How to Integrate Geopolitical Risks in Business Management

📢 Thinking Through Policy Uncertainty: A Strategic Imperative for Business Leaders In times of great geopolitical and policy uncertainty—like the one we are witnessing today—business leaders must sharpen their ability to distinguish the signal from the noise. With shifting alliances, evolving trade policies, economic fragmentation, and security risks shaping the global landscape, how should leaders consider what matters most? Here’s where to start: 🔹 Focus on Structural vs. Cyclical Change – Not all policy shifts have the same weight. Some are fundamental shifts in global power structures, while others are short-term political maneuvering. Leaders must ask: Is this a momentary disruption or a realignment that demands a strategic pivot? 🔹 Identify the Intent vs. the Impact – Governments make bold statements, but the real question is whether they have the political will, economic leverage, and regulatory mechanisms to implement those policies effectively. Bluster does not equal execution. Distinguish rhetoric from reality. 🔹 Look Beyond Borders – Policy changes in one country often trigger ripple effects across industries, supply chains, and markets. A new trade restriction, for example, doesn’t just affect exporters; it reverberates through global pricing, logistics, and investment strategies. 🔹 Scenario Planning, Not Guesswork – No leader has a crystal ball, but those who think through multiple contingencies will be best positioned for success. What happens if tariffs rise? If economic blocs realign? If new sanctions emerge? Having a strategy for different scenarios creates agility in uncertainty. 🔹 Follow the Money & Markets – Watch how capital moves. Global investors, multinational corporations, and financial markets often react before policies take full effect. If businesses are shifting supply chains or hedging investments, that’s a sign of where the real risks and opportunities lie. 🔹 Security, Stability & Strategic Foresight – Policy uncertainty isn’t just about commerce; it has deep implications for operational risk, cybersecurity, and corporate security strategies. Leaders must assess vulnerabilities beyond the balance sheet. The Bottom Line? In this era of uncertainty, success belongs to those who don’t just react but anticipate. Those who ask the right questions. Those who embrace complexity rather than fear it. The future isn’t predetermined—but strategic leaders shape how they navigate it. What’s your approach to policy uncertainty? Let’s discuss. 👇 #Geopolitics #BusinessStrategy #PolicyUncertainty #GlobalTrade #Leadership

According to the US Chamber of Commerce, references to "geopolitical risk" in Fortune 250 financial disclosures have more than doubled since 2019, with a fourfold increase since 2009. The analysis shows that this shift spans all sectors of the economy, not just multinational or technology firms, underscoring a broad-based concern about the rising complexity of the global operating environment. What we're seeing is a key trend: intelligence teams must now operate as strategic advisors, not just information collectors. The ability to forecast, contextualize, and guide decisions in real time is now a defining capability. Risk intelligence must now be continuous, human-centered, and operationally aligned. Siloed reports no longer suffice. Intelligence professionals need a seat at the table where decisions are made, especially when disruptions can now cascade across continents in days, not months. Actionable advice: -Build agile intelligence loops that include logistics, legal, and operations teams. -Invest in horizon scanning focused on commercial impact, not just risk ratings or threat severity. -Elevate your intelligence team’s visibility with regular executive briefings. We’re not in the era of more data, we’re in the era of smarter decisions. And those are only possible when intelligence is part of the DNA of enterprise risk management.

Geopolitics is no longer just a government concern; it’s a business imperative and companies are on the frontline. Just recently, the U.S. government issued a warning that Iran-linked hackers were actively targeting U.S. firms and critical infrastructure, even during ceasefire negotiations. Meanwhile, Australia elevated its cyber threat level due to pro‑Russian and pro‑Iran online activity, exposing vulnerabilities facing small to medium enterprises. These are not distant risks. They are active campaigns aimed at intellectual property theft, infrastructure disruption, reputational damage, and direct interference in global commerce. So, what does this mean for the C-Suite? It is no longer possible to delegate cybersecurity entirely to the CISO. While your CISO brings essential technical and strategic expertise, only the broader C-Suite (and board) can balance cybersecurity posture with overall corporate strategy, supply-chain choices, investment decisions, and geopolitical risks. When governments join alliances, impose sanctions, or engage militarily, these actions create immediate ripples across commercial networks. It’s imperative that boards and executive teams understand how political developments impact vendor relationships, operational stability, and their organization's cyber footprint, and do so ideally before a breach occurs. During my career leading global intelligence operations, I witnessed firsthand the deep connection between cyber threats and geopolitics. At CIA, every operational decision involved careful assessments of the geopolitical landscape. We knew that cyber threats, whether clearly visible or lurking beneath the surface, inevitably reflected broader international tensions. Anticipating adversarial intentions and capabilities was essential for government, and must be considered essential for commercial organizations today, particularly those operating on the global stage. However, a recent EY study found that while cybersecurity is discussed at the C‑Suite level, meaningful engagement is extremely limited. This superficial approach leaves businesses dangerously exposed. Even the best CISOs often lack the strategic mandate to fully integrate with corporate risk decisions. But when the CEO, C-Suite, and Board actively champion this effort, it becomes a competitive and security advantage, especially in a world where cyber clashes mirror geopolitical tensions. Today, geopolitics is moving through your IT systems and your suppliers, and it can impact the trust of your customers. It’s both a boardroom issue and a C‑Suite imperative. Are you ready to lead this conversation in your organization? If so, how about this for your next move. Bring one geopolitical scenario into your next leadership meeting and discuss its potential impact on cyber risk. Yes, it may seem hypothetical, but it might also be survival. #Cybersecurity #CyberThreats #Leadership #Geopolitics #CyberRisk #IntelligenceInTheBoardroom

I was recently accused of being "alarmist" by a senior legal leader who suggested I was trying to "scare the horses" by highlighting increases in political risk. Bjarne Philip Tellmann, GC of the world's biggest standalone consumer health company, Haleon, offers this point of view in my interview with him: "We're really sitting at a point in time where the political and geopolitical risk are at a high watermark, at least in terms of the time that I've been working as a general counsel. There's an uptick in conflicts and geopolitical tensions, populism, etc. around the world, and that creates a lot of challenges in terms of how to think about and address political risk. Not to mention Black Swan events like COVID and war in Europe. So it's really, really important, for corporations to increasingly look at how they configure political risk into their enterprise risk strategy. And it requires big picture thinking, as well as drilling down into operational scenario planning." Bjarne and I go in-depth on strategies for mitigating some of these risks including: *Don't waste time waiting for crisis - GCs need to have expertise in place in advance *Identify the issues of concern for your business and ensure you have the right internal / external advisors. Think of this broadly - expertise includes political risk, security, BI, media and coms advisors etc *Keep your CEO fully briefed on political / geopolitical issues from a legal POV *Read widely to understand issues that may affect your company For law firms and software companies supporting GCs, I suggest: *Absorb this evolution in role of the GC and look for opportunities to share your broader understanding of the marketplace with them. *Tap into your knowledge resources for historical parallels that may be relevant to helping GCs understand the risks they face today. *Consider whether you can convene expertise that will truly be considered a value added service to help your audience make sense of the world - whether that’s on your team or using your network. *Consider whether embedding such expertise into you own team makes sense to give customers more of a one-stop-shop advisory experience. Am I being alarmist? Do you have strategies to share? Join the discussion!

Boards generally spend 25% of their time on strategy and 20% on performance management—typical topics for boards--and increasingly, they’re discussing geopolitics, AI and technology, cybersecurity, business model innovation, and evolving risks around supply chains and labor. The expansion in scope has increased the time that board directors spend preparing for, and attending, board meetings, and is now 33 days/year.  Business leaders say that geopolitics is the top risk—half of the world’s population will vote this year and the stakes are high with post-election transitions impacting economic policy, trade and global economics (to say nothing of democracy)—but it’s not one of their top priorities, perhaps because they don’t believe they can affect it. How do boards get out ahead of a unpredictable environment of risk?  McKinsey & Company and board director, former politician and diplomat Jon Huntsman on what boards need to anticipate risk and strategize through volatile times: 1. Board members who not only know geopolitics, but can problem solve with policy makers and regulators, as well as deal with practical operational issues.   2. Board committees that address strategic options in the context not just of risk, but of risk vs. return to leverage opportunities. 3. Clarity around whether the board or management team will do the scenario planning around geopolitical risk. 4. Common baseline of facts and actionable insights from internal experts, external vendors, policy makers in government and international financial institutions, industry associations, and comparing notes with peer firms. The board and management teams need to align on what facts matter and where value is at stake. 5. Whereas an annual update on geopolitics used to be sufficient, things move much faster now. Holding board meetings in locations of interest another way send a signal to the organization and the market, and provides opportunities to bring in local experts and policy makers to discuss what’s happening in that market. 6. Some companies now have dedicated geopolitical risk committees (whether they use those words or not), reporting into a member of the board. One way to organize for board oversight is to categorize markets by level of geopolitical risk so that it’s clear “what events and markets matter, what risks flow from them, and what controls you put in place, then use that as a basis for board discussions.” McKinsey suggests looking at black swans (unknowable, high-risk events that could have a big impact on the organization), gray rhinos (known risks with high impact), and silver linings (new opportunities), and identifying contingency plans to deal with them. “‘If this scenario came to pass, what would it mean for our supply chains, our people, our data, our competitive posture, our external communications.’” #risk #geopolitics #boards #scenarioplanning #strategy #corporategovernance #volatility #riskmanagement #change