Leaders in a Shifting Geopolitical Landscape: What We're Learning from Executive Search

In executive search, we have always assessed candidates on their ability to understand geopolitics. Boards want leaders who can navigate global markets, understand regulatory environments, anticipate policy shifts. This capability has always been part of what makes an effective CEO, GM, or commercial leader.

What we are observing now is that the framework many organizations use to assess geopolitical capability may be tied to a worldview that no longer fully matches reality. Leaders who were excellent at navigating a single-center global order—one dominant economic power, one set of standards, one primary path to markets—may find their instincts less effective as the world becomes multipolar.

More critically, we are living in an age of mass opinion shaping—through media, social media, AI-generated content, governmental messaging, and political activism at scale. Leaders need to be more careful than ever about where they get their information. Press coverage, articles, and social media posts can reflect propaganda or coordinated narratives rather than ground reality.

This makes firsthand information more valuable than it has ever been. Walk down a street in Shanghai today and notice who you see. More visitors from Russia, India, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America. Fewer from traditional Western markets. You can see this change happening in real time—at coffee shops, in showrooms, at demo days, in factories. This direct observation tells you something that no headline can fully capture.

The numbers confirm what you observe on the street. In 1994, G7 countries constituted 45.3% of world output, while BRICS countries represented 18.9%. By 2022, BRICS now produce 35.2% of world output, while G7 countries produce 29.3%.

From our work advising boards and building leadership teams across APAC and beyond, we see an important question emerging: if geopolitics is shifting, should our leadership assessment frameworks shift as well? How do we assess whether leaders are building strategy for the world as it is becoming, rather than the world as it was?

Why Firsthand Experience Matters More Than Ever

Leaders need to actively challenge their own assumptions. The best executives we work with make it a practice to seek information that contradicts their initial intuition. They test their hypotheses against lived reality. They generate discussions, build connections, schedule meetings, organize visits, run roadshows.

Critical thinking and diverse information sources have always been important. Now they are essential. When assessing leadership candidates, we look for people who:

• Regularly visit markets and operations in person, not just review dashboards

• Build direct relationships with customers, suppliers, and partners across different regions

• Actively seek perspectives that challenge their worldview

• Can distinguish between media narrative and ground truth

• Invest time in understanding local context, not just reading about it from a distance

China's Innovation Capabilities Are Accelerating

Underestimating China's innovation capabilities creates blind spots for executives and boards. Recent data tracking the highest 10% of most highly cited research publications shows China now leads in 57 of 64 critical technologies, up from just three technologies during 2003-2007.

A comprehensive 20-month investigation of Chinese innovation in 10 advanced industries found that "while Chinese firms and industries are not as innovative as global leaders in Western nations, they are catching up, in many cases at an extremely rapid pace." China appears ahead in nuclear power, on par in electric vehicles and batteries, and near the lead in robotics, displays, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies.

China's R&D investment in 2024 exceeded $500 billion, ranking second globally. The country rose to 10th position in the global innovation ranking, marking its first entry into the top 10 and rising 25 places since 2013. More Chinese founders, operators, and engineers are globally relevant across hardware, EVs, AI-enabled manufacturing, payments, and consumer tech.

What This Means for Executive Leadership

Read ground truth, not just headlines

The shift in who shows up in your lobby, who fills your webinars, who buys your products—you can use this as real-time macro intelligence. Global South nations are increasingly "multi-aligned and unencumbered by the geopolitical agendas of legacy major powers," forming "new trade, technology, and economic development partnerships that align with their own strategic priorities." Treat these signals as early indicators.

Fairness and legitimacy are strategic assets

Perceived unfairness creates breakaway energy. In organizations, you lose your best people. In markets, supply chains reroute and new blocs form. Leaders must check where their policies feel punitive versus principled.

Talent markets are now multi-hub

For executive search, the top slate increasingly spans APAC, MENA, LATAM. "Global experience" no longer means "Western HQ plus Asia stint." It means fluency across diverse operating systems, regulatory logics, customer psychologies.

Three Practical Plays for Executives and Boards

Rethink leadership profiles

Prioritize candidates who are interdependence-oriented, collaborative by default, firm on principles. Look for systems bilingual leaders who can navigate Western compliance and non-Western commercial realities. Hire ground-truth operators who habitually validate macro claims with street-level signals.

Localize for real, not for optics

Empower regional GMs with decision rights, not just P&L reporting. Build reciprocity with local ecosystems—universities, suppliers, regulators, startup communities.

Build bridge-capital inside your organization

Create internal guilds for cross-border knowledge. Incentivize teams to share "what is actually happening" from trips, customers, partners. Make ground-truth reporting a career accelerant.

A Leadership Framework for the 21st Century

Accept reality, then act. Wisdom comes from acknowledging what is, then moving purposefully. Less preaching, more building.

Hold values and adapt tactics. You can stand for human dignity and democratic values while choosing engagement over isolation. Values do not require coercion as the only tool.

Evolve the relationship. Like mature partnerships: control fades, respect rises.

Interdependence is a choice sustained by fairness, competence, mutual benefit.

The next decade will reward leaders who build bridges, not walls. Leaders who can read the street as clearly as the spreadsheet. Leaders who hire for judgment, cultural fluency, and the humility to adapt.

Executive Search Note

When we advise on CEO, GM, and commercial leader hires across APAC and beyond, the winners share a pattern. They build coalitions across systems instead of trying to win by enforcement. They assemble supplier and partner networks that survive policy shocks. They combine local intimacy with global standards. They are allergic to unfairness inside teams because they know it creates breakaway momentum.

If your leadership bench is optimized for a single-center world, you need to upgrade.