Interview
PRACTICE
Seize the day Too many businesses focus on urgent rather than structural threats. Emilio Granados Franco, head of global risks and geopolitical agenda at the World Economic Forum, urges a change of approach BY ARTHUR PIPER
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lmost 13,000 business professionals believe that the threat of a new fiscal crisis is their most pressing risk, according to a report published in October by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the international organisation for public–private cooperation. Cyberattacks, unemployment – or underemployment – energy price shocks, failures of national governance and profound social instability follow in a list that is typically depressing. It is easy to see from the evidence in the report – Regional risks for doing business 2019 – why such a crisis may be on the horizon. The global economy has never regained the vigour it had before the collapse of the mortgage-backed bond market in 2008 and the financial convulsions that followed as instability spread through global markets and countries. Since then, growth patterns have been muted and, more recently, production has slowed in all seven of the world’s largest economies. Although there are wide regional differences, global debt is at a record high of 225% of GDP. Low growth, plus high levels of debt, could easily tip the world into fiscal trouble. Collating such information and establishing the likely impacts on business, governments and communities is the job of Emilio Granados Franco, head of global risks and geopolitical agenda at WEF. He is the report’s lead author and in charge of the WEF’s highly influential
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Why should a particular business be concerned with biodiversity?
Enterprise Risk
