There is a new and exciting trend in every boardroom, all over the world. Growth is no longer a constant and linear process, but a more nuanced and measured one, rooted in strategic prudence, careful adjustments, and adaptability. Now, directors are having to grapple with a new economic reality that sees uneven recoveries, continued uncertainties and widening regional differences that are changing the definition of their ambitions permanently.
The World Economic Outlook by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) indicates a modest growth rate of approximately 3.2% for the global economy in 2024 and 2025, with projections indicating a similar rate of expansion through 2025-26. Growth has been moderate compared to pre-pandemic history on the average, as a result of the uneven recovery in the advanced and emerging economies. The opportunities and risks on the ground vary from area to area, in some cases moving at a faster pace than others, and business leaders can’t afford to simply look the other way.
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Uneven Growth, Uneven Risk: A Hard Reality for Boards
This unequal macroeconomic environment is not just a statistic – it’s changing how boards think about ambition. The world of growth, but not strong growth, and of inflation pressures, underproductivity and uneven regional growth, which challenges boards’ strategic focus, is what the IMF and other global institutions are presenting.
Here, directors are having difficulty in the short term with stability, and in the long term with change. According to INSEAD 2024 Corporate Governance Centre research, 77% of all board members agree that their companies have a responsibility to tackle wider social issues, such as sustainability, but less than 40% are ready to harness disruptive new tools, including artificial intelligence, or are equipped with the right strategies to cope with geopolitical uncertainty.
The disconnect between ambition and readyness is a larger divide: Directors see that they need to make more bold and strategic decisions but many are constrained by the economic uncertainty and competitive pressures that make caution and defensiveness more palatable.
The ability to focus on the vision and make it viable
In the boardroom, however, the story is not one of complacent optimism, rather one of strategic pivoting, in the face of a global economy that is still slowly growing. As the next phase of growth occurs amid structural headwinds, instead of a post-pandemic rebound, directors are increasingly considering resilience as part of the equation along with ambition.
As an illustration, according to KPMG’s 2025 Global CEO Outlook, 72% of CEOs have already adapted their strategies for growth to face continued difficulties, such as geopolitical insecurity, inflation and labour shortages. Among these, a more significant focus on the capability development of the workforce and investment in AI as anchors to sustainable growth is a key component.
On top of that, almost 92% of leaders plan to hire more people, and 69% are spending up to 20% of their budget on AI projects, showing that boards and executives are on par with being innovative as they wait to catch up with the uneven recovery.
Leadership in Volatility: The New Strategic Playbooks is a book by authors
With global recovery uneven, directors have had to become bolder in some cases, bolder than they’ve ever been before in their attitudes towards ambition. Boards have become more pragmatic, opportunistic and looking for growth in a manner different from waiting for a stable macroeconomic environment, they are looking to create a more agile organisation.
A recent EY–Parthenon CEO Outlook survey – undertaken in August 2025 – revealed that 57% of CEOs believe geopolitical and economic uncertainty is set to continue beyond next year, though confidence is growing as organisations are rethinking their operating models and adopting localisation and regionalisation to address local demand.
In total, almost 72% of respondents consider localisation to be a strategic shift in the long term and many companies already have set in train such a change in order to mitigate risks and improve the resilience of the supply chain. It is a shift in boardroom thinking overall, with an emphasis on focus and risk-aware growth strategies over the broad global expansion that has been the order of the day for so long.
Redefining Boardroom Ambition: Governance in a Divergent World
Directors also are realigning the definition of what ambition means in a governance role. Conventional indicators of success like market share and growth of the business are being replaced by multidimensional performance indicators that include enhanced resilience, innovation and sustainability.
While there has been progress, boards are still concerned about the key strategic risks. The INSEAD governance survey shows that only 36% of directors are ready to take advantage of the disruptive capabilities of AI and only 37% consider their companies to have strong strategies to manage geopolitical risk.
In the meantime, recovery rates and policy reactions differ in various regions, adding to the caution. For instance, directors might have different growth expectations in the United States and China compared to Western Europe or other emerging markets, and so may work within a regionalised risk approach rather than a more globalised strategy.
A New Blueprint for Ambition
Due to the uneven progress of the world’s recovery, boards have started to question not only their goals but how they are going to reach them. Today, ambition is not about projecting, but about precision: scheduling growth, resilience and managing risk in an environment which is at turns unpredictable.
In the real world, boards are increasingly prioritising investments in technology, talent and organisational resilience and being more responsive to a region, as foundational elements of ambition.
Today’s leaders are adjusting ambition to fit the uncertainty and opportunity and taking organizations in a new direction, one that has sustainable growth built into it instead of the assumption of smooth recovery.
