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In the face of the trade war, “Davos CEOs” show their strength.

VUCA – a concept coined by the US military – has taken on a whole new meaning:
• Volatile has turned Violent
• Uncertain has become Unilateral
• Complex has morphed into Cynical
• Ambiguous has descended into Anarchic

The leaders of major global companies find themselves on the front lines of global upheaval, facing brutal headwinds in an all-out economic war:
• A trade war between China and the US, with tariffs bringing an end to free trade.
• An industrial war, marked by supply chain disruptions.
• An energy war, fuelled by the desperate search for cheap energy.
• A geopolitical war, shaped by conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
• A regulatory war with the European Commission.
• A fiscal war at home, with the French government straining under the weight of unsustainable debt and a National Assembly, adrift since its dissolution, creating a climate of deep uncertainty.

In the current environment, market, commercial and financial performance are no longer enough to judge a CEO’s effectiveness. Just as important now are geopolitical awareness and geographic agility – both essential for navigating today’s fractured global landscape.

The CAC 40’s primary advantage in this global free-for-all is the experience of its CEOs, battle-tested by crisis after crisis:
• The Covid pandemic:
* Airbus, which came to a halt while the entire aerospace industry struggled.
• The war in Ukraine:
* Renault, which sold off its Russian subsidiary Avtovaz and exited what had been its second-largest market after France
* TotalEnergies, which has recorded $15 billion in impairments since 2022 due to its operations in Russia.

The CAC 40’s second advantage: a complete transformation of its leadership profile. In just twenty years, the “Davos CEOs” (new world) have replaced the old-school executives of the closed elite (old world).
The Davos CEOs share the following key characteristics:
• They are at ease anywhere in the world, shaped by a global mindset and innate curiosity – especially foreign CEOs of CAC 40 companies (Thomas Buberl of Axa, Aiman Ezzat of Capgemini and Paul Hudson of Sanofi).
• He has a comprehensive 360° perspective on the economic and geopolitical landscape, similar to Patrick Pouyanné, who challenged Donald Trump at the last Davos summit by getting him to publicly acknowledge that the AI revolution could not happen without renewable energy.
• He is agile and has mastered the art of shifting geographical focus to tap into high-growth markets – hence the strategic focus on the Indian subcontinent to avoid being caught between competing US and Chinese interests (L’Oréal, Safran, Saint-Gobain, Schneider Electric, and TotalEnergies have made similar moves).
• They were shaped by the “Schlumberger school” – Hinda Gharbi (Bureau Veritas) and Catherine Macgregor (Engie) each spent more than twenty years at the company.
• Like Saint-Gobain’s Benoît Bazin, he built a multicultural executive committee comprising eight nationalities, including an Indian CFO.

The closed elite business leaders came from the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA), the Inspectorate general of finance, and ministerial offices – typically high-ranking civil servants without international educational backgrounds or global experience, sitting on insular boards and executive committees made up almost exclusively of French nationals.

The shift over the past twenty years is striking:
* In 2025, 22.5% of CEOs are foreign nationals (9 out of 40), compared with 5% in 2005 (2 out of 40: Lindsay Owen-Jones of L’Oréal and Pasquale Pistorio of STMicroelectronics).
* ENA graduates now represent just 2.5% of CAC 40 CEOs (1 out of 40: Alexandre Bompard of Carrefour), down from 22.5% in 2005 (9 out of 40).