Author : Raghav Narsalay, Partner and Leader, Research and Insights Hub, PwC India
Geopolitics, technology, and economic volatility are together impacting companies like never before. And CEOs are anxious. CEOs participating in PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey, launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos during January 2026, are significantly less confident about the short-term growth outlook for their companies in the face of these evolving and intersecting risks.
More importantly, it’s not change itself but the speed of change that is putting tremendous pressure on CEOs and their top teams. They are expected to be agile and have a vision that’s telescopic and microscopic at the same time.
The question then is, how should they go about handling this pressure and build such a vision? I recommend a three-prong approach for CEOs to be one step ahead and preserve and grow stakeholder value.
Learn–share–learn: Let’s agree that we or our teams will always fall short in terms of the mental and physical bandwidth needed to deal with exponential complexity. So, it’s best to get out of our cabins and go out and have a dialogue. That is exactly what I do. I may read a bit less sometimes, but I never compromise on the time and number of meetings to be had with senior business leaders, startup founders, and thinkers. There is so much I learn from them about how they see the future and are helping their organisations become ready to build value. Such dialogues give me elements for my organisational vision and action. In fact, you may want to watch some of these interactions at: Future Unplugged series.
Make the best use of technologies around you: Fortunate to be born in an era where opportunities for machines and humans to collaborate and create value for humankind are growing exponentially, I challenge myself every day to understand how my thinking and actions differ from those of a machine. Thanks to Gen AI tools, it is now possible to test my ideas and thinking and explore how one can become a better version of oneself. This is not about taking instructions from a machine, but about using it as a tool to become better at what I do every day.
From an organisational standpoint too, it’s important to continue exploring how best to use technologies such as AI to augment human productivity as well as innovation. The wheel of exploration cannot stop now, as there is a long way to go. PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey has some sobering statistics to offer. Most CEOs participating in this survey say their companies aren’t yet seeing a financial return from investments in AI. Although close to a third (30%) report increased revenue from AI in the last 12 months and a quarter (26%) are seeing lower costs, more than half (56%) say they’ve realised neither revenue nor cost benefits.
Build and grow trust with your colleagues and larger society: This is extremely important, especially in an era of volatility. As a CEO, not all decisions one takes will yield results that one wants. In cases where results fall short of expectations, the glue of trust is what will keep the team together and going. Only mutual trust will allow CEOs to have frank and respectful conversations with their colleagues. Similarly, the trust that you and your brand builds with larger society will serve as a magnet to attract and retain the right talent both in tough and easier times.
We all recognise that the demands on our time and energy are going to grow. It’s time to convert our experience into wisdom for a better and prosperous future for our stakeholders as well as ourselves.
