The macro outlook: why businesses must think more creatively about risk

“As human beings, we are wired to look at what is exactly in front of us,” said Carolina Klint, Chief Commercial Officer Europe at Marsh McLennan, speaking in the Keynote Speaker Session of Zurich’s Captive Dialogue Day. Reflecting on past results from the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risks Perception Survey, she said that most risks only receive due attention once their effects are already being felt.

Taking infectious disease as an example, she noted that its risk ranking spiked in 2015 amid the Ebola crisis, and then “slipped down” once the risk was contained. Inevitably it topped risk surveys during the Covid years but now – in the most recent WEF survey – it lies at number 27 on a two-year horizon.

“I don't know if it's hopeful or naïve, but I think it's probably naïve more than anything else,” she said. “It's not a question of if, it's a question of when [we have the next pandemic] and I think we all know that instinctively.”

Businesses struggle to think creatively about risk and to consider both the short- and long-term scenarios, she continued. “When you talk about risk and resilience, you must strike a balance between the two. Of course, you must focus on crisis management and be ready for what might hit you in the near term, but you also need to plan for the long term.”

Fellow panellist Peter Giger, Group Chief Risk Officer at Zurich Insurance Group, agreed, adding that humans are instinctively “fight or flight animals” and are therefore “not very strategic” in their management of long-term risks.

He noted that the top five current risks, as reported in WEF surveys, typically reflect the media headlines of the day. Our short-term focus obscures our ability to see the bigger problems on the horizon, he said. “People often take very isolated perspectives and fail to look at the systemic implications of things, especially in the long term…we simply lack the imagination.”

Short-termism is threatening resilience

This short-term perspective of risk has become a threat to our capacity to build resilience, both Klint and Giger argued. Giger described how efforts to build a dam in Southwest Switzerland to prevent another major flooding incident were met with local political pushback once the flooding in 2000 had become a distant memory. In 2024, the region was once again subject to damaging floods which would have been prevented by the planned dam – a high price for their short memory.

“The question is, do we learn from the experience and the things that happen to us and really build resilience that we need for the next time?” Klint challenged.

Turning to systemic impacts at a global level, Giger believes major risks are building up below the radar “because they don’t have a burning platform anywhere, there’s no immediate drama.” The human race is good at “scrambling” to find short-term fixes to urgent risks, but many of today’s challenges have irreversible impacts.

“If the glaciers have gone, you can scramble as much as you want but the water supply in summer will dry up in many areas in Central Europe. That’s a fact. We don’t talk about it because we don’t think in systems,” he warned.

The impact of ageing Western populations, climate change and AI are other examples of these risks. The future impact of pollution and PFAS chemicals is another: “We're basically releasing chemicals into our environment at large scale without any understanding of what they're doing to the ecosystem including to humans,” said Giger. “But nobody seems to be concerned.”

Risks are interconnected: and so is resilience

As well as adopting a longer-term perspective, it is important to understand the interplay between major global risks, the panellists agreed. Extreme weather events, armed conflict, misinformation and cyber warfare are some of the major standalone risks dominating the most recent WEF Global Risks Report 2025.

However, none of these risks exist in isolation: the risks are layered, overlapping and interacting. Take supply chain risk as an example: global supply chains are currently under stress from a range of other major risks, including extreme weather events, geopolitical stress and a labyrinth of new tariffs and regulations.

“We had Houthi rebels attacking container ships in the Red Sea and impacting the Suez, at the same time as the Panama Canal was impacted by a lack of rainfall. It’s another example of risks layered on top of one another,” observed Klint.

When risks are viewed holistically with attention given to interconnections, companies gain a new perspective on where their vulnerabilities lie, said Klint. The WEF Global Risks Report demonstrates how different categories of risk – such as inequality, declining health and wellbeing and societal polarisation – “bubble up” to the surface when connections are made between static risks.

In today’s world of urgent, interconnected risks, building a resilience strategy can feel overwhelming. However, in the same way that risks are interconnected, so is resilience – and businesses can use this to their advantage, said Klint.

Building defences in one area usually supports resilience across a range of risks. “Even if you're not able to pinpoint exactly the risks that are going to hit you and exactly which are relevant for you, resilience measures are actually going to have a spillover effect onto other risks as well,” she explained.

“You don't need to have perfect foresight,” Giger agreed. Prior to Covid lockdowns, Zurich’s own resilience planning included the scenario of losing a building and managing remote working for large parts of its workforce, said Giger. The scenario was not specific to pandemic risk and not perfectly aligned to the Covid reality, but “we had prepared for one event and it turned out it gave us resilience for another event.”

The risk professional’s unique role

Ultimately, risk priority is a perception – and perception is not reality, Giger explained. Individuals take an isolated view of risk, reflecting their own particular priorities and experiences. Business leaders, for example, are more concerned about economic risks because their core role is to create value and they are answerable to financial stakeholders. Politicians, by contrast, focus on risks that impact election outcomes.

Risk professionals therefore have a vital role in shaping how risk is perceived and addressed within their business and at a senior level. Has the senior leadership team considered the long-term systemic risks? Are they overly focused on short-term risks? Do they only pay attention to risks they have experience of?

Risk professionals have a unique perspective on risk within their organisation and can encourage senior management to take a holistic and more creative view of risk and resilience, through storytelling and offering up an alternative perspective. “Risk management is a creative job at the core,” said Giger.

Captives can also play a supportive role, observed Klint. “It is such an important financial vehicle and you have the attention of so many stakeholders so you can help bring the world together. You can identify risks and opportunities to collaborate not only within an organisation but also outside with other stakeholders.”

In a world that is more polarised and fragmented than it has been for a long time, risk collaboration is only becoming more important, she stressed. “With today’s systemic risks, they're so big that one single stakeholder cannot solve them alone.”