Automated Financial Agents,” shifting their talent strategy toward “AI Prompt Engineering” and high-level strategy.
9. L’Oréal: Transformed into a “Beauty-Tech” company, using AI to provide personalized “Biometric Skincare” formulas delivered via 3D-printing devices in the home.
10. Standard Chartered: Successfully pivoted to “RWA Tokenization” becoming the leading bank for digital assets and blockchain-based trade finance in Asia and Africa.
Top 10 Business Leaders of 2025
Leadership is more about the future than ever before – making sense of a changing world, seeing the best opportunities, envisioning new business models, and leading the transformational journey to get there. Here were my top 10 leaders, who were also influential across their industries:
1. Jensen Huang (Nvidia): The “General of the AI Revolution.” His vision for accelerated computing has made him the most watched leader in the world, influencing every sector from healthcare to heavy industry.
2. Lisa Su (AMD): Credited with breaking the Nvidia monopoly by providing the “open alternative” to AI chips, ensuring the global market remains competitive and innovative.
3. Sam Altman (OpenAI): Continues to navigate the complex intersection of global policy, AI ethics, and product deployment, effectively setting the pace for how society interacts with artificial intelligence.
4. Fei-Fei Li (World Labs): The “Godmother of AI” launched World Labs in 2025, pioneering “Spatial Intelligence”—the ability for AI to understand the 3D physical world, a breakthrough for robotics.
5. Bernard Arnault (LVMH): Proved that luxury can survive the AI era by doubling down on “Human-Only” experiences and artisanal scarcity, maintaining LVMH’s status as Europe’s cultural and economic anchor.
6. Satya Nadella (Microsoft): Successfully integrated AI across the world’s most used software suite, turning Microsoft into the “Operating System of the AI Economy” without losing market share to agile startups.
7. Elon Musk (Tesla/xAI/SpaceX): Remains influential through the “Grok” AI ecosystem and the successful commercialization of the “Optimus” humanoid robot, which began pilot testing in factories in late 2025.
8. Shemara Wikramanayake (Macquarie): Emerged as the leading global voice on “Green Infrastructure Finance,” directing billions into the renewable energy grids required to power massive AI data centers.
9. Mira Murati (Former OpenAI/New Venture): After her high-profile departure, her new venture into “Safe Robotics” has become the most anticipated startup launch of 2025, influencing the future of human-robot interaction.
10. Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX): While Musk focuses on AI, Shotwell has turned Starlink into a global telecommunications juggernaut, providing the connectivity backbone for 2025’s “Remote-Everything” business models.
Top 10 Business Books of 2025
And finally books. Yes, we’re still reading, and books create platforms for new ideas, provocations and progress. They capture the aspirations and insights about what comes next, and how we can thrive in a world we perhaps haven’t yet decoded:
1. The Thinking Machine by Stephen Witt: The definitive biography of Nvidia and the 30-year journey to the AI revolution.
2. House of Huawei by Eva Dou: An investigative look at how the Chinese giant navigated the “Tech Cold War” to remain a global leader.
3. The Agentic Era by Andrew Ng: A strategic guide for CEOs on how to transition from “Software-First” to “Agent-First” business models.
4. Abundance Thinking by Peter Diamandis: A 2025 update on how AI and robotics are solving the world’s “Scarcity” problems (energy, water, and food).
5. The Circular Economy Handbook by Catherine Weetman: The essential guide for complying with 2025’s new “Digital Product Passport” regulations.
6. Asynchronous Mastery by Jason Fried: The co-founder of Basecamp details how to build a billion-dollar company without a single “status meeting.”
7. The Humanity Premium by Scott Galloway: An analysis of why human-led services will become the ultimate luxury in a world of 5-cent AI content.
8. Sovereign Tech by Marietje Schaake: A deep dive into why nations are reclaiming their digital borders and what it means for global trade.
9. Tokenizing the World by Larry Fink: The BlackRock CEO explains why every financial asset will eventually exist as a digital token on a blockchain.
10. Regenerative Leadership by Laura Storm: A roadmap for moving beyond “Sustainability” to “Net-Positive” corporate governance.
Here’s saluting a great year of learning and progress in 2025. Onwards to an accelerating future … with thanks and best wishes to everyone I worked with in 2025!
The business world in 2026 will be defined by accelerating change across technology, society, and the economy.
Business leaders must navigate a fractured trust environment, evolving consumer behaviours, and geopolitical complexity while harnessing AI, digital platforms, and data-driven insights. Sustainability, purpose, and social impact are now central to strategy and brand relevance. They must address hybrid workforces, skills gaps, and organisational reinvention, while ecosystems, platform models, and experience-led commerce create new growth pathways.
Success will favour organisations that combine agility, cultural intelligence, technological fluency, and purpose-driven innovation to anticipate shifts, engage communities, and deliver resilient, profitable outcomes in a rapidly evolving global landscape.
Each year, there is a huge array of trend report produced by business commentators, research agencies, consulting firms, and others. They are full of anecdotes, insights and ideas. Collectively – combining consumer and technology, economic and geopolitical perspectives – they create a directional map of the future, and the emerging trends, the most significant challenges and opportunities for business. That’s why the Trend Kaleidoscope is so valuable.
Just to get you started, here are a few examples:
AI ambivalence: excitement vs fear People both embrace and fear AI, creating opportunities for brands to lead responsibly and educate consumers. Examples: IKEA designs responsible AI applications for home use; Samsung launches “AI for All” consumer education; Google’s AI Principles guide ethical deployment.
AI-personalisation at scale Hyper-personalised products, services, and marketing are powered by AI, going beyond basic recommendations to anticipate needs. Examples: Spotify generates ultra-tailored playlists; Sephora uses AI for personalised beauty try-ons; Netflix adapts content thumbnails for individual viewing preferences
Boundaryless ecosystems Companies collaborate across sectors to co-create value, breaking traditional industry boundaries. Examples: Tesla partners with energy providers for solar + EV integration; Apple collaborates with Hermès for luxury wearables; Salesforce builds partner networks across finance, retail, and healthcare.
Below you will find my summaries of all the major trend reports for 2026, indicating the challenges and opportunities most relevant to business leaders:
Economics and global trends
Global business in 2026 is shaped by slowbalisation, geopolitical tensions, and structural economic shifts. US–China competition, regionalisation, and demographic pressures influence strategy, investment, and supply chains. Inflation, interest-rate stability, and capital allocation challenge executives to balance cost control with growth. Climate, migration, and future jobs further shape societal expectations and workforce availability. Companies adopting resilient, flexible supply chains, scenario-based planning, and regionally adaptive strategies are better positioned to manage risk. Leaders who integrate macroeconomic insight, technological trends, and cultural intelligence can capitalise on emerging opportunities while navigating volatility in increasingly complex global markets.
The Economist The World Ahead 2026
Geopolitics, slowbalisation and structural economic shifts define the macro landscape; strategic resilience matters more than short‑term gains. Businesses must align with demographic and techno‑geopolitical currents to stay competitive.
Slowbalisation and regionalisation — Toyota near‑shore production; Samsung local fabs; Siemens European supply hubs.
Interest rate equilibrium, AI productivity debates and supply chain rewiring shape capital and operational strategies. Executives must balance structural cost pressures with growth ambitions.
AI productivity imperative — Microsoft AI workplace tools; Google AI workflows; SAP AI enterprise modules.
Cyber and regulatory risk focus — JPMorgan cybersecurity spend; Deloitte risk frameworks; BAE Systems defence tech.
Corporate balance sheet health — Unilever capital discipline; Toyota conservative cash positions; Apple treasury management.
BBC Global Economy and Society 2026
Climate impacts, migration and future jobs frame macro narratives; social context matters as much as economic data. Understanding cultural and human shifts unlocks new opportunity mappings.
Migration and labour shifts — Salesforce global teams; Accenture distributed workforce; McKinsey international talent flows.
Future jobs and skills — Coursera workforce reskilling; IBM tech training; Amazon upskilling programmes.
Digital inequality spotlight — Telstra rural connectivity; Google digital skills push; Microsoft broadband initiatives.
Cultural economy growth — Spotify global creator community; Warner Bros integrated franchises; Tencent entertainment diversification.
Fortune Future of Business CEO Survey 2026
CEO priorities cluster around AI investment, talent strategy and risk navigation; confidence varies by region and sector. Leadership shifts from cost‑cutting to strategic growth bets.
AI investment surge — Nvidia enterprise uptake; Adobe AI creative suites; Siemens factory automation AI.
In 2026, consumer behaviour is shaped by trust erosion, economic pressures, and evolving cultural identities. Cost-of-living concerns drive value-oriented, tiered, and purpose-driven purchases, while AI generates both excitement and caution. Identity segmentation and polarised values mean brands must engage communities based on beliefs, interests, and digital habits. Multipolar global markets influence localisation and supply strategies. Attention is fragmented across platforms, creating opportunities in micro-moments, creator-driven content, and short-form experiences. Hybrid lifestyles and Gen Z/Alpha micro-communities shape product adoption. Brands that integrate emotional design, authenticity, and purpose into experiences achieve deeper relevance, loyalty, and growth across diverse global markets.
Ipsos Global Trends 2025/26
Consumers face fractured trust in institutions and shifting cultural identities; brands must navigate value pressures and technology ambivalence. Understanding underlying societal sentiments is key to resilient strategy and authentic engagement.
Trust recession across institutions — Patagonia building radical transparency; DBS Bank using trust-by-design digital governance; Estée Lauder authenticity initiatives.
Cost-of-living psychology reshaping behaviour — Aldi’s value-first strategy; Temu’s ultra-value model; On Running tiered pricing for new markets.
AI ambivalence: excitement vs fear — Google’s AI Principles; IKEA’s responsible AI design; Samsung’s “AI for All” consumer education.
Identity segmentation and polarised values — Nike’s community segmentation; TikTok vertical communities shaping product offers; Unilever’s diverse brand portfolios.
Multipolar world affecting consumer choices — BYD’s dominance in emerging markets; Heineken’s tailored regional portfolios; Carrefour’s local sourcing models.
Mintel Consumer Trends 2026
Consumers redefine value, authenticity, and life stages; brands must deliver emotional connection, purposeful innovation, and transparent experiences. Strategies grounded in cultural truth and emotional relevance outperform generic value propositions.
Emotional value over price alone — Starbucks offering personalised experiences; Sephora community events; Nike member perks.
Identity as currency — LEGO fan communities shaping creation; Glossier creator collaborations; Adidas customised lines.
Human connection demand — Peloton community building; Lululemon ambassador programmes; REI co‑op events.
Anti‑algorithm preference — Spotify personalised playlists with opt‑out controls; Netflix mindful recommendation features; Apple focusing on privacy signals.
Life‑stage fluidity — H&M “all‑age” collections; Marriott flex travel packages; Apple devices for multi‑generational use.
GWI Global Consumer Trends 2026
Deep behavioural data shows consumers calibrating spending, attention, and identity in a digital world; brands must map behaviours rather than demographics. Understanding micro‑moments and intentional engagement delivers strategic advantage.
Consumers want convenience, comfort, authenticity, and smart choices; traditional assumptions about luxury and mass markets are shifting. Brands that blend pragmatism with emotional resonance lead category growth.
Smart frugality — Lidl value innovation; Muji minimalist essentials; Target curated value lines.
Youth culture transcends authenticity to emotional design and micro‑community codes; Gen Z and Alpha define cultural capital. Brands that decode emotional aesthetics and niche communities unlock cultural relevance.
Short‑form entertainment and micro‑interests define attention; communities organise around shared interests rather than demographics. Brands succeed by embedding in platform culture and co‑creating with niche storytellers.
Micro‑influencer impact — Local fashion brands via micro‑creators; regional food influencers boosting new restaurants; indie beauty via TikTok creators.
Entertainment‑led discovery — Netflix trailers as cultural events; Spotify editorial playlists; Red Bull extreme content.
Sustainable aspiration — Nike Move to Zero; Tesla EV leadership; IKEA renewable targets.
Experience fusion — Disney Genie integrated experiences; Starbucks Reserve immersive spaces; Apple experiential stores.
Purpose‑led innovation — Ben & Jerry’s social missions; Patagonia activism; The Body Shop ethical sourcing.
Technology, digital and AI transformation
In 2026, technology and AI are central to business transformation, driving operational efficiency, innovation, and customer experience. Organisations are adopting AI ecosystems, autonomous systems, and real-time decision architectures to enhance productivity and resilience. Digital trust, cyber-security, and composable enterprise architectures are essential to safeguard data and maintain credibility. Cloud operating models, connected commerce, and AI-powered experiences redefine customer interactions. Companies that integrate human-AI collaboration, leverage multi-agent systems, and adopt platform-based approaches outperform peers. Successful transformation requires aligning technology, talent, and organisational design, enabling businesses to capitalise on digital opportunities while managing risks across global operations.
Deloitte Tech Trends 2026
AI at enterprise scale, autonomous operations and cyber resilience define digital leadership; data is the strategic asset. Transformations are holistic — technology, operating models and talent combined.
AI ecosystems adoption — Siemens smart factories; Amazon AI ops; Google Cloud enterprise stacks.
Autonomous business operations — Tesla manufacturing AI; Amazon fulfilment automation; JD Logistics robotics.
Data‑driven organisations — SAP data platforms; Snowflake analytics; Netflix data culture.
Cyber and digital trust — Palo Alto Networks security; CrowdStrike cloud defence; IBM Zero Trust frameworks.
Tech for sustainability — Microsoft carbon tools; Google clean energy AI; Dell lifecycle programmes.
Gartner Top Strategic Technology Trends 2026
Strategic priorities span AI agents, digital trust, industry cloud platforms and composable architectures; CIOs reshape roadmaps. Technology becomes both a growth engine and risk frontier.
AI agents and multi‑agent systems — OpenAI assistants; Amazon Alexa enterprise skills; IBM Watson orchestration.
Industry cloud platforms — Salesforce industry clouds; AWS vertical stacks; Oracle sector suites.
Experience‑driven products — Apple seamless devices; Nike member experiences; Peloton community features.
Agile organisational design — Spotify squads; ING tribe model; Atlassian team autonomy.
IBM Business & Tech Trends for 2026
Business resilience and AI‑enabled decision making are strategic essentials; leaders must treat uncertainty as opportunity. AI needs trust, transparency and real‑time orchestration for enterprise impact.
Uncertainty as strategic advantage — Agile planning at Deloitte; Amazon iterative product cycles; Google venture products.
AI‑empowered workforce — Salesforce AI tools; Microsoft copilot at work; Adobe creative AI support.
AI accountability frameworks — IBM ethical AI guidance; SAP transparency logs; Microsoft responsible AI.
AI sovereignty models — Regional AI governance experiments; Alibaba local AI customisation; Tencent ethics boards.
Real‑time decision architecture — Snowflake streams; Databricks real‑time; SAP live data.
Brands, culture, marketing and experience
Brands in 2026 compete through purpose, culture, and experience rather than traditional marketing alone. Micro-influencers, vertical communities, and short-form content shape attention and engagement. Consumers demand authenticity, social impact, and culturally relevant storytelling. Experience-driven products, immersive retail, and participatory brand initiatives differentiate leaders. Generational and aesthetic insights, alongside digital cultural codes, inform product design and messaging. Companies integrating AI, data-driven personalisation, and cross-platform engagement strengthen loyalty and relevance. Collaboration across sectors and embedding social, environmental, and emotional value into offerings is central. Brands that fuse cultural understanding, technology, and purpose deliver growth, resilience, and lasting consumer connection.
TikTok What’s Next Report 2026
Attention and consumption are defined by micro‑content cultures and entertainment‑first experiences. Brands that embed in cultural flows outperform top‑down campaigns.
Entertainment discovery channels — Netflix trailers as culture events; Spotify editorial sessions; Twitch brand activations.
Micro‑influencer power — Indie beauty creators; local restaurant champions; fashion micro‑trend setters.
Vertical community engagement — BeautyTok, FitTok, BookTok shaping trends; Lego fan Tok clubs.
Participatory brand storytelling — GoPro user films; Canon photo challenges; Red Bull challenge series.
WGSN Future Consumer Forecast 2026
Design, aesthetics and cultural codes drive consumer tastes; generational nuances matter more than ever. Brands that translate cultural codes into product and experience gain traction.
Neo‑functional fashion — Uniqlo utilitarian range; Nike performance wear; Carhartt Work In Progress.
Generational aesthetic leadership — Gen Z colour palettes (Shein); Gen Alpha future play (LEGO); cross‑gen design hubs.
Cross‑category partnerships — Spotify x Hulu bundles; Samsung x fashion collabs; Toyota mobility services.
BBC Culture and Future Series
Culture shapes consumption and meaning; brands that decode global cultural flows unlock relevance. Creative industries and identity movements are economic drivers.
Narrative‑driven brands — LEGO story worlds; Disney franchise narratives; Marvel cultural ecosystems.
Fortune and Fast Company Most Innovative Companies 2026
Innovation leaders outpace peers by integrating tech, experience and purpose into growth; brand dynamism correlates with market resilience. Real innovation blends bold experimentation with strategic core stability.
AI‑enhanced innovation culture — Nvidia AI at scale; Adobe generative tools; Siemens R&D AI labs.
Customer‑centric business models — Amazon Prime ecosystem; Netflix viewer‑first UX; Spotify playlist personalisation.
Sustainability in 2026 is a strategic imperative, not a compliance exercise. Climate fragility, resource scarcity, and ESG expectations shape business models and investment priorities. Companies are adopting net-zero pathways, circular systems, and carbon-conscious operations to meet regulatory, investor, and consumer demands. Transparency, traceable supply chains, and regenerative business models enhance credibility and loyalty. Climate tech, energy transition initiatives, and socially responsible practices create new market opportunities. Businesses integrating purpose into products, operations, and experiences differentiate themselves while contributing to global sustainability goals. Success depends on embedding ESG into strategy, culture, and innovation to balance impact with profitability.
World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2026
Climate fragility, resource scarcity and governance risks dominate the leadership risk agenda; multi‑stakeholder collaboration is essential. Risk management must integrate climate, tech and geopolitical pressures.
Climate risk economics — Munich Re climate pricing; Swiss Re adaptation portfolios; Ørsted wind scaling.
AI governance concerns — Responsible AI boards; Meta safety councils; Google ethics reviews.
Geopolitical risk fragmentation — Supply diversification at Bosch; Intel wafer fab spread; Siemens localisation.
Social and health risks — Johnson & Johnson public health initiatives; Pfizer global outreach; Unilever hygiene campaigns.
UNEP/McKinsey Climate & Energy Transition
Net‑zero pathways, carbon markets and circular systems reshape industrial strategy; capital flows to climate solutions. Businesses shift from compliance to competitive sustainability.
Net‑zero pathways mainstreaming — Tesla EV adoption; Ørsted renewables; BP transition portfolios.
Climate tech innovation — Climeworks direct air capture; CarbonCure concrete; Form Energy storage.
Green capital allocation — BlackRock green funds; Amundi sustainable ETFs; ING sustainable lending.
Euromonitor Sustainability and ESG Trends 2026
Sustainability becomes consumer and investor expectation; brands must operationalise ESG into products, messaging and value chains. Transparency and accountability define leader vs laggard.
Brand‑as‑environment partner — Nike Move to Zero; Adidas Parley ocean waste; Levi’s water reuse.
Traceable supply chains — Walmart transparency tech; Target responsible sourcing; Zara Material Trace.
Ecosystems, platforms and new business models
Business models in 2026 are increasingly ecosystem-driven, platform-based, and collaborative. Startups and emerging technologies signal market shifts, while AI orchestration, embedded finance, and autonomous systems enable new value creation. Companies are adopting boundaryless partnerships, regenerative business models, and digital-physical integration to enhance competitiveness. Post-linear commerce, hybrid offerings, and experience-driven strategies redefine customer engagement. Sector-specific S-curve transitions and platformisation accelerate disruption. Organisations that leverage cross-industry collaborations, data-enabled insights, and agile operating models can anticipate market needs, scale innovation, and capture new opportunities. Success requires strategic alignment of technology, networks, and business design to navigate rapid, global change.
McKinsey Industry‑Specific 2026 Outlooks
Sector playbooks show digital‑physical fusion, S‑curve transitions and platformisation as common accelerators. Connected ecosystems generate compounding advantages.
S‑curve technology transitions — EV adoption (Tesla); biotech scaling (Illumina); AI adoption (Nvidia).
Platform‑first industry models — Amazon AWS; Google Ads; Salesforce CRM.
Startup signals reveal cross‑industry disruption; AI orchestration, embedded finance and autonomous systems accelerate ecosystems. Innovation is networked, not siloed.
AI orchestration platforms — UiPath enterprise pipelines; IBM AI stacks; AWS AI services.
Leadership and workforce dynamics in 2026 revolve around agility, digital fluency, and purpose-driven culture. Organisations must adapt structures, reskill employees, and integrate AI into workflows to remain competitive. Skills gaps, hybrid work, and conflict navigation challenge leaders to cultivate engagement and performance. C-suite executives prioritise scenario planning, data-driven decision-making, and workforce reinvention to manage volatility. Purpose alignment, organisational flexibility, and adaptive leadership capabilities underpin talent retention and productivity. Companies that successfully balance human insight with AI augmentation, foster collaborative cultures, and anticipate market shifts position themselves to thrive in complex, rapidly evolving global environments.
IBM C‑Suite Study and CEO Outlook 2026
CEOs face a productivity imperative, data gaps, workforce redesign and strategic reinvention pressures. Data fluency and scenario planning are core leadership competencies.
Productivity over cost cutting — Google workplace AI; Salesforce automation; SAP efficiency modules.
Data‑driven decision making — Netflix metrics culture; Amazon data lakes; Dell analytics.
Organisational reinvention — Microsoft structural agility; SAP networked teams; Oracle cross‑functional units.
Purpose and retention — Unilever mission alignment; Patagonia retention ethos; Salesforce value culture.
London Business School Business Trends for 2026
Leadership success hinges on agility, psychological skills, conflict navigation and human‑AI collaboration. Organisational design must adapt quickly to external shocks and internal complexity.
In the early days of SpaceX, rockets didn’t just fail, they exploded. Repeatedly.
Each launch represented years of engineering effort, millions of dollars, and the reputational stakes of a company trying to do what few believed possible: radically reduce the cost of space travel and make humanity multi-planetary. The margin for error was near zero, the uncertainty immense, and the pace unforgiving.
Yet within this high-stakes environment, SpaceX built something more valuable than rockets—it built leadership teams capable of operating at the edge of innovation.
These teams were not defined by hierarchy or tenure, but by ownership, accountability, and the ability to think independently while acting collectively. Engineers were expected to challenge assumptions, solve problems beyond their formal roles, and take responsibility for outcomes that directly impacted mission success. Leaders did not simply direct—they removed barriers, made rapid decisions with incomplete data, and created an environment where learning from failure was not optional but essential.
This is the reality of modern leadership. Increasingly, organizations operate in conditions that resemble SpaceX more than traditional corporate environments: fast-moving, ambiguous, interconnected, and unforgiving. In such contexts, leadership teams are no longer coordination bodies—they are performance engines. And whether they function effectively can determine not just success, but survival.
The challenge of leading in fast, uncertain, innovative environments
In stable environments, leadership teams can rely on structure, planning cycles, and clearly defined roles. Decision-making is often sequential, risks are manageable, and outcomes are predictable. But in fast, innovative companies, these assumptions break down.
Three challenges dominate:
First, speed versus alignment. Leaders must move quickly, often making decisions before all information is available. Yet misalignment at the top can cascade into confusion and inefficiency across the organization.
Second, autonomy versus control. Innovation requires empowering individuals and teams to act independently. But without clarity and accountability, autonomy can become fragmentation.
Third, performance versus learning. Organizations must deliver results while continuously experimenting, adapting, and learning from failure.
Leadership teams sit at the center of these tensions. Their ability to navigate them determines whether an organization accelerates—or stalls.
Interestingly, these dynamics are not unique to business. Elite sports teams have grappled with them for decades.
Lessons from the world’s most successful teams
Consider the All Blacks, widely regarded as one of the most successful teams in the history of sport. Their dominance is not simply a function of talent; it is the result of a deeply embedded team culture and leadership philosophy.
One of their defining principles is “shared leadership.” While there is a captain, leadership responsibility is distributed across the team. Players are expected to step up, hold each other accountable, and contribute beyond their positional roles. Senior players mentor juniors, and standards are reinforced peer-to-peer, not just top-down.
Another principle is “sweep the sheds”—a metaphor for humility and ownership. Even the most senior players take responsibility for the smallest tasks. This reinforces a culture where no one is above the team, and accountability is universal.
Finally, the All Blacks emphasize clarity of purpose. Every player understands not just what they are doing, but why it matters. This shared meaning creates cohesion under pressure and enables rapid decision-making in dynamic situations.
The parallels with high-performing leadership teams are striking. In both cases, success depends not just on individual excellence, but on how effectively individuals operate together under pressure.
What makes leadership teams truly effective?
Across industries and contexts, effective leadership teams share several characteristics:
Clarity of purpose and goals
Defined roles and decision rights
High levels of trust and open communication
Constructive conflict and debate
Strong accountability for outcomes
Ability to execute consistently while adapting quickly
These characteristics may sound straightforward, but achieving them is anything but simple. This is where frameworks become valuable—not as rigid models, but as tools to diagnose and improve team performance.
Frameworks to elevate team performance
Different frameworks serve different purposes. The key is knowing when and how to use them.
Diagnosing Structure and Alignment
One of the most practical starting points is the GRPI model—Goals, Roles, Processes, and Interpersonal Relationships. It provides a simple yet powerful way to diagnose where a team may be struggling.
If goals are unclear, teams lack direction. If roles are ambiguous, confusion and duplication arise. If processes are inefficient, execution suffers. And if relationships are weak, trust and collaboration break down.
GRPI is particularly useful early in team development or when performance issues emerge. It helps leaders quickly identify whether problems are structural or interpersonal.
Addressing Behavioral and Cultural Challenges
While structural clarity is necessary, it is not sufficient. Many teams fail not because they lack clarity, but because they struggle with behaviors.
This is where the concept of common team dysfunctions becomes relevant. Teams often avoid conflict, hesitate to hold each other accountable, or prioritize individual success over collective outcomes. These behaviors erode performance over time.
Addressing them requires intentional leadership: creating space for honest dialogue, encouraging constructive disagreement, and reinforcing shared accountability.
Building Psychological Safety
In innovative environments, psychological safety is critical. Team members must feel able to speak up, challenge ideas, admit mistakes, and propose new approaches without fear of negative consequences.
Without this, teams default to safe, incremental thinking. With it, they unlock creativity and innovation.
Leaders play a central role here. Their reactions to dissent, failure, and uncertainty set the tone for the entire team.
Clarifying Execution and Accountability
Even high-trust, aligned teams can struggle with execution if decision rights are unclear. Tools like responsibility matrices help clarify who is responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed for key decisions.
This is particularly important in complex organizations where multiple stakeholders are involved. Clarity reduces friction and accelerates progress.
Case studies in building high-performing teams
While frameworks provide structure, real-world examples bring them to life. Several organizations offer valuable lessons in how leadership teams can operate effectively.
Amazon: Scaling Alignment and Accountability
Amazon has built its leadership culture around principles that reinforce ownership, customer obsession, and high standards. Leadership teams are expected to think long-term while acting decisively in the present.
One of Amazon’s key practices is its approach to decision-making. Leaders are encouraged to distinguish between reversible and irreversible decisions, allowing for speed where appropriate and rigor where necessary. This prevents paralysis while maintaining accountability.
The company also emphasizes written communication. Leadership teams use structured narratives instead of presentations, ensuring clarity of thinking and alignment. This discipline forces leaders to articulate their ideas precisely and consider multiple perspectives.
The impact is a leadership culture that combines speed with rigor, autonomy with accountability. Teams are empowered to act, but within a framework that ensures alignment with broader goals.
Schneider Electric operates in a complex environment where innovation requires the integration of engineering, software, and customer insights. To address this, the company has built cross-functional teams focused on shared outcomes rather than functional silos.
Leadership teams play a critical role in enabling this collaboration. They establish clear goals, define roles across functions, and create environments where diverse perspectives are encouraged.
Psychological safety is particularly important in this context. Innovation depends on the ability to challenge assumptions and explore new ideas. Leaders must ensure that all voices are heard and that debate is constructive.
The result is faster innovation cycles and more integrated solutions. By breaking down silos and fostering collaboration, Schneider Electric has positioned itself at the forefront of digital transformation in energy management.
Holcim: Aligning Distributed Teams Around Purpose
Holcim operates across multiple regions, cultures, and regulatory environments. Coordinating efforts at this scale requires strong alignment and clear communication.
The company has addressed this by anchoring its teams around a shared purpose—advancing sustainable construction. This purpose provides a unifying direction that transcends geographic and functional boundaries.
Leadership teams reinforce this alignment through clear goals, transparent metrics, and regular communication. At the same time, local teams are given the flexibility to adapt their approach based on regional needs.
This balance between global alignment and local autonomy is critical. It enables consistency without stifling innovation.
The impact is a network of teams that can operate cohesively while remaining responsive to local conditions—an essential capability in today’s interconnected world.
Teams in action: what leaders must do
Understanding frameworks and case studies is valuable, but the real challenge lies in application. Building effective leadership teams requires consistent, intentional effort.
Leaders must:
Clarify purpose and priorities Ensure that the team has a shared understanding of what it is trying to achieve and why it matters.
Define roles and decision rights Eliminate ambiguity about who is responsible for what.
Foster trust and open communication Create an environment where team members feel safe to speak up and challenge ideas.
Encourage constructive conflict Avoiding conflict may feel comfortable, but it leads to poor decisions.
Reinforce accountability Hold each other to high standards and focus on collective outcomes.
Adapt continuously Regularly assess team effectiveness and adjust as needed.
These actions may seem straightforward, but they require discipline and consistency. Leadership teams must model the behaviors they expect from the organization.
Why teams matter more than ever
In a world defined by rapid change, complexity, and uncertainty, no individual leader can have all the answers. Success depends on the collective intelligence, alignment, and execution of teams.
Organizations that build effective leadership teams gain several advantages:
Faster decision-making
Greater adaptability
Stronger innovation
Higher engagement
More consistent execution
Conversely, organizations with dysfunctional leadership teams experience misalignment, slow progress, and missed opportunities.
Ultimately, teams are not just a component of organizational performance—they are its foundation.
Space X to All Blacks
The story of SpaceX illustrates what is possible when leadership teams operate at a high level. Facing immense uncertainty and pressure, they built a culture of accountability, autonomy, and continuous learning. This enabled them to achieve what many thought impossible.
The All Blacks demonstrate that even in highly competitive environments, sustained success depends on shared leadership, trust, and clarity of purpose.
Organizations like Amazon, Schneider Electric, and Holcim show that these principles can be applied across industries, scales, and contexts.
The common thread is clear: effective leadership teams are not accidental. They are built through intentional design, disciplined execution, and continuous development.
As the pace of change accelerates, this becomes even more critical. Strategies can be copied, technologies can be replicated, but high-performing teams are far harder to build—and far more valuable.
In the end, organizations do not rise or fall on strategy alone. They rise or fall on the ability of their teams to align, adapt, and execute together.
In a world of uncertainty, that is the ultimate competitive advantage.
On a softly lit stage, Sting is rehearsing a new arrangement of “Englishman in New York.”
The familiar chords remain, the melody recognisable, yet everything else is fluid. The drummer subtly shifts the groove into a reggae-infused rhythm, the keyboardist introduces harmonic flourishes, and Sting responds, weaving his performance around the evolving texture. The song takes on a new shape with every repetition — structured yet improvisational, disciplined yet inventive. Every member of the ensemble listens, adapts, and contributes, producing a live experience that is never the same twice.
Sting has been doing this for decades. For me personally, he grew up only a few miles from my childhood home, just outside of Newcastle upon Tyne. In his twenties he was a teacher at a nearby school, while I was a decade younger. As he rose to musical stardom, I followed his career through the mega moments of The Police, to his maturing as an incredible solo artist.
Today he tours with a world-class ensemble of jazz musicians, constantly reinterpreting his repertoire, and treating each concert as both a performance and an experiment. His genius lies in balancing a clearly defined structure with creative freedom: the melody, the chord progression, and the rhythm section form the strategic backbone, while improvisation creates new possibilities in real time.
This interplay of structure and improvisation, of direction and discovery, is exactly the mindset today’s businesses need.
In an era defined by rapid technological acceleration, unpredictable markets, and heightened competition, companies can no longer rely solely on long-term, linear planning.
Strategy cannot be a static document; it must be a living, evolving practice. It must combine short-term execution with long-term vision, exploitative optimisation with exploratory experimentation, discipline with creativity. This is what we call Strategic Jazz: a model for navigating uncertainty by embracing the dualities that drive innovation and resilience.
Jazz is often dismissed as a purely spontaneous art, but nothing could be further from the truth. Underneath the free-flowing solos lies a bedrock of structure. Every performance is grounded in a chord progression, a rhythmic pulse, and an agreed key. These constraints are not limitations — they are the canvas on which musicians improvise.
Musicians spend years mastering scales, rhythm, harmony, and ensemble interplay. That discipline allows them to diverge confidently from the expected path. They listen intently to one another, sense where the performance is going, and make decisions in real time — sometimes trading stability for risk, sometimes descending into gentle dissonance, always returning to a shared theme.
In today’s business world, companies and their leaders face a similarly paradoxical challenge. They need:
a clear sense of direction, so that everyone is aligned
but also the freedom to experiment and learn, because the future is uncertain
to deliver in the short term, even as they invest for the long term
to exploit current advantages, while exploring entirely new opportunities
and to innovate rapidly, without losing cohesion
This is the essence of what I have called “Strategic Jazz” … a strategy model that holds structure and improvisation in creative tension, enabling organisations to remain coherent and ahead of the curve even when the tune keeps changing.
Business principles of “Strategic Jazz”
Before diving into concrete business examples, it helps to lay out the foundational principles that define Strategic Jazz. These principles are not abstract ideals — they are practical, actionable, and relevant in the most turbulent of environments.
Purposeful Direction Every organisation needs a strong, long-term directional melody — a core mission, values, and strategic priorities. This is the backbone that gives meaning and coherence. Without it, improvisation becomes aimless.
Exploratory Discovery Structure without exploration stifles innovation. Strategic Jazz encourages deliberate experimentation: rapid prototyping, micro‑bets, feedback loops, and iterative learning.
Simultaneous Horizons Short-term execution and long-term transformation are not sequential; they must happen together. Profits and performance today fund the experiments of tomorrow.
Dual Focus on Exploitation and Exploration Organisations must scale what already works (exploit) while also probing for new advantages (explore). Getting both wrong or over-weighting one leads to stagnation or chaos.
Rhythmic Learning Cycles Just as jazz musicians listen and react in real time, companies should build regular feedback rhythms. These might be monthly, quarterly, or even faster, depending on domain and scale.
Distributed, Collaborative Leadership Leadership in Strategic Jazz is like bandleading. It’s not about dictating every note: leaders set the framework, then create space for teams to improvise, experiment, and co‑create.
Cultural Safety and Mastery The capacity to improvise comes from deep competence plus psychological safety. Teams must be skilled and well trained, but also confident to take risks, fail, and learn.
Momentum Through Interplay Progress comes not just from individual brilliance, but from the interaction between structure and spontaneity. Direction supports discovery, and discovery sharpens direction. That interplay becomes a virtuous flywheel.
The best companies play jazz
Let’s examine how four very different companies — Spotify, Nvidia, Anthropic, and Revolut — are practising Strategic Jazz in real-world ways, and how their recent activity illustrates the power of this model.
Spotify: Innovation in Rhythm
Spotify is often cited as a pioneer of agile, team-based structure — but it is perhaps more accurate to describe its strategy as jazz-like. The company organises around squads, tribes, and chapters, loosely coupled teams that share a mission yet operate with high autonomy. These units are free to test, iterate, and pivot, but they remain aligned around a shared vision: deepening engagement, expanding content, and building creator ecosystems.
Purposeful direction: Spotify’s mission to democratise audio, support creators, and personalise experiences gives the company its strategic spine.
Exploratory discovery: Squads run experiments on recommendation algorithms, monetisation, and creator tools.
Rhythmic cycles: Feedback from listeners, data on usage, and rapid iteration inform product decisions.
Collaboration: Cross-functional teams improvise together, making strategic decisions on the fly.
Momentum through interplay: Successful experiments (e.g., personalised mixes or video podcasts) reshape the core product direction — and scale.
Nvidia: The Architect of AI Infrastructure
Nvidia’s journey from a graphics chip company to the backbone of AI infrastructure is a striking example of Strategic Jazz at massive scale. The company’s long-standing competence in parallel processing and GPU technology provided the “score”: powerful compute engines that could be adapted. But Nvidia didn’t simply stick to gaming — it improvised its way into the future of AI.
Purposeful direction: Nvidia’s long-term vision centres on accelerating computing to power intelligent systems.
Exploratory discovery: It experiments with new architectures, cloud partnerships, and AI platforms (e.g., microservices, inference, simulation).
Short and long horizons: While gaming remains, data‑centre growth funds R&D for next-gen AI and physical systems.
Collaboration: Nvidia works closely with cloud providers, researchers, start-ups, and governments.
Interplay momentum: As AI adoption grows, Nvidia scales both its infrastructure business and its platform offerings, reinforcing its strategic core.
Anthropic: Purpose-Driven Exploration
Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude model, operates with a singular purpose: building safe, aligned, and powerful AI. But its route to scale is far from rigid. The company actively experiments with model architectures, enterprise use cases, and responsible AI mechanisms, all while staying anchored in its mission.
Purposeful direction: Anthropic’s commitment to safety, alignment, and accessible AI acts as its melodic core.
Exploratory discovery: Through Claude, Claude Code, governance tools, and alignment research, the team experiments with the shape and safety of AI.
Dual horizons: It pursues enterprise adoption now (run-rate revenue) while investing heavily in long-term infrastructure and responsible AI.
Collaboration: Partnerships with cloud providers, major enterprises, and research institutions amplify its reach.
Learning cycles: Frequent model releases, safety audits, and feedback loops feed back into strategy.
Momentum: Capital, growth, and experimentation reinforce each other in a virtuous cycle — direction sharpens as discovery yields results.
Revolut: Fintech in Constant Improv
Revolut’s rise from a digital payments startup to a global financial app is a story of disciplined ambition and relentless innovation. While it has clear north stars — banking, global expansion, and super-app functionality — it adapts quickly, adding new services, experimenting with crypto, wealth, and deposit products, and redefining what a fintech challenger can be.
Purposeful direction: Revolut’s mission to build a global, interconnected financial super-app gives its long-term strategy clarity.
Exploratory discovery: It innovates in payments, wealth, crypto, and banking, pushing into new geographies and use cases.
Short and long horizons: While scaling its core banking features, it experiments with crypto and other verticals to diversify.
Collaboration: It partners with regulators, financial institutions, and technology platforms to test new models.
Rhythmic cycles: Product teams iterate rapidly based on user feedback, regulatory shifts, and market demand.
Interplay momentum: Profits from established services help fund innovation; innovations, in turn, attract more users, building scale.
Strategic lessons from playing jazz
From Sting’s stage to Spotify’s squads, Nvidia’s AI factories, Anthropic’s mission-driven build, and Revolut’s financial innovation, a pattern emerges. Organisations that thrive in uncertainty don’t just strategise — they improvise within a frame. Here are the core lessons of Strategic Jazz, distilled:
Set a strong but flexible architectural backbone. Without a clear mission, values, and strategic priorities, improvisation risks becoming random noise. But with structure, teams can push the envelope without losing coherence.
Balance execution and exploration. Delivering results today funds tomorrow’s experiments. Strategic Jazz encourages organisations to do both, not choose one.
Create fast feedback loops. Frequent cycles of testing, learning, and adapting keep the strategy alive. These loops accelerate learning and prevent momentum from stagnating.
Empower distributed leadership. Great ideas come from everywhere. Leaders must cultivate autonomy while maintaining alignment, allowing teams to improvise intelligently.
Build a culture of mastery and safety. Improvisation works best when people are deeply skilled — and confident enough to risk failing. Psychological safety and talent development are non-negotiable.
Scale the virtuous interaction between direction and discovery. As companies experiment, they generate insights that refine strategy. As strategy refines, it provides a sharper frame for future experiments. This interplay fuels sustained growth.
Accept and even lean into tension. Structure vs. freedom, short-term vs. long-term, exploitation vs. exploration — these tensions are not problems to solve but productive spaces to inhabit.
Ready for what’s next
Sting’s performance offers more than a metaphor. It provides a blueprint for modern leadership: a way to hold firm on what matters while letting creativity and discovery flow freely. In a world where disruption is constant, the most powerful organisations are those that don’t just survive change — they play with it, they riff on it, and they build new harmonies as they go.
Spotify, Nvidia, Anthropic, and Revolut show us how Strategic Jazz can be more than a concept — it can be a way of operating, innovating, and scaling. They demonstrate that clear purpose, disciplined capability, and improvisational freedom can coexist. And in doing so, they are orchestrating strategic masterpieces.
As business leaders, the challenge is yours: how do you write your own score? How do you create a rhythm of experimentation? How do you cultivate teams that listen as much as they play? If you can do that, you won’t just set direction — you’ll spark discovery. You won’t just plan — you’ll perform.
And your organisation, like the best jazz ensemble, will be ready for whatever tune the world plays next.
In 1980, I began running because I believed in heroes.
I believed in Brendan Foster — hard, northern, uncompromising. I believed in the elegance of Seb Coe and the fierce kick of Steve Cram. They were not distant avatars on a screen. They were tangible. They raced on tracks I could visit. They breathed the same wet northern air.
When I joined Morpeth Harriers, I joined more than a club. I joined a rhythm. Monday nights were sacred. Winter meant cross country leagues, caked in mud and pride. Summer meant track leagues and county championships. I can still feel the hum of Gateshead International Stadium during the Tyneside Track League on Wednesday evenings during the summer, seeing Cram on the start line, the disbelief that I might share the same track — and occasionally beat a future junior champion like David Sharpe.
That world felt coherent. The pathway was visible. School to club. Club to county. County to national. The sport was structured like a ladder and we all knew where the rungs were.
40 years later, the ladder still stands, but the crowd has moved elsewhere.
Running has never been bigger. Athletics has never felt more fragile.
The New Running Revolution
If you want to understand what is working, you do not begin at the track. You begin in a park.
Parkrun started in 2004 in Bushy Park with 13 runners and a stopwatch. Today it operates in more than 20 countries, with over 2,000 weekly events and millions of registered participants worldwide.In the UK alone, hundreds of thousands turn up on Saturday mornings — free, timed, volunteer-led. No membership. No selection. No hierarchy. It is possibly the most successful mass-participation sports model of the 21st century.
Parkrun did not ask people to commit to a season. It asked them to turn up.
Elsewhere in London, a different revolution began in 2007. Run Dem Crew fused urban culture, music, photography and crew identity with structured training. It proved that running could be cool — unapologetically, visibly cool — without abandoning performance. Members progressed from 5Ks to marathons while reshaping who felt seen in the sport.
Global brands noticed. Adidas Runners now operates chapters in cities around the world, blending free coaching, branded experiences and social energy. Corporate? Yes. But also accessible, diverse and contemporary.
Then there is Mikkeller Running Club, born from a Copenhagen craft brewery in 2014 and now spanning dozens of international chapters. The formula is disarmingly simple: run together, drink beer together. It sounds irreverent. It is. But it has lowered the psychological barrier to entry for thousands who would never step onto a track.
Digital has redrawn the landscape even further. Runna, founded in 2021, has scaled at extraordinary speed, offering personalised training plans through an app-based subscription model. Tens of thousands of users now follow structured programmes without ever meeting a club coach. Coaching has been democratised — and commercialised.
Brands have begun experimenting with physical space as well. Hoka opened its concept “Run Stop Corner Shop” in London — part retail, part community hub, part event space. It resembles a neighbourhood grocery store. But instead of milk and bread, it offers shakeout runs, talks and coffee. The message is clear: running belongs in everyday culture.
Competition formats are evolving too. Night of the 10,000m PBs turned a niche track event into a sold-out festival — beer tents, DJs, pacing lights, and thousands of spectators crowding lane three. It proved that the 10,000m is not boring. It is poorly presented.
In the UK, events like the Podium 5K have built a reputation for precision pacing and personal bests, attracting club runners and elites alike. Meanwhile, experiential runs like Nike After Dark Tourhave reimagined urban racing as immersive theatre — lights, music, city streets reclaimed at night.
The energy is undeniable. Participation is booming. Running is visible, social, digitised and culturally fluent.
But most of it is happening outside the traditional athletics club structure.
That is not a threat.
It is a lesson.
The Diagnosis: Athletics is organised for yesterday
The recent independent vision for the future of track and field in the UK, co-chaired by Steve Cram, recognised a hard truth: youth participation is declining. Research identified barriers around perception, awareness, accessibility and belonging.
The guiding principles are profound:
Inclusive and accessible for all
Wellbeing and personal growth first
Flexible and responsive formats
Social connection and belonging
Youth voice and ownership
One team: joined-up delivery
This is not tinkering. It is structural reform.
But principles alone will not save the sport. We need a new operating system.
A Manifesto for Reinventing Running
1. From Hierarchy to Community
Traditional athletics was hierarchical. Standards. Selections. Trials. It rewarded the already talented and filtered the rest.
Modern running communities are horizontal. You run. You belong.
Clubs must stop behaving like gatekeepers and start behaving like hosts. Membership should feel like joining a creative collective, not applying for an institution.
2. Competition Must Become Experience
Young people live in an experience economy. A six-hour track meet with long pauses and sparse spectators will not compete with Netflix, gaming or nightlife.
Track nights should be short, sharp and sensory. Music. Lighting. Commentary. Storytelling. Mixed relays. Head-to-head match races.
Night of the 10,000m PBs showed the way. Podium 5K showed the appetite. The lesson is simple: package performance with atmosphere.
3. Wellbeing Is the New Performance Metric
If a 15-year-old leaves the sport burnt out, the system has failed — regardless of their personal best.
Coaching education must embed mental health literacy. Clubs should track retention with the same seriousness as medals. Rest, recovery and enjoyment should be visible priorities.
Running improves lives. That is not a slogan. It is the product.
4. Youth Must Shape the Future
Not as consultees. As co-designers.
Let them create content. Choose music. Influence event formats. Control club TikTok accounts. Design kit. Lead warm-ups.
Ownership breeds loyalty.
5. Build the Ecosystem, Not the Silo
Parkrun is not the enemy of clubs. It is the front door.
Digital apps are not stealing athletes. They are proving demand.
Social crews are not diluting standards. They are expanding culture.
The future lies in collaboration. Shared calendars. Shared promotions. Shared pathways from social run to track race to marathon start line.
6. Celebrate Local Heroes Again
In 1980, heroes felt reachable. Today, elite sport can feel distant.
Bring international athletes back to grassroots meets. Host Q&As. Create handicapped “race the champ” miles. Tell local stories loudly. Turn up in Bushy Park and you’ll see Hoka’s Team Makou training, but what if we could join in too?
Inspiration must be visible and proximate.
7. Redefine What Success Looks Like
Success in 2040 should not be measured only by Olympic medals. It should be measured by:
Youth retention rates
Diversity of participation
Financial sustainability of clubs
Volunteer satisfaction
Cultural relevance
If athletics becomes vibrant in every town, medals will follow.
The Choice
We stand at a crossroads.
One path leads to preservation — defending structures built for another era, hoping nostalgia will sustain them.
The other path leads to reinvention — embracing inclusion, flexibility, digital fluency and community energy.
Running itself is not in crisis. It is flourishing. From Bushy Park to Copenhagen breweries, from urban crews to concept stores, from app-based coaching to floodlit track festivals, the sport has shown it can evolve.
Athletics must now do the same.
Not by abandoning its heritage — but by translating it.
The mud of cross country. The hush before the gun. The shared exhaustion of a final lap. The belonging of a Monday night session.
Those feelings are timeless.
The structures around them are not.
If we are bold enough to redesign competition, courageous enough to share power with young people, and wise enough to collaborate across the ecosystem, athletics will not shrink into irrelevance.
It will surge back into cultural centrality.
And somewhere, on a damp evening under stadium lights, another young runner will stand on the start line, heart racing, believing — as I once did — that this sport belongs to them.
A Call to Action
To clubs: open your gates wider. To governing bodies: simplify and align. To coaches: prioritise joy alongside excellence. To athletes: claim ownership. To event organisers: experiment boldly. To communities: collaborate.
We do not need to return to 1980. We need to build 2030.
The next generation deserves stadiums as electric as Gateshead once felt. They deserve heroes they can see, systems that serve them, and competitions that reflect their world.
If we embrace inclusion, flexibility, wellbeing, youth voice and true collaboration — not as slogans but as operating principles — athletics will not merely survive.
It will thrive.
And somewhere, a young runner will step onto a track for the first time, look around at the noise, the lights, the community — and feel what I felt all those years ago:
This is where I belong.
In calmer decades, strategy was often an exercise in linear extrapolation. Markets moved incrementally, competitors were familiar, and five-year plans felt solid enough to anchor capital allocation and investor confidence. Forecasts extended trend lines. Risk was something to hedge.
That world has gone.
Today’s leaders navigate a landscape defined by technological acceleration, climate disruption, demographic shifts, geopolitical fragmentation and the rapid emergence of entirely new business models. AI alone is redrawing the contours of work, creativity and value creation. In such a context, traditional forecasting is not merely insufficient; it can be dangerously misleading.
Foresight not forecasts
Strategic foresight offers a different discipline. It does not attempt to predict a single future. It prepares organisations for multiple plausible futures — and, more importantly, equips them to shape those futures to their advantage.
This is not an abstract exercise in speculation. It is a practical capability that touches every part of the enterprise: strategy, innovation, capital allocation, leadership, culture and investor relations. It is the difference between reacting to change and orchestrating it.
It is therefore an essential capability for all business leaders. More than a report, a inspiring keynote, or specialist team, strategic foresight is core to leadership in a fast-changing world.
Over the last year I have worked with companies in sector from fashion to food, finance and pharma, telecoms and tech, and every one of them now prioritise foresight as a priority. And use it strategically and proactively not just to inform strategy and innovation, but to reinvent how they approach such challenges, and work more dynamically across the business – to be more agile, to refocus priorities and reduce risks, and be future ready.
Strategic foresight matters for three fundamental reasons.
First, uncertainty is structural, not cyclical. The forces reshaping industries are not short-term disruptions but deep, systemic shifts. The energy transition, the digitisation of everything, urbanisation, ageing populations, bio-engineering, platform economics — these are megatrends that interact in complex, non-linear ways.
Second, advantage increasingly accrues to those who move early. The window between sensing change and market reconfiguration is shrinking. Companies that identify weak signals and commit boldly can redefine categories before incumbents even recognise the threat.
Third, capital markets are recalibrating expectations. Investors no longer reward efficiency alone; they reward credible future narratives. Companies must articulate not just how they will perform next quarter, but how they will remain relevant in a radically different decade.
Foresight is therefore both defensive and offensive. It builds resilience — protecting against surprise — and it unlocks growth by identifying new spaces to explore.
A robust foresight process begins with megatrends: large-scale, long-term forces that shape the context in which businesses operate.
Consider the global shift towards decarbonisation. Energy systems are being reconfigured from centralised fossil fuel generation to distributed renewables, storage and smart grids. Companies such as Siemens Energy are not simply manufacturing turbines; they are reimagining the architecture of energy systems. Meanwhile, utilities like Iberdrola are investing aggressively in renewables and grid modernisation, redefining what it means to be an energy provider.
Megatrends are not predictions. They are contextual forces. The strategic task is to interpret how these forces might interact. Urbanisation plus digital connectivity plus climate risk leads to the re-engineering of cities. Ageing populations plus AI diagnostics plus genomics transforms pharmaceuticals and preventative healthcare. Platform economics plus creator tools plus immersive media reshapes entertainment.
In my own work with companies across energy, entertainment, finance, pharmaceuticals, technology and telecoms, we begin by mapping these interacting forces. The goal is not to list trends but to surface tensions: where regulation collides with innovation; where social expectations outpace infrastructure; where technology enables behaviour that institutions are not yet ready for.
The next step is scenario planning — not as an academic exercise, but as a leadership dialogue.
Scenario planning was popularised in the corporate world by Royal Dutch Shell, which used it to anticipate oil shocks and geopolitical volatility. The core principle remains powerful: instead of asking “What will happen?”, leaders ask “What could plausibly happen — and how would we respond?”
In practice, we construct a small number of divergent but credible future worlds. For example:
A hyper-regulated energy future where carbon pricing accelerates rapidly.
A fragmented geopolitical environment with regional supply chains.
A digitally immersive consumer world in which entertainment, commerce and community converge.
A biotech breakthrough era where personalised medicine becomes mainstream.
These scenarios are not forecasts. They are test environments. Strategies are stress-tested against each world. Where are we robust? Where are we exposed? Where could we lead?
This process often reveals uncomfortable truths. Core assumptions — about customer behaviour, cost structures, or regulatory stability — prove fragile. Yet it also surfaces latent strengths: capabilities that become disproportionately valuable under certain futures.
For a global telecoms client exploring the future of work, scenario planning reframed their role. Rather than merely providing connectivity, they saw an opportunity to become orchestrators of distributed work ecosystems — integrating secure networks, collaboration platforms and smart city infrastructure.
Scenarios widen the aperture of thinking. They move leadership conversations from incremental improvement to structural reinvention.
Building options, strategy as portfolio
Foresight without action is theatre. The discipline becomes strategic only when it informs capital allocation and innovation choices.
In volatile environments, strategy must resemble a portfolio of options rather than a single linear plan. Some initiatives exploit existing advantages; others explore new domains. Some are low-risk extensions; others are calculated leaps.
Technology companies exemplify this duality. Amazon built its dominance by relentlessly exploiting operational excellence in e-commerce while simultaneously exploring cloud computing, entertainment and logistics. Alphabetinstitutionalised exploration through its “Other Bets”, acknowledging that not all investments would succeed, but some would redefine markets.
For established incumbents, this portfolio logic requires cultural shift. Leaders must legitimise experimentation. They must accept that some initiatives are options — small investments that preserve the right to scale later.
In pharmaceuticals, for example, scenario work around personalised medicine has led companies to invest in data partnerships, AI-enabled drug discovery and gene therapies. Not all of these bets will mature. But failing to participate risks strategic irrelevance.
Dynamic strategy therefore combines direction with agility. It sets a clear long-term ambition — a north star anchored in purpose — while enabling rapid reconfiguration of how that ambition is pursued.
Shaping futures, passive to proactive
The most powerful application of foresight goes beyond adaptation. It seeks to shape the environment itself.
Companies influence regulation, standards, ecosystems and consumer expectations. By articulating compelling visions, they mobilise partners and investors.
Tesla did not wait for a mature electric vehicle market. It accelerated consumer demand, forced incumbents to respond, and catalysed charging infrastructure. Netflix reshaped entertainment consumption, not merely by predicting streaming’s rise, but by investing ahead of demand and redefining content distribution.
In cities, we see similar shaping dynamics. Energy providers, mobility platforms, telecoms operators and property developers collaborate to create smart urban ecosystems. Leaders who engage in foresight are better positioned to influence these emerging standards and partnerships.
Shaping the future requires conviction. It demands leaders who are comfortable articulating bold visions — and aligning organisations around them.
In my work on purpose and vision, we emphasise that foresight without purpose becomes reactive. Purpose clarifies why a company exists beyond profit. Vision translates that purpose into a compelling future state. Strategy then becomes the bridge between today’s capabilities and tomorrow’s ambition.
Key approaches to strategic foresight
Strategic foresight typically integrates five core approaches:
Environmental Scanning Continuous monitoring of technological, social, economic and political signals. This is not a one-off exercise but an embedded capability.
Megatrend Mapping Identifying long-term forces and analysing how they intersect. This often involves cross-functional workshops to surface diverse perspectives.
Scenario Planning Developing plausible future worlds to stress-test assumptions and strategies by exploring the key drivers, considering intersections, and evaluating alternative futures.
Future Back Strategy Starting from a desired future position and working backwards to identify milestones and capability gaps, sometimes to make leaps forwards, to challenge incrementalism, and accelerate progress.
Option Portfolio Design Allocating resources across “exploit and explore” initiatives, balancing resilience and growth, and building a dynamic portfolio of ideas, projects, and businesses to succeed today and tomorrow.
Together, these approaches create a “dynamic strategy” process — one that evolves as contexts shift.
Implications across the enterprise
Strategic foresight is not confined to the strategy team. Its implications permeate the business. Fundamentally it is about making better decisions today. These are most profound when they are tied to capital allocation, and the deliver of effective value-creating performance short and longer term:
Innovation becomes more purposeful. Rather than chasing incremental improvements, teams explore spaces aligned with future scenarios. In food and agriculture, foresight around sustainability and urban density has driven experimentation in vertical farming and alternative proteins.
Leadership evolves. Leaders must be comfortable with ambiguity. They facilitate dialogue across silos, encouraging diverse perspectives. They shift from control to orchestration.
Culture becomes adaptive. Employees are encouraged to question assumptions. Learning loops are accelerated. Failure, when intelligent and bounded, is accepted as part of exploration.
Investor Relations gains a narrative dimension. Investors seek clarity on long-term positioning. Companies that articulate credible future pathways — grounded in foresight — command strategic premium. The conversation shifts from quarterly volatility to structural opportunity.
Talent and Organisation adapt. Skills in data analytics, systems thinking and design become critical. Structures become more modular, enabling rapid reconfiguration.
Risk Management broadens. Rather than focusing solely on downside mitigation, risk teams collaborate with strategists to identify opportunity in uncertainty.
Combining direction with agility
A common misconception is that agility means constant pivoting. In reality, effective agility requires clarity of direction.
Purpose anchors the enterprise. Vision articulates the future it seeks to create. Foresight expands the range of plausible contexts. Dynamic strategy then aligns resources flexibly within that frame.
This combination — direction with agility — enables companies to leap forward when conditions align. It allows them to exploit current strengths while exploring adjacent possibilities.
In financial services, foresight around digital identity and decentralised finance has prompted banks to experiment with embedded finance and platform partnerships. In entertainment, immersive technologies and AI-generated content are redefining how stories are created and monetised. In telecoms, 5G and edge computing open pathways to smart industry and connected cities.
These are not incremental evolutions. They are structural leaps.
Ultimately, strategic foresight is a mindset as much as a methodology. It invites leaders to replace the illusion of certainty with disciplined curiosity.
The future of business will not be shaped by those who forecast most accurately, but by those who imagine most boldly and execute most decisively.
In exploring the future of cities, how we eat, how we work, and how industries converge, I have seen one consistent pattern: the organisations that thrive are those that treat the future not as a threat, but as a canvas.
They scan widely. They question deeply. They experiment intelligently. They communicate compellingly. They align investors, employees and partners around shared ambition.
Strategic foresight does not eliminate uncertainty. It transforms it from a source of anxiety into a source of advantage.
In an age of exponential change, that may be the most important capability any leader can cultivate.
