Mark Penn, Chairman and CEO of Stagwell, a digital-first global marketing network, moderated a session at the Oct. 29-31 FII Institute event in Saudi Arabia and presented new data featuring the insights of 100 global CEOs (with a minimum of 10,000 employees).
Key report takeaways
The majority of CEOs (77 percent) say the U.S. presidential election will impact their 2025 business strategy. Global CEOs (all CEOs surveyed minus U.S. CEOs) are split on which presidential candidate would boost the global economy. The report’s survey revealed that 35 percent of global CEOs selected Harris while 30 percent selected Trump. U.S. CEOs strongly favor Trump to boost the global economy (52 percent for Trump vs. 15 percent for Harris).
CEOs generally expect trade policy and immigration to be strongly influenced by the election. Broadly aligned with the general population, 35 percent of CEOs worldwide identify inflation as the most critical economic issue facing their countries, followed by boosting consumer confidence (30 percent), and energy prices (25 percent).
Attractiveness of Investing in the Gulf Region
Global CEOs view the Gulf region as an attractive investment market. Nearly 80 percent of global CEOs describe the current investment environment in the Gulf region as very or somewhat attractive, while 86 percent say the same about Saudi as a country.
Optimism for Technology and AI
The report’s survey says 85 percent of CEOs are optimistic about innovation and technology as a force for improving life quality. It showed that 73 percent of global CEOs are optimistic about the impact of AI on the well-being of citizens in their country, including 35 percent who are ‘very optimistic.’