Paul Polman's Recent LinkedIn Posts

In 2017, Kraft Heinz launched a $143 billion hostile takeover bid for Unilever, where I was then CEO. The offer came with an 18% premium to shareholders, promising higher short-term returns funded by sweeping cuts to sustainability, R&D, jobs, and long-term investment. I won’t pretend the pressure wasn’t real. Defending a long-term model against the promise of immediate returns is never easy, especially when the premium is large. But our board, our investors, our unions, our NGO partners, and policymakers saw beyond the arithmetic. They understood that short-term extraction would destroy long-term value. Within 48 hours, the bid collapsed. But the philosophy behind it remained intact. Kraft Heinz continued to bet that value comes from cutting costs, not from sustainability and innovation. And when the world moved on, toward healthier products, regenerative sourcing, conscious consumerism, the company stood still. Underinvested, overstretched, and out of touch. The scoreboard doesn’t lie. Since their 2015 merger, Kraft Heinz shares have fallen roughly 65–70%. Over the same period, the S&P 500 has more than doubled. The deeper story is of a company run for a handful of owners at the expense of the millions of customers, employees, suppliers, and communities who made its success possible. This is a case study in the failure of shareholder primacy. When you strip out investment and trust in return for a quick payday, you lose the very engine of growth and resilience that capitalism depends upon. A little pruning can stimulate growth. But hack at the roots and collapse is inevitable. I know from experience that building a purpose-led business is no easy task. At Unilever, we faced constant pressure from investors who wanted faster returns. Not every bet paid off. The sustainability agenda attracted criticism from those who thought we were overreaching and from those who thought we weren’t going far enough. But the alternative is clear. Financial engineering may deliver margins for a few quarters. But it cannot sustain a company for decades. The question facing every board and CEO today is not just what your company sells, but what it stands for, and whether your model is built for the world that’s coming or the one that’s already gone. Because here is the truth: short-term businesses live shorter lives. Kraft Heinz’s fate is not an unfortunate misstep in brand management. It is a warning about where narrow capitalism leads. Build a company around enriching a few, and it will eventually serve no one. Build it around solving problems for billions, and you create something that lasts. Markets, eventually, know the difference.

A decade of courageous, science-driven leadership by Gunhild Anker Stordalen, MD/PhD at EAT has fundamentally reshaped the global food systems conversation. This is what transformative leadership looks like: turning evidence into action, convening unlikely allies, and raising the ambition — and quality — of the debate. The impact will be felt for generations. Yes one person can make a huge difference and we are all extremely grateful to Gunhild for this. What can we all individually do to ensure we have a foodsystem that’s works for all including the planet? Think of one specific action you can take now. IMAGINE

We have the answers to most of the challenges the world faces. The missing ingredient is courageous leadership. Thanks to the IMAGINE community for role modeling. Many more would benefit by becoming a part of this community.

This was not justice. It was political theater. We do need to speak up when gross injustice is done. When we see it , when we know it. Today, Ruben Vardanyan has been sentenced to 20 years in prison by a military court in Azerbaijan. A civilian. Tried in a military court. Behind closed doors. Denied full access to counsel. Independent media barred. Hearsay treated as evidence. This is not due process. This is a predetermined outcome delivered in a system long criticized for repression and corruption. Just for the record. Azerbaijan ranks among the lowest countries in the world for press freedom according to Reporters Without Borders. It is classified as “Not Free” by Freedom House. It consistently performs poorly in corruption rankings by Transparency International. When a government with this record conducts a secret military trial of a civilian opponent, credibility is not merely strained — it is absent. This case unfolds in the aftermath of the forced displacement of more than 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. It unfolds while 19 Armenian detainees and POWs remain imprisoned. And it unfolds despite a public commitment from President Donald Trump to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to secure the release of Armenian detainees held by President Ilham Aliyev who, having taken over Azerbadijan from his father, runs it as a personal thiefdom. Commitments matter. Public promises from world leaders carry weight — and expectation. If the United States stands for due process, religious freedom, and the protection of persecuted Christian communities, then this is precisely the kind of case where leadership must be visible, decisive, and consistent. This is not simply about one man. It is about whether political imprisonment becomes normalized. It is about whether military courts can be used as instruments against civilians. It is about whether global leaders enforce the standards they publicly defend. Now is the moment for action — not statements. Release Ruben Vardanyan. Release all Armenian detainees. Restore credibility to the principle that justice must be transparent, lawful, and free from political coercion. History will not measure words. It will measure outcomes. #HumanRights #RuleOfLaw #PoliticalPrisoners #ReligiousFreedom #InternationalLaw #Leadership

The musicians were present, the instruments polished, the composition familiar. But no one was playing from the same score. The first World Economic Forum without Klaus Schwab at the helm did not merely lack its conductor. It revealed an orchestra that has forgotten why it ever assembled in the first place. A forum built for dialogue has drifted into a staging ground for dominance. The WEF is easy to mock: the queues of black limos, the status-coded badges, the sense of a rarefied elite debating the state of the world from a mountain resort. Yet for half a century it has served a more practical role: as a stress-test for coordination among the political and economic elites who shape global markets, institutions and rules of the game. This year, the fractures were so pervasive that Davos felt like a hall of broken glass, each shard reflecting a different power, priority and reality. The pattern playing out in Davos is the same pattern stalling climate action, hollowing out multilateral agreements and leaving the Sustainable Development Goals dangerously adrift. It is not a failure of knowledge. We know what needs to be done. It is not a failure of resources. Global capital has never been more abundant. It is a failure of collaboration and collective action. A failure of governments to align around shared interests rather than narrow advantage; of businesses to act as system-shapers rather than short-term competitors; and of leaders across sectors to share risk, and act in service of a common good. Mark Carney named it directly: the rules-based international order has ruptured. Middle powers can no longer rely on the protection of stable institutions. His conclusion was not resignation but redirection. If the old architecture cannot hold, those outside its centre must build new coalitions capable of acting without permission from above. We carry a comforting myth that there are people in charge who know what they are doing, who understand the system and who hold the power to fix it. It’s a story we learn early in childhood: when problems become overwhelming, someone in authority will step in and solve them. But we are not children. And watching leaders at Davos only reinforces what we learn when we become parents ourselves: those in charge are often far less in control than they may appear. Those in middle positions, whether nations, businesses or citizens, consistently underestimate their collective power. Alone, each feels constrained. Together, they constitute a force no single actor can match. This is the multiplier effect of collaboration, the only lever capable of moving systems when concentrated power has stalled. And this is why the most important story of Davos was not in the Congress Centre, but on the margins, in side rooms, informal gatherings and unlikely partnerships. The question facing the Forum is simple: can it reclaim the cooperation that has migrated to its periphery and bring it back to the centre where it belongs?

COP30 opened with a moment that should have set the tone for a new era. President Lula declared it the “COP of Truth”. He urged leaders to deliver a plan to overcome dependence on fossil fuels, a strategy to reverse deforestation, and a financing package that meets the moment. He asked countries to choose multilateralism over isolationism, science over ideology, and action over fatalism. The world fell far short of that challenge. In a year of record heat, a landmark proposal for a fossil-fuel transition roadmap was stripped from the final decision. The summit, held in the Amazon, ended without a deforestation roadmap. And climate finance commitments remain far below what is required. To keep even a coin-flip chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C the world must cut emissions roughly 55% by 2035. Current plans submitted within the COP process offer barely a fraction of that. It is perhaps shocking, but not surprising. Over 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists were accredited, roughly one in every 25 participants. A process that requires consensus among nearly 200 countries gives de facto blocking power to the least ambitious. But if we judge COP30 only by the final communiqué, we miss the real story. The centre of gravity is shifting. At the margins, major actors set out investment plans totalling $1 trillion for clean energy and grid expansion. Governments and donors backed over 9 billion dollars for regenerative landscapes across more than 110 countries. The TFFF secured billions in initial public funding. More than $300 million was committed to strengthen climate-resilient health systems. There were also signs of geopolitical realignment. Colombia and the Netherlands announced a conference in 2026 to develop an equitable, science-based roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels. And the economics continue to shift in favour of decarbonisation. Clean energy continues to scale. Technology costs keep falling. Investors are reallocating capital. Multilateralism still matters, but it may no longer be the primary engine of climate progress. The system as designed is struggling to deliver. It restrains those ready to move and empowers those invested in standing still. Given this reality, two urgent actions are now required. First, business must step up. The transition needs companies that implement credible plans, shift capital from extraction to regeneration, transform supply chains, work with nature rather than against it, and advocate for policies that create stable and competitive markets. Second, the COP process must evolve or risk losing all credibility. We need governance reforms, transparent guardrails on lobbying, and, where consensus proves impossible, for negotiations to migrate to parallel forums. Institutional repair is a long project, but action cannot wait. Governments, businesses, and communities that act now will write the rules of the next economy. The future will be shaped by those who move, not those who wait for permission.

There are moments when someone articulates what many of us feel but can’t quite express. Paul Polman does exactly that here. In this short message, he reminds us that even in a time when the world feels divided — politically, socially, geographically — our greatest strength has always come from something profoundly simple: Dignity. Respect. Compassion. The more we centre them in leadership, in business, in everyday moments, the more clearly we begin to see. And the more human our world becomes. Catch the conversation between Masami Sato and Paul Polman here. [Link in the comment section]

Resilience is framed as the ability to “bounce back.” But that assumes disruption arrives in periods of heightened pressure followed by time to pause, regain balance, and recover. But as we move into 2026, disruption is no longer episodic, it is continuous. When leaders operate in a state of permanent exhaustion or reactivity, boundaries soften and values blur. Resilience then is not the ability to recover after the pressure has passed. It is the capacity to remain anchored and steady while the pressure compounds. It can no longer be treated as a private coping strategy. It has become critical leadership infrastructure. As we enter 2026, these are shifts I am choosing to make, not as acts of self-care, but as conditions for responsible leadership: 1. Reducing noise to restore judgment One of the most corrosive forces leaders face today is not any single crisis, but the cumulative effect of speed and saturation. In 2026, I will be far more disciplined about what I allow to claim my attention. For me, this means setting firmer boundaries around attention: limiting notifications, stepping back from information streams that do not add real value, and creating more time away from screens altogether. 2. Creating space in weeks, not hours For years I tried to protect resilience by carving out a free hour in an otherwise back-to-back schedule. It took me longer than it should have to understand that fragmented pauses reinforce, rather than repair, a fragmented way of working. I now understand that what matters is not simply time away, but distance. With that distance, perspectives shift. Patterns emerge that, at speed, appeared only as blurs. Unconsciously accepted assumptions loosen under examination. Questions surface that the illusion of constant urgency pushed to the edges. 3. Treating health as foundational Health remains one of the most underestimated leadership issues of our time, yet many leaders still treat physical depletion, limited sleep, and constant strain as evidence of commitment rather than what they really are: warning signs. This is not simply a matter of wellbeing. It is a question of stewardship. If we are poor stewards of our own bodies and minds, our capacity to be good stewards of organisations, communities, and the planet itself become compromised. 4. Stepping outside the echo chamber Polarisation thrives when leaders immerse themselves in like-minded circles. When views are rarely challenged, conviction hardens into certainty, and certainty closes the door to self-examination. In 2026, I will be more deliberate about exposing myself to perspectives I disagree with, listening to experiences that challenge my own, and engaging with them without reflexive judgment. Resilience is not about retreating from the world. It is about remaining sufficiently intact to meet it as it is. In a time of rapid change and continuous pressure, that may be among the most consequential responsibilities that leadership carries.

The new Bruce Springsteen song about the dreadful situation in Minneapolis Powerful to communicate through the arts. https://lnkd.in/ez7TrYyQ

Amnesty international commenting on the corrupt legal system and sentencing of innocent Armenians like Ruben in Azerbaijan. A travesty indeed. Hope Armenian government speaks up and works with US administration to make President Trumps promise to free these innocent Christians come alive.

A new initiative launched today that's worth paying attention to. Point One World asks businesses to commit 0.1% of their annual revenue to clean energy projects in emerging and developing economies. Research from Global Nation suggests that 0.1% of global business revenue, combined with matched public and private investment, could be enough to finance a full transition of the world's power supply to clean energy by 2040. Small contributions, at sufficient scale, become serious capital. The platform launches today with more than 30 founding businesses already committed, and a first delivery partnership with The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, which has a demonstrated track record of unlocking up to 15x additional investment from its contributions. SMEs represent over 90% of all businesses globally and roughly half of GDP. Their collective weight matters. And yet too many still lack a practical path to participate meaningfully in the clean energy transition. Point One is designed specifically to change that. For a company turning over £1 million, a 0.1% contribution is £1,000 a year. Less than most businesses spend on a trade show stand, a team offsite, or a software subscription. This is not a silver bullet. The clean energy transition requires far more: policy reform, public finance, and structural change at every level. But Point One fills a real gap. It gives businesses of any size a clear, simple, credible way to contribute, without complexity or greenwashing risk. That is the Net Positive logic in practice, companies using their collective economic weight not just to reduce harm, but to take responsibility for their full impact and actively help solve problems beyond their own walls. If you run a business and want to understand the model, see the link in the comments.

Consider this all-too-common scenario: A CEO sets a bold vision, only to watch it dissolve in the daily reality of competing incentives, siloed systems, and misaligned behaviours. Frequently, the culprit isn’t a lack of vision or cultural intent, it’s the absence of deliberate systems designed at the highest level of leadership to turn that ambition into action. Strategy matters. Values matter deeply. But what shapes the majority of outcomes are the structures that sit beneath them, often invisible but immensely powerful: incentives, governance, metrics, capital allocation. When these are misaligned, we are constantly fighting against a strong and often invisible current. These are the forces that ultimately determine whether most organisations optimise for short-term extraction or long-term value creation. That is why the CEO today must act less like a commander and more like a chief systems designer, someone who builds the incentives, structures and culture that make the right outcomes the default, not the exception. In a world defined by climate risk, geopolitical fragmentation and technological disruption, incremental adjustments will not suffice. The companies that thrive will be those that redesign the systems through which decisions are made. Because organisations rarely behave only according to what leaders say. They behave according to what systems reward. Read more of my conversation with Steven Goldbach and Geoff Tuff in The Wall Street Journal. Link in the comments.

Despite Trump’s efforts, clean energy made up 96% of the new electricity generation capacity added to the US grid in 2025. None of the new capacity came from coal power. The economics simply drive the market towards cheaper greener energy sources. All this despite perverse subsidies and now as well legislation favoring pollution. American consumer end up paying the price for an irresponsible policy environment.

https://lnkd.in/eXp-_JxU Fear and moral paralysis is not a strategy. For the second time in a month, the city is mourning a civilian killed by federal agents, and the atmosphere is thick with grief, anger, and quiet panic. Fear does not just wound individuals; it freezes institutions into inaction and turns repeated abuses into a “new normal.” When people see an unarmed neighbour restrained and then killed with impunity, they begin to doubt whether law still serves justice at all. Minnesota’s largest companies have urged calm and “de‑escalation,” but many have avoided saying anything specific about the conduct of federal agents in their own backyards. That silence contrasts sharply with 2020, when some of the same firms spoke publicly after the murder of George Floyd and pledged to support racial justice. Ethical responsibility does not disappear when the political climate hardens; if anything, the duty to speak becomes sharper when it carries real risk. There is a point at which “neutrality” in the face of state violence stops being prudence and becomes complicity Pope Leo XIII warned that institutions forfeit their legitimacy when they ignore human suffering to preserve comfort or wealth. He argued that true worth lies not in material success but in virtue, and that those with resources bear a “heavy obligation” toward those who are harmed or excluded. In modern terms, business cannot claim to value “community” and “equity” while looking away from abuses that terrorize the very workers and neighbours on whom their prosperity depends. When brands weave themselves into the moral fabric of a city, they cannot repair a torn fabric with press releases alone; they must stand visibly on the side of human dignity. Ethical leadership in this moment is not about partisan alignment but about drawing a clear line: no institution should be indifferent when unarmed residents are killed by agents of the state. That means at least three things: naming the harm plainly, insisting on transparent investigation and accountability, and protecting employees and communities from retaliation where possible. These are not radical demands; they are the minimum conditions for trust in any system that claims to be both lawful and just. Calls for calm have their place, but calm without truth is denial, and calm without courage is surrender. Minneapolis is again under the world’s gaze, and history will not only remember those who pulled the trigger, but also those who had power and chose quiet over conscience. The question facing boardrooms in Minnesota and beyond is no longer whether speaking carries risk, but whether they are willing to accept the far greater moral cost of saying nothing while fear rules the streets.

Investing in women is not a statement of values. It is a measure of economic intelligence. For decades, women have been systematically underinvested in as entrepreneurs, farmers, scientists, and decision-makers. The cost of that mistake is still being paid. When women gain access to capital, land, and leadership, economies grow faster, communities become more resilient, and businesses outperform. That is not a claim. It is a pattern visible across every sector and region where serious investment has been made. We have recently marked International Women's Day. It is a useful marker, but the real test is what happens on the other 364. Across the world, there are leaders who understand this. Carolina Müller-Möhl's taskforce4women is pushing structural reforms that remove the barriers quietly penalising women's participation in the workforce. Project Dandelion, championed by Pat Mitchell, Mary Robinson, Hafsat Abiola, and Ronda Carnegie, is connecting leaders across climate, food, health, and finance, making visible the strategic role women play in systems change. Through Daughters for Earth, founded by Zainab Salbi, women-led initiatives are receiving the funding and visibility they have long deserved. And at IMAGINE, led by Valerie Keller, gender parity across our leadership networks is not aspirational, it is foundational. At Unilever, investing in women was never a side programme. It was core strategy. We built the first gender-balanced board in the UK, trained women smallholder farmers, backed women entrepreneurs, and ensured women accounted for at least half of all participants in our community programmes. The results were unambiguous: stronger supply chains, more resilient communities, better business performance. The companies that understand this will outperform. Those retreating in the face of political pressure will simply fall behind. That is not a prediction. It is already happening.

Response to the Article on Unilever Executive Pay “If Unilever needs US-level CEO pay to attract talent, we have forgotten what leadership, and purpose, are about.” That was the claim in a recent article: https://lnkd.in/eGBr45Y3 It deserves a response because it goes to the heart of responsible business. I say this with deep respect for the company and colleagues who helped build one of the finest management teams in business. During my ten years as CEO, we faced the same global talent market. US executive compensation was already escalating rapidly. Yet we deliberately chose not to benchmark against the USA. My salary remained essentially flat for the decade, around the middle of UK and European benchmarks. During that period Unilever delivered roughly 300% shareholder return and became an employer of choice globally with very high engagement scores. LinkedIn ranked Unilever the third most desired company to work for. Nor was attracting American executives a problem. Many joined on lower salaries than before. Why? Because the best leaders are motivated by more than compensation. They came because Unilever had clear purpose, strong culture and exceptional teams. They wanted to build a business combining performance with responsibility. Purpose was not a communications exercise, it was a talent magnet. Before moving toward US-style pay levels, we should look at what that model produced. In the United States, CEOs of large corporations now earn about 280× the typical worker, versus 21× in the 1960s. Worker pay barely moved — from $25 an hour then to about $36 today. If higher CEO pay were truly the key driver of performance, the countries with highest pay levels would produce the best companies. Yet many successful businesses operate in systems with far lower pay ratios. The issue is not talent scarcity. The issue is whether boards lead markets, or follow them upward. Once companies benchmark against the highest-paying market, escalation becomes inevitable. At Unilever we tried to resist that dynamic. Running a company is a team sport. Because in the end you don’t buy purpose with higher compensation packages. You build it. You nurture it. You live it. And once a company truly has that purpose, it becomes one of the strongest drivers of performance, talent and innovation. That was the lesson we tried to demonstrate. Purpose attracts the best leaders. Pay inflation attracts the wrong incentives. Boards have to decide which game they want to play. My vote is clear, and investors who believe in responsible capitalism should make their voices hear. #ResponsibleBusiness #NetPositive #Unilever

The past year has been sobering for anyone tracking environmental policy especially in the United States. Since President Trump’s re-election, the federal government has rapidly dismantled much of the climate and environmental architecture built over previous decades. The U.S. has ordered its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, abandoned international climate finance, rolled back pollution controls, slowed clean energy permitting, repealed subsidies for renewables and electric vehicles, and sharply reduced funding for climate science. More than $32 billion in planned clean energy investments were cancelled in 2025 alone. On the surface, this looks like a decisive reversal of the green transition in one of the world’s largest economies. And yet, step back from Washington and a very different picture emerges. Globally, and even within parts of the U.S. private sector, the green transition is not stalling. It is accelerating. The contradiction between political retrenchment and economic momentum reveals a critical truth: the green economy has moved beyond ideology and into the realm of structural market forces. The trend is not only clear, but also gaining speed. Companies that recognise this reality and position themselves accordingly will find that sustainability is no longer a constraint, but one of the most powerful growth engines of the coming decade.   We have an exciting 2026 ahead of us.

We are three decades and thirty climate summits into the global response to climate change. The science has never been clearer, the warnings never louder, the solutions never more affordable. Yet trust in the transition is fraying. The fight against climate breakdown hinges on two questions: can we move fast enough, and can we do so in a way that feels fair and improves people’s lives? Today we are failing the first test. Global emissions are still rising, and current policies point toward roughly 2.6 degrees of warming, far beyond what any stable society or economy can tolerate. Governments announce climate pledges while licensing new oil and gas. Renewables attract twice as much investment as fossil fuels, yet fossil production keeps climbing. Capital continues to flow in both directions at once. This is the contradiction of our time, we are accelerating and braking at the same time. The first signs of structural transition are emerging, but not yet at structural scale. Delay is measured in failed harvests, flooded cities, collapsing health systems, and families pushed deeper into poverty. Yet we still treat climate mainly as technical or financial exercise. But this is not just an environmental or economic story. It is a story about health, affordability, jobs, security, food, water, and clean air. COP30 in Belém is taking place against this backdrop. To matter, it must become the moment when we stopped admiring the problem and started delivering solutions at scale, when we recast climate not as an emergency for experts but as a global project of human development and societal evolution. So, what do we need from this COP? First, a real fossil transition that lowers bills, cleans air, and strengthens energy security. This requires a mandate to wind down fossil fuels in line with 1.5 degrees. Second, fair and predictable finance that protects vulnerable communities in developing nations and shields households in developed ones. Third, forest protection and land use at the centre. None of this can be delivered by the governments alone. If the test is how this transition feels in people’s lives, then we have to ask who actually shapes those lives; not just governments, but businesses. If the transition feels fair and hopeful, business will be at the centre of that story. If it feels unfair and extractive, business will be at the centre of that too. This is an enormous responsibility, and also the greatest opportunity the private sector has seen in our lifetimes: a chance to redefine its purpose, from extracting value to creating it, from managing risk inside a fragile system to helping redesign the system itself. After a decade of ambitious pledges since Paris, credibility now depends on delivery, verification, and implementation. This transition will be won or lost not in technical annexes, but in the lived reality of ordinary people. If it works for them, it will endure. If it does not, the backlash will make progress impossible.

I was quoted in last week's Financial Times on the shifting climate debate surrounding Mark Carney in Canada.   The debate reflects a familiar tension. Governments are asked to balance climate ambition with short-term economic resilience, energy security, trade competitiveness, and domestic political reality. Some of these trade-offs are real. Others are shaped by legacy systems and vested interests that define the boundaries of what feels possible. Anyone who has worked at the intersection of markets and policy will recognise how hard these forces can be to shift.   The real question here is one of time horizons. Strategies designed to stabilise the present also shape the future, often in ways that are difficult to unwind.   From a climate science perspective, expanding production and locking in long-lived fossil infrastructure is a high-stakes gamble. It may buy some short-term stability, but it postpones the deeper transformation needed to build economies that are genuinely clean, competitive, and resilient, at a moment when the remaining margin for delay has all but disappeared.   Net positive leadership recognises the need for compromise but securing today cannot come at the expense of tomorrow.   Mark Carney brings a rare grasp of climate risk and economic reality, the real test is whether his balancing act will become a bridge to transformation, not a justification for delay. https://lnkd.in/eysjRfCv?

Reflections in Turbulent Times Every generation believes it is living through the most turbulent moment in history. And in many ways, every generation is right. But what matters is not the turbulence. It is what we choose to build in the middle of it. The headlines today can feel heavy, geopolitical tensions, climate shocks, economic anxiety, technological upheaval. At times it can feel as if the ground beneath us is shifting faster than we can adjust. Yet history tells us something important. The greatest periods of progress are rarely calm. They emerge in moments exactly like this, moments of transition, uncertainty and sometimes even fear. Lately I’ve been reflecting on three simple ideas: resilience, hope and gratitude. Resilience is often misunderstood. It is not about pushing harder or enduring more. Real resilience is quieter. It is the ability to stay grounded when the world feels unstable, and the discipline to focus on what we can build rather than what we cannot control. Hope works the same way. Hope is not naïve optimism. Optimism assumes things will work out. Hope is the decision to work for a better outcome even when the path ahead is uncertain. As Václav Havel once wrote: “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something is worth doing, regardless of how it turns out.” And then there is gratitude. Even in turbulent times we are living in an extraordinary moment in human history, a moment where our choices can shape the future in ways previous generations could barely imagine. In Letters to Young Creators, Steve Jobs reminds young innovators that the people who change the world are rarely the ones who wait for certainty. They are the ones who stay curious. Who keep building even when the outcome is unclear. And perhaps most importantly, they build together. No one changes the world alone. That is why communities matter so much right now. Places where leaders can challenge each other, support each other, and work together to build a more sustainable and just future. As Margaret Mead famously said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Despite the noise of the headlines, something remarkable is happening. Across energy, technology, medicine and sustainability, solutions that seemed impossible just a decade ago are now scaling faster than anyone imagined. Progress rarely dominates the news. But it is happening every day. And it is driven by people who refuse to give up. So perhaps in turbulent times the most important things we can do are simple: Stay resilient. Choose hope. Practice gratitude. And keep building the future, together. Because the future has never been shaped by those who waited for certainty. It has always been shaped by those who decided to act.

As war in the Middle East rattles global energy markets, it is again highlighting the fragility of the world’s fossil-fuel system. Such disruptions often accelerate deeper structural changes already underway. Around the world, governments are increasingly viewing the transition to cleaner and more domestically anchored energy systems not only as a climate imperative, but also as a matter of economic resilience and industrial strategy. Cheap, abundant renewable electricity is quickly becoming the decisive competitive advantage of the next industrial era, much as cheap oil shaped the last. In China, industrial power prices are among the lowest available to major manufacturing economies, particularly in renewable-rich provinces where electricity can be produced at very low cost. Across much of Europe, industrial power remains significantly more expensive. Energy price gaps of this scale ripple through entire economies. Steel, chemicals, manufacturing, and artificial intelligence all depend on vast amounts of electricity. When power is significantly cheaper in one part of the world than another, industries tend to cluster there, reshaping supply chains, investment flows, and ultimately the balance of economic power. That macroeconomic impact is already visible. Clean energy sectors contributed roughly $2.1 trillion to China’s GDP in 2025, around 11 percent of the economy. Without that contribution, China would likely have missed its headline growth target. Chinese data centres now pay far less for electricity than many of their American counterparts, a widening “electron gap” that analysts warn could shape the global balance of AI development. The West, by contrast, is hesitating. In the United States, 51 large clean-energy projects were cancelled or scaled back in 2025, wiping out $28.8 billion in planned investment and an estimated 30,000 projected jobs. Europe’s largest battery champion, Northvolt, declared bankruptcy. Industrial electricity costs remain roughly double those seen in China. Western leaders now face a strategic choice. They can continue to frame sustainability as a regulatory burden and a fiscal trade-off. Or they can recognise it as the foundation of economic growth and industrial renewal. History will not pause while that debate plays out. Capital is already flowing. Supply chains are already consolidating. Talent is already in training. The question is no longer whether the transition will happen. It is whether you help shape the new industrial system, or inherit one designed for you.

My latest newsletter on resilience seems to have struck a chord. The volume and breadth of messages I’ve received have surprised me. They came from CEOs and from people early in their careers, all describing the same struggle to stay steady under relentless pressure and growing uncertainty. In the piece, I argue that resilience as the ability to “bounce back” belongs to a world where pressure comes in episodes. Today, it compounds. Resilience in this moment is the capacity to remain anchored while the pressure accumulates. To stay present without becoming numb, to listen without rushing to judgment, and to hold moral lines even when compromise feels easier. When leaders are depleted, distracted, or permanently reactive, they don’t stop acting. They stop seeing clearly. And when clarity fades, so does the ability to choose deliberately under pressure, especially when the easiest decision is not the right one. That is why resilience can no longer be treated as a private coping strategy. It has become critical leadership infrastructure. At its heart resilience is not about retreating from the world. It is about remaining sufficiently intact to meet it as it is. It allows leaders to remain attentive to what is happening, honest about what is changing, and firm about what must not. In a period of rapid change and continuous pressure, that may be among the most consequential responsibilities leadership carries.

I began the year by writing about hope and resilience. Hope reminds us that change remains possible. Resilience allows us to stay steady enough to pursue it. Gratitude, I believe, belongs alongside them as a third essential leadership discipline. Because leadership is not only about what we seek to change. It is also about what we have inherited, and what we are now responsible for carrying forward. It’s easy to think of gratitude simply as thankfulness for what we have. In ordinary moments, that is often how it feels: a pause to acknowledge good fortune. But lately, I’ve been thinking about gratitude differently, through the lens of loss. In 2025 I lost people whose lives shaped how I understand leadership, service, and what it means to live well. Some were known to the world, others only to their families, friends, and communities. But influence does not depend on prominence. Each day, we leave ripples in one another’s lives. Most of the time we are no more aware of the ripples we create than we are of those that gently reach us. Yet these small, often unnoticed exchanges accumulate. They form the fabric of how we learn to see the world, how we judge what matters, and how we decide to act. Loss has a way of bringing this into focus. When someone moves on, we understand more clearly the lessons we absorbed from them, the standards they lived by, and the quiet ways that their presence shaped our own. We better understand that each of us is shaped by people who were themselves shaped by others - a chain of influence stretching back through lives we will never know and decisions we did not witness. We are now the newest links in that chain. In how we act, how we lead, and how we treat those around us, we also transmit something onward: care or indifference, courage or retreat, hope or resignation, dignity or disregard. These choices do not end with us. They are taken up by others and reflected back into the world, sometimes generations later, in ways we will never see. Gratitude, in this context, is not passive acknowledgment. It is active stewardship, a recognition that what we received now lives in us and moves through us into others. And stewardship requires discernment. Not everything we inherit serves us, or those who come after. Part of honouring what we've been given is knowing what to carry forward with intention, and recognising what to let go with grace. That is the deeper responsibility gratitude places on us. The people I write about here each taught me something about that responsibility. What connects them is that each one lived according to their values, and in doing so, left something behind that others could learn from, lean on, and carry forward. Recognising that gift, and taking responsibility for what we do with it, is the discipline of gratitude. It is one I am still learning.