Focusing on growth, business leaders believe ‘innovative thinking’ will be key, says report
Chief executive officers (CEO) globally continue to focus on growth in 2025 despite material challenges and risks ahead, according to a report from the Conference Board.
Investing in economic opportunities (47.5 per cent) is at the top of the list of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities for business leaders.
These two outweigh other critical aspects of ESG.
Employee productivity is a critical focus for organizations in 2025 both for employers in the U.S. (66 per cent) and Canada (75 per cent), according to a previous report.
The focus on growth remains true though CEOs are bracing for global trade disruptions that will be caused by the following, according to The Conference Board:
- Intensified global trade wars (44.5 per cent)
- Foreign cyber attacks (30.7 per cent)
- Greater risk of conflict in Asia-Pacific (21.1 per cent)
- War in the Middle East expansion (21.0 per cent)
- Intensification of tensions in the Taiwan Strait (17.7 per cent)
- War in Ukraine intensification (17.1 per cent)
- Foreign investment restrictions (16.4 per cent)
“These concerns are closely tied to the growing tensions between the US, EU, and China, which CEOs identify as one of the highest-impact items in the coming year,” say the Conference Board’s senior director for content quality Chuck Mitchell, chief economist Dana Peterson and director of labour markets Jeanne Shu.
What is the biggest obstacle for growth in business?
On top of trade disruptions, employers also expect that the following will be the biggest challenges to their growth, according to the Conference Board's survey of 1,722 C-suite executives and board members, including 508 CEOs, conducted Nov. 7 to 29, 2024.
Nearly six in 10 (57 per cent) CHROs and 75 per cent of people leaders say they are considering leaving their roles, according to a previous report from
Despite these challenges, employers believe that resorting to the following can boost short-term profits.
“CEOs in each region cite ‘innovative thinking,’ ‘agility and resilience,’ and ‘cultivating trust, collaboration, and empathy’ among their top three leadership requirements to drive future growth,” say Mitchell, Peterson and Shu.
“Notably, innovation was ranked number one among CEOs for growing profits. The events of the last few years have provided CEOs with fresh insights into the skills their organization’s workers will need to lead through shock, crisis, and uncertainty. In the current volatile business environment, many CEOs are looking to humanistic competencies such as empathy and relationship building as the core of impactful and transformational leadership.”
About three-quarters of Canadian businesses are very optimistic about their business outlook this year, according to a previous report from Statistics Canada (StatCan).
