Directors Masterclass Series 2026 – Strategic Risk in a Fragmented World: Climate, Geopolitics and Emerging Threats

Speaker: Shaun Adam, Community Lead for Regional and Global Cooperation, Asia-Pacific, at the World Economic Forum (WEF)

Moderator:  Datin Seri Sunita Rajakumar, Founder, Non Independent Director, Member of Council

The session explored what security means for a business when the systems around it become less reliable. The moderator framed the discussion beyond borders and defence, asking whether people can access food and water, whether power and transport will stay dependable, and whether institutions can maintain trust under pressure. A company may protect its own premises, but if roads are impassable and staff cannot reach work, its resilience is limited. The task, she said, is not to predict the next crisis but to question the assumptions underpinning strategy, understand how they could fail, and act before choices narrow.

Shaun introduced strategic foresight by distinguishing forecasting (predicting rain) from foresight (preparing for different outcomes). Drawing on the WEF’s Global Risks Report, informed by global perception surveys, business leaders and foresight practitioners, he highlighted geoeconomic confrontation as the leading near-term risk, while extreme weather is expected to dominate over the next decade as warming exceeds 1.5°C. He warned that a potential super El Niño between October and February could be more costly than the 1997–98 and 2015–16 events due to higher global temperatures. Other concerns included rising financing and insurance costs, AI-driven employment shifts, and misinformation and deepfakes threatening corporate reputation. Using ATMs as an example, he illustrated how automation can reduce costs, enable business expansion and shift employees into higher-value roles rather than simply eliminate jobs.

Shaun explained that geopolitics is increasingly central to corporate decisions, with mentions in company filings rising sharply over the past decade. His examples illustrated how risks compound. After Malaysia's 2022 chicken export ban, Singapore diversified suppliers and built strategic stockpiles. In Germany, Uniper restarted a coal plant during the energy crisis, but a hot summer lowered the Rhine so far that coal could not be transported, and the backup plan failed because environmental conditions were ignored. The relationship also runs the other way: melting Arctic ice, an area he compared to the size of India, is opening shorter trade routes and access to vast oil and gas reserves, fuelling military competition. Intel's experience in the 2011 Thailand floods showed that a company can be operationally intact yet still lose production and around $1 billion in forecast revenue because its surrounding community could not function.

Turning to the region, Shaun described a shift from 1990s-era efficiency-driven globalisation, through pandemic-era inward focus, to today's de-risking, friend-shoring, stockpiling and selective engagement. He highlighted US–China competition and export controls on chips; China's dominance of critical mineral processing, which he said would take other countries 15 to 25 years to match; the South China Sea, through which more than 30% of world trade passes; and Taiwan, where TSMC holds more than 60% of global chip capacity and around 90% of the most advanced chips. He also pointed to Korean peninsula tensions and to Myanmar, where conflict has fuelled scam centres holding an estimated 120,000 people and roughly 4 million have been displaced, with climate displacement likely to add further pressure on ASEAN. He closed with a scenario: commercial transit through the Strait of Malacca is suddenly suspended. What would stop first in your company?

During the Q&A, participants discussed systems thinking, community resilience and SME preparedness. In response to a question from the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, Shaun urged boards to adopt agile leadership and assess their dependence on communities by considering a scenario of “our operations minus our community.” The moderator highlighted the importance of engaging communities during contamination incidents and avoiding competition for water during droughts. Addressing SME preparedness, Shaun cited the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement as an example of emerging changes, emphasising the role of governments in conducting foresight exercises and informing SMEs. A former GLC executive raised concerns about El Niño’s impact on plantations, sustainable aviation fuel feedstock shortages and differing European and Asian standards, prompting Shaun to stress the need for greater regional alignment, particularly between Malaysia and Indonesia.

The session concluded with three key questions for directors to bring to their next board meeting: What could stop us? Would our backup survive? Who acts when the warning comes? Shaun emphasised that boards should avoid betting on a single future, instead adopting strategies that remain effective across multiple scenarios while recognising when to change course. Ultimately, the masterclass highlighted that business resilience is inseparable from the resilience of the surrounding communities, infrastructure and regional systems. As the moderator summarised, the real test is not whether a company can predict the next disruption, but whether it has preserved its capacity to act when it arrives.

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