This year, Davos felt different — in ways that were both encouraging and unsettling

I returned from Davos with a clear and unsettling realisation: many boards are further behind reality than they realise.

Davos 2026 was dramatic, not because of grand announcements, but because of the rawness of the conversations. Fear was in the air. Fear of geopolitical escalation. Fear of trade and tariffs. Fear of alliances unravelling. Fear of what might be triggered next.

There was a clear sense that long-held assumptions about order and control no longer apply. Shocks are arriving faster, with less warning, and with wider consequences.

The global system no longer behaves like a rules-based machine operating in a two-dimensional risk environment. It increasingly resembles the pinball machine operating in a Matrix-like reality that I explored in my February 2025 article, Staying Sane in an Insane World.

This is a system where shocks compound, trajectories shift mid-flight, and leaders must navigate multiple scenarios at once, while accepting that risks are layered and interdependent. Disruptions cascade across markets, institutions, and societies at speed, often beyond anyone's ability to contain them.

One speech stood out in this environment. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke with clarity at a time when noise dominates. His message was not political, but economic. Instead of rhetoric, he offered diagnosis. Instead of reassurance, realism. He named constraints and acknowledged that many of the models we continue to rely on no longer fit the world we are operating in.

For boards, this matters deeply. Today's turbulence is not episodic. It is structural. And it requires new thinking about risk, resilience, and value creation.

Behind closed doors in Davos, away from the main stages, there was intense and serious work underway. Climate, nature, energy, resilience, and transition were discussed in practical, unsentimental terms. Not as aspirations or future commitments, but as realities already reshaping business models, balance sheets, and political choices.

What struck me was not confusion about the risks we face. Most directors understand that geopolitical tensions are rising, that economies are fragmenting, that climate and nature pressures are intensifying, and that technology is moving faster than institutions can absorb.

The real issue is the gap between awareness and action.

Too many boards recognise the direction of travel, yet continue to make decisions that assume the future will be a softened version of the past. That assumption is becoming increasingly dangerous.

One of the strongest signals from Davos was that risks no longer arrive one at a time. They overlap, reinforce one another, and accelerate together. Political fragmentation affects trade. Trade affects supply chains. Supply chains affect resilience. Climate and nature pressures amplify all of it, while technology compresses decision timelines and magnifies the consequences of mistakes.

Boards are used to prioritising risks by category and timeframe. That approach is breaking down. Short-term decisions now shape long-term outcomes far more directly than before. Postponing difficult choices has become one of the most common governance failures I see.

Another theme that surfaced repeatedly was trust.

As trust declines, societies and organisations become more insular. Insularity weakens governance in ways that are subtle but deeply consequential. Information flows narrow. Challenge becomes harder. Employees become more cautious and less willing to speak up. Decisions slow, not because of rigour, but because alignment erodes.

What was positive was how often the human impact of this environment was discussed.

Across organisations, employees are watching geopolitical instability, economic uncertainty, climate disruption, and the rapid deployment of AI, and quietly asking the same question: What does this mean for me?

Fear about AI is real. Fear of job displacement. Fear of skills becoming obsolete. Fear of opaque decisions being made by systems they do not understand and did not choose. When boards fail to engage seriously with this fear, it does not disappear. It shows up as disengagement, resistance, silence, or attrition.

This is not an HR issue. It is a governance issue.

Boards have a responsibility to ensure that technology adoption, especially AI, is accompanied by clarity, capability-building, and fairness. That includes oversight of how decisions are made, how people are reskilled, how transparency is maintained, and how trust is preserved.

If employees fear the future, resilience erodes. And without resilience, strategy execution fails.

Yet trust still rarely appears in risk registers or dashboards. It does not sit neatly within any committee's remit. Too often it is treated as a communications issue or a leadership tone issue.

That thinking is outdated.

Trust now underpins resilience, adaptability, and long-term performance. Boards that underestimate this are underestimating a core strategic constraint, one that no amount of technology or capital can compensate for.

Climate and nature governance also reached a new level of maturity in Davos. I was very happy for the launch of new guiding principles for climate and nature governance, developed explicitly with boards in mind. (Full transparency I'm part of the WEF Future Council for Climate and Nature Governance where the principles were developed).

The shift is important. Climate and nature are no longer framed as future risks. They are operating conditions: insurance decisions, cost of capital, asset resilience, supply continuity, workforce safety.

The principles do not ask boards to become climate scientists. They ask boards to do what they are already responsible for, but with greater clarity and discipline: oversight, strategy, risk and opportunity, and transparency.

Their value lies in their realism. Not doing more, but doing things differently. Asking better questions. Testing assumptions more rigorously. Understanding how environmental dependencies shape strategic choices and risk exposure.

One of the most meaningful moments of the week for me was a conversation about what the future boardroom truly requires. There was little appetite for vision statements or abstract frameworks. What people wanted to discuss was whether today's board models are still capable of supporting sound judgement in a world defined by volatility, fragmentation, and accelerating change.

The future boardroom is not about more process. It is about stronger judgement. Sharper prioritisation. Better insight. Less backward-looking reassurance, and more forward-looking intelligence that helps boards connect risk, strategy, performance — and people.

When boards get this right, governance becomes more proactive and less transactional. It strengthens the board's role as steward in a world where decisions must be both faster and more thoughtful.

I left Davos encouraged by the honesty of many conversations and by a growing willingness among leaders to face reality without illusion. I was also encouraged by reconnecting with members of our global Competent Boards community and hearing how upskilling, peer learning, and global perspective are helping directors navigate uncertainty.

And I am encouraged that more and more directors are using a phrase I emphasise in The Future Boardroom: We do not sit on boards. We serve.

In a world where shocks compound, trust erodes, and stability can no longer be assumed, preparedness is not a technical exercise. It is a governance responsibility.

Boards that invest in judgement, insight, stakeholder trust, and human capability, including how they guide organisations through AI-driven change, are not trying to predict the future.

They are preparing to navigate it, whatever form it takes. And preparation that leverage the brain as well as the heart have a good chance creating both short and long-term resilience.