Teneo's Paul Keary and Ursula Burns on CEO and Investor Insights for 2023 | Teneo Insights Series

Good day everyone, welcome and thank you for joining today's special edition of Teneo Insights. I'm Kevin Kajawara in New York City. On December 20th, Teneo issued its Vision 2023 CEO and Investor Outlook survey. As we head into the new year, corporate leaders and institutional investors alike are navigating an uncertain economic and operational landscape, and at the same time they are in the early stages of a paradigm-shaping period: the American-led system of globalization, the uneven and challenging rise of China, energy transition and the imperatives of climate change and sustainability, the societal disruptions of technological innovation, indeed the role of the corporation itself in the 21st century. All of these things are in flux now. Against this backdrop, Teneo's in-house Data Insights and analytics team conducted this survey of some 300 corporate CEOs, global CEOs, and institutional investors representing some $3 trillion of company and portfolio value. So here today to discuss the survey's findings and offer their own insights, I'm joined by Teneo's leadership: Paul Keary is Teneo's CEO and one of the firm's founders, and he's a long-time advisor to C-suites and boards alike on strategy and communications. Ursula Burns, who's been on this program many times, is the Chairwoman of Teneo and earlier a long-term client, first as CEO and Chair of Xerox and later as Chair of the international telecom services company Beyond. She is on the boards currently of ExxonMobil, Uber, and the Endeavor Group, as well as a number of private company and institutional boards. So thank you both for joining me today, and we'll dive into the details here in a moment. But Paul, I want to start with you at the highest level here and kind of get your key takeaways from the survey and importantly, anything that surprised you from what the respondents had to say.

Thanks, Kevin. A couple of things. By way of opening answer to that one is: why did we survey the concerns and issues of both CEOs and investors? I think we all felt it was important to talk to the executive branch and also talk to the ownership branch. There is a world of data out there about macroeconomic productive issues. I think it's always interesting to look at those that seek to run those businesses and those that seek to invest in those companies and understand: is there a delta? And indeed there have been some interesting findings from the survey which I think drew my eye originally. One is, I think the difference of opinion as to the likelihood of worsening economic conditions in the first half of next year is stark, to say the least. Almost three-quarters of surveyed global public company CEOs from large and mid-sized companies all felt that they're looking at 2023, the first half at least, having worsening economic conditions. U.S. CEOs were a little less bearish than their Asian and European counterparts, but by and large there's a sense it's going to be worse in economic conditions. Perhaps no surprise there, Kevin and Ursula, from what we've all seen and read. However, the delta between that and the investor view is significant in the sense that a majority of investors don't think that there's going to be a worsening economic condition in the first half, and indeed see opportunities for improvement. And I think it's worth unpacking that today, perhaps in some of our conversation. I think the second point that jumped out of me is something that we've all again engaged on the topic, read about the topic, advised our clients on the topic, but it's the coming to me a key issue for '23 and beyond, which is deglobalization and moving from a bumper sticker perhaps to a real operational priority. Most of our clients had the benefit of globalization for the last 30 years: improved supply chain efficiency, improved capital market efficiency, improved access to the world's consumers and energy in a globalized world. There are obviously likely consequences that will be about again access to consumer markets, access to supply chains, access to capital markets, and also, I think Kevin and Ursula, keen to unpack that one too because there's lots of anecdotal and I think statistical information to talk through. That's maybe one of the big challenges for '23 and beyond. Hey, those are the two primary points that jumped out and grabbed me.

Yeah, I think you've just set the agenda for this call. But before we dive into those details, Ursula, maybe I can turn to you and ask you the same question: what really jumped out to you? What made sense, what surprised you? But maybe also you could refract them through the lens of your own, you know, how you would have responded in a sense, having sat in that Fortune 100 CEO seat yourself.

So Paul, let's go back to that macroeconomic point at the very beginning because it really sets the stage for this report, and it starts the report off with a bit of a bang because of that disparity. So as you pointed out, 83% of the large company CEOs thought that the global economy would worsen in the first half of this year, and 72% of investors and 89% of the middle-sized company CEOs thought that the economy would improve. How do you explain that disparity? And I know that when we're talking about the economy, oftentimes investors are looking at it writ large, corporate CEOs might be looking at it in a more narrow way: what does it mean for me, my company, my industry? But how do you reconcile those two outlooks?

I think to those that are sitting in the C-suite, I think you're facing a set of significant unknowns that's just really hard for your team to model. Despite the fact that they've wrestled with some of these new unknowns over the last couple of years, the market's presenting new ones. So I think if you're looking to understand customer demand next year, you're constrained by, I think maybe a lack of clarity on Fed, regulatory, or legislative policy or the impacts on policy. I think it's really hard to model customer demand and the health of the family balance sheet. I think it's hard to understand the likely impacts of Fed policies that are referenced previously. And I think you've got a series of new disruptive factors from technology and the deep crypto winter that we're all facing, shifts in political leadership around the world. And this study shows that deglobalization is going to impact bottom line for companies in the shorter to medium terms. So I think if you're a CEO and you're facing today's unknowns and you're trying to model out the likely unknowns of next year, it is hard to be anything other than conservative on how you're going to win in this next financial period. An investor perspective, my guess would be that maybe investors are motivated by thinking that a lot of the bad news is already priced in. I think that the Fed has cooled the economy enough at least to lower inflation, and I think if you looked at the five-year average on a forward P/E ratio, you're looking at equities looking a little bit like good value currently. So I think there is not a lot of contradiction in the reality. I think the fact is investors are looking at value, they're looking at perhaps the downside being largely protected, and CEOs are looking at the macro, micro, internal, externalities about how you bring a product or service to the market and what might be the friction points to that. As a consequence, I think maybe if you polled investors in three months' time with more clarifying data, you may get a different view, but I don't think you'll get a different view from CEOs in three months because some of the headwinds and tailwinds that they're wrestling with are likely to be medium term in nature rather than anything short term.

So Ursula, I mean one of the contradictions that's sort of implicit in what Paul just talked about: if we're talking about CEOs and leaders essentially going through an unprecedented moment as we transition from the globalization system writ large that we have all operated under for the last 50 years into something else, it's hard to say that the market is accurately discounting anything because we don't know actually what it is that we're going into in the longer term. But to Paul's point on this difference between managers on the one hand and owners on the other, it's easy to see that the Street might be a little bit more optimistic just in the last news cycle of last week where the headline was perhaps inflation has peaked, the rate of Fed hikes is going to moderate somewhat. So the Street may see that they've got more clarity on what's to come. However, the challenges that Paul just talked about exist and will persist for corporate management. But this allocation then of ever more scarce and more expensive capital — there's going to be this difference between how the Street wants to employ that and how management will actually be able to do so. So how do you see that tension between owners of capital and the deployers of it playing out when there is that sort of difference in outlook?

Yeah, that stands to reason. It seems that obviously the Fed is at the forefront of global central banks. It looks like the recession, if there even is a recession in the United States, will be shallower than what we're going to see perhaps in Europe. And so we're recovering, and quite frankly, after the last several years, the United States looks like it's back in a leading position in how it's reacting to the war and how it's reacting to a global economic downturn, etc. So you know, both of you at the outset pointed out the deglobalization point in this report, and I'm going to tie that also into the disruption section. So let's pause on that for a minute here because it really was one of the most interesting findings in the report. Both big majorities of CEOs and investors alike say that this phenomenon is a reality and is essentially unfolding now. They're a little bit more split on how significant that will be, and I'm interested to know your thoughts on this. But before we even unpack all of that, it's worth defining what deglobalization even means, right? You could define that very narrowly: as a CEO, deglobalization can mean 'well, I'm going to restore my supply chains,' that's essentially deglobalizing. But you could also look at it very widely by defining globalization as not just trade routes but essentially the operating system that we have been under that allowed for the global labor rate differentials, global economies of scale, global just-in-time supply chain, global free exchange of capital and people. All of that essentially allowed you to maximize profit by lowering costs. So this question of what deglobalization means and how people are responding to it — how do you define that in the first place, Paul?

Yeah, I think there's the survey's instructions, also the hundreds of conversations we have every week with CEOs or those that lead from the regulatory legislative perspective as well. I think globalization has broadly been defined as with big geopolitical shifts, companies are going to be subject to, and the big supply chain shifts that companies have to adapt to. Everything else in my perspective is noise. But if you're sitting on, you know, many of the CEOs of today's companies or in some executive function over the last 30 years, many were just entering the workforce, but those businesses have benefited from globalization for three decades. And at its peak, at its most efficient, it drove prices down and improved returns. I think we're entering into that reality post-COVID and as we enter a new geopolitical paradigm framed by U.S.-China relations. Then you've got some additional pressure on the CEO suite to rethink and understand and prepare for this deglobalized reality. I think one of the things that's interesting from the report, however, is that investors are looking for more active adaptations in this reality. Both cohorts — investors and CEOs — understand, are recognizing, and are thinking through deglobalization. Investors are looking for some more, I think, swifter adaptations as a consequence, and that's from adjusting supply chain routes to looking at M&A to how do you offshore, onshore differently, and what are the new sources of funding. And fundamentally, which is really going to be a concern across all companies that have an ambition or a current operation in China, is to rethink the model as to what does a reduced China market opportunity mean. And I think that is the pause, but it's also going to be the cause du jour for perhaps a generation as a consequence. We're at a very interesting and historic moment right now from an economic perspective, energy, political perspective, and I think from a boardroom perspective. And this survey, I think, starts to dig in a little bit into where is that executive branch and the ownership branch. They're aligned on the reality, they're aligned on the importance, they're getting aligned perhaps on the key issues that companies need to attend to, with investors sensing the urgency of this impending deglobalization or putting pressure on the executive branch to make some changes. And that to me is going to be an issue that has received relatively, I would say, medium to low levels of attention broadly speaking. I think there's a broad awareness of supply chain, broad awareness of geopolitical tumult, there's a deep awareness of an economic contraction, but I think you can put a fine point on some of the C-suite concerns for next year and you can call it deglobalization. And I think a lot of things, as you rightly pointed out Kevin, hang on that definition of the word is important. And I think for our clients, it's geopolitical framed by U.S.-China and the need to be more adaptive on supply chain, of course.

So Ursula, Paul has said a number of times so far today this kind of difference in the speed imperative that investors see versus what the CEOs read. The investors kind of want the companies to move a little faster. But when you put yourself back in the CEO seat that you occupied, I mean the Street can always be more nimble in a sense, right? 'I don't think you're doing enough with your efficient capital deployment; I can divest from you and move my capital over here,' whereas you have to live with the decisions that you've made, particularly if that means capital investment somewhere. So how do you know that that tension is in a way always been irreconcilable but is becoming even more fraught now because these decisions are going to be so consequential given the uncertainties that Paul just talked about — geopolitical and others — of which companies actually have a lot less control over that environment than they do over other elements that have perhaps been bigger variables in the past?

So I don't want to digress too much, but I do want to follow up if I may on something you just said, which is that given all of this uncertainty, it's ever more critical for all of the stakeholders to be communicating here. And you highlighted investors and the corporate leadership class on the one side and policymakers and regulators on the other. And yet, given that, it feels like the separation between Washington and corporate America is as great as it has ever been in many ways. Traditionally, obviously the Republican Party had been seen as the party of big business; now that can't be taken for granted anymore. Talking to international business leaders as I've been outside the U.S. and talking to people in Asia, China in particular doesn't recognize this system that is sort of emerging in the United States now. It's becoming harder for them to navigate as a result. How do we get those interests more aligned again? Obviously, the Biden administration through the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act and so on and so forth, there's an element of industrial policy that's coming back in, and yet there's no quarter for CEOs in Washington right now. Basically, both sides kind of want to bring them in front of committees and question them on everything right now. So how do we reconcile that in an efficient way that will bolster the competitiveness of corporate America?

Well, one of the things that really did perplex me in this section of the report though was the question of how important China is going to be to your, meaning the respondents', business going forward. And it was a sort of strikingly low number of CEOs. And I understand that the question was posed in such a way: 'Is China going to be very important?' as opposed to just sort of 'important plus,' so maybe not as all-encompassing as the question could have been. But how do you interpret it? Was that surprising to you as well?

No, not as surprising in life. I think our collective conversations across boardrooms and across time zones, there is a growing realization that the geopolitical framing of the West's relationship with China and the U.S. relationship with China, and the political ramifications of that geopolitical relationship, are going to end up with businesses being the net loser. Not because I think policies have been framed for that purpose, but when you have geopolitical tension and when you have in the U.S. an impending election cycle leading up to a presidential election, there's a probability that all politicians will be scrambling to be more hawkish than the other in relation to their stance on China. Businesses are the net losers in that paradigm as a consequence. I think the realization among lots of companies across multiple sectors is that China is a market that is going to be hard to depend on for access to consumers, funding, and expansion opportunities, and I think supply chain resilience. And that realization, I think, is impacting their confidence on the importance of China to their business moving forward, despite the obvious size, strength, scale, and importance of that consumer cohort. I think that the externalities, which are not driven to punish or reward businesses but the consequences will be potentially punishing as we go through a political cycle in the U.S. and other markets, I think that's what's driving some of that realization at the C-suite.

And do you think then, I mean is implicit in that a notion of de-risking? And I ask that question because do you actually think that it's more about re-risking in a sense? I mean, I recall being at a conference a few years ago that had only CEOs in it, and the question was asked: 'How many of you CEOs have been to China in the last 12 months?' And every single CEO in the room raised their hand. Obviously, this was pre-pandemic, right? Every CEO in the room raised their hand. And then they asked the follow-up question: 'How many of you have been to Vietnam in the last 12 months?' And only one raised their hand. And my point is that as supply chains move somewhat out of China — and I think it's obviously premature to say that it's happening at a wholesale level, we can disaggregate this, we can see that there are certain companies and industries like the auto industry and say Apple computer that are in no way really able to move out of China at all fast, and as Ursula points out, you come up against that brick wall of 1.4 billion consumers that has to be factored into your calculations and the messaging that you want to be giving to China at the same time — but my point is that whatever you move out of China is not going to be equally redistributed around the world. There are going to be certain attractive destinations: it could be Vietnam, it could be Hungary, it could be northern Mexico. And yet if you concentrate supply chains in those places, you're creating a whole new and unanticipated set of political and logistical risks as well that you perhaps haven't invested as much time in understanding as you have in China. So are we really just talking about re-risking as opposed to de-risking?

So Ursula, Kevin, in relation to the re-risking, I think it's a fundamental sort of reshift which businesses are adapting to rather than understanding the risks or de-risk opportunities which has been, I think, the model of the last 30 years. What I mean by that is: U.S.-China relations are at a pivotal point. It's not just about territorial or sovereign disputes; it's about who controls access to critical minerals and critical technologies, which is then translating into an existential set of models at a sovereign level between those two nations. And businesses, where they were formerly for the last 30 years in the driving seat about shaping and understanding and playing a central role to trade policies, they're going to be subject to geopolitical shift as a consequence of the issue of privacy. And so from that perspective, I think businesses need to understand that they will need to strap in and understand these externalities that are driving market access or lack of market access. I think be ahead of how those geopolitical models are likely to roll out and think through what it means for each of those sovereign nations to win as it pertains to control of access to critical minerals and critical technologies. That's the larger creator, and I think businesses that understand that theater is going to have privacy are more likely to win or reduce the aspect of their losses in this next period.

So having said that, however you define, however you plan for, and however you execute in a deglobalizing world, it's going to cost a lot of money, right, individually and at an aggregate level, in a world where there's going to be less free money and less abundant capital. And though the pandemic and the war both illustrated just how fragile a just-in-time global supply chain actually is, the other hallmark of that globalized world of course was low cost meaning higher profitability. So in the midst of all of this, the risk is for disruption of these finely laid plans that everybody is going to be making going forward. But following COVID and the Russian invasion, very high numbers of corporate and investment leaders are still saying that there are bottlenecks within their companies that slow their ability to respond to these, whatever you want to call them, Black Swan events or fat tail risks that seem to be happening with much greater frequency than models would normally suggest, right? And we know that we've got things like China-Taiwan on the horizon, trade issue control as Paul just said over the critical minerals and metals and elements of the energy transition. All of these things are going to be in play. So Ursula, you were in that seat at a Fortune 100. Why are these bottlenecks still so deeply institutionalized after you've had these series of things show you how you've got to be more nimble and you've got to have a better understanding and be more forward-looking? How are they not responding to that?

Yeah, I think the point you're making is a really interesting one: that the system of globalization wasn't some sort of grand design that got us to exactly where we were right before the pandemic and the war. It was a set of philosophies and incentives that ultimately gave rise to this highly efficient — well, it was efficient as long as everything worked perfectly — system. But the difference is, hey, now you're talking about all of this has to change in a very, very relatively compact period of time. But more importantly, perhaps, the scorecard is instantaneous with global markets, global information transference, social media, etc., etc., and a more diverse set of stakeholders that are going to weigh in on those choices that are being made. But Paul, you made this point that a lot of what both you and Ursula have been talking about can come back down to geopolitics and a changing geo-economic system, as well as the imperatives from climate change and other societal pressures, demographic pressures — all things that the company has very little influence over. And so therefore, understanding those variables aren't reliant on traditional competencies within a company. So how are you then advising and recommending to the C-suites, to the boards, and to investors alike how they ought to better get a grip on these things so that they're making better, more informed, more efficient, and rational decisions going forward in this uncertain space?

I think there's a — the issues that they face, the CEO, the CFO, the GC, the CCO, are reputational, their financial, their operational, the transformational, all at the same time. And it has always been so. Pace is a Moore's Law perhaps application on the pace of disruption. So the level of tumult, the level of disruption, I think changes generation to generation and perhaps year over year. I think the primary difference for '23 and beyond for companies versus even the last period is I think there's a resizing of perhaps the broad consumer customer base as a consequence of deglobalization. How do you win in an environment where perhaps the pool of consumers has shifted? I think it's about being first to embrace some of the technologies that are driving disruption, whether it's across new digital finance rails and currencies, across new technologies that improve both the efficacy of how a company does its work but also the efficacy of how it accesses markets, and realization of what the metaverse and Web 3.0 is going to mean for companies. So markets lost in a worst-case scenario in a globalized world would have to be counterbalanced with a new one in the overall total addressable market that will shift. And companies have always been the leading indicators at how best to navigate these times. And businesses, I think, move faster than governments. And boards support those CEOs and executive teams. I would be looking towards the CEO class of '23 to understand how we navigate through this period because they've largely been the leading indicators as to on innovation and embrace of geopolitical and external issues and concerns. So I think those companies and CEOs that understand globalization first and deglobalization, and those that understand the disruptive technologies and their efficacy for their business or their team expansion opportunity for their businesses, are the ones that win. And I think it sounds obvious to aggregate as so, but I think they're the ones. Ursula made a very interesting point which is: Monday morning, his or her, and probably Sunday night and Saturday as well, the CEO's role is about how do you chart a path through that. So I think charting a path through that means being abreast of the technologies and first to understand the consequences of some of those geopolitical shifts.

So this is a perfect segue into where there's this clash between two of the subsequent sections in this report: innovation on the one hand and people on the other. Right, so you make this point, Paul, that being first to embrace and leaning in on some of these critical technologies that are going to be differentiators in the 21st century. And then we see some interesting findings in the people section of the report about how CEOs perceive the generational leadership in their organizations and that they need more of that younger cohort that understands or is quicker to embrace some of these technologies. And you can see that the investor class is also wanting them to be more aggressive. But in considering that the CEO is dealing currently with all the dislocations of the here and now in addition to trying to make rational decisions going forward that they're not going to get penalized for later, you can see again this disconnect. Ursula, you made the point at the very beginning that the survey was taken prior to the collapse of FTX, and one of the interesting takeaways from the collapse of FTX is that for all of the potential efficiencies and promise that the blockchain holds for us out there going forward, these entities and these technologies are still connected to the real world economy. And what brought down FTX wasn't a technological failure; it was good old-fashioned bad management and fraud and lack of regulation. So how do you, no matter how troubled the current or unmuddled the current situation is, these technologies that Paul is just talking about are there, they need to be factored into decision-making and investments. So how do CEOs who grew up under this era of globalization that you've defined so well embrace these in a smart way?

Paul, can I ask you the same question? Because I know you take a great personal interest and talk quite a bit about these innovations that are going to be such critical differentiators in the years to come. How do you see this issue?

Yeah, it's interesting, particularly on the CEO-investor delta. As always, the responsibility lies in the C-suite for navigating the right decision. And I do feel there's an element of a Goldilocks aspect here to investors' views. Most CEOs will have borne the brunt of investor displeasure if there is a too-sudden departure in their core strategy or their core capital allocation decisions or their core model for financial returns to chase the opportunity of new technologies. And here we have some data suggesting that investors are a little impatient for the level of investment behind some of these evolving technologies. So any CEO and any CEO advisor should take this data, apply some salt, to understand whether it affects any difference of strategic approach. I would, however, say that the conversation around crypto has largely been devoid of all the things that are more important about crypto, which is the evolution of the digital finance system, the role of blockchain, and the opportunity for different use cases for that technology. We're continually chasing the up-down aspect of crypto: whether people are making money or whether people are losing money and what's the size of the win or the loss in the net wealth perspective. And I would say if you did a review of all the acres of coverage, media and analysts and other, in relation to cryptocurrency, it would largely be about fortunes won and lost and the trading history around that. I think we're going to see a lot more realization because a lot of the crypto organizations are going to have to come close to the regulatory and financial centers. They're going to have to be part of a new financial paradigm, not separate from and a competing one. And then I think you may have a normalization of the regulatory and legislative environment, which will then lead to honest and sober conversations about what does this mean in terms of improving a company's ability to drive margin expansion or drive customer expansion. Ultimately, that's what businesses are in the business of doing. And I think that's the fundamental shift we'll see in the digital finance fund: just a maturing of what this means and what it needs. Similarly, perhaps on the metaverse and AI, most of the innovation and most of the work that's taken place has been done largely under private company rubric, where they don't have the stake of the investor market hanging over their head. So I think that will translate perhaps to those success points, those market expansion successes, those customer knowledge successes. And I think we're expected to see more M&A and more grafting of some of that technology away from the VC markets and perhaps into the more corporate boardrooms. So more M&A on the metaverse technologies and AI, and more normalization of the digital finance and the crypto environment from use cases away from the trading ups and downs.

Yeah, at the end of the day, I take great comfort in this notion that even though these technologies can be scary, they're difficult to understand in many ways, but the reality of it is we've been there before, right? I mean, you look at even on crypto, I mean just look at currency in this country. We didn't have a unified paper currency in this country in the early part of the 20th century; we had thousands of different paper currencies out there issued by different banks. It was all a grand experiment until the Federal Reserve was essentially established and took monopoly control over the printing of money. So we've seen these systems play out before, but now it's just happening in real time in front of everybody and actually in an interestingly transparent way. We have a few minutes left, and I want to turn to a really important issue. I know this is a big one for both of you, and it kind of closes out the report in many ways, and that's let's move on to ESG. Because as we've kind of talked about throughout this conversation thus far, the world is now facing a couple of major crises. The role of democratic system in the global system, climate change — these are sort of the top of the list, and that really calls into question the role of the corporation in society. And we have to remember that market capitalism, which is the foundation of this system, is predicated on competition, right? So a competitive profit-seeking entity is essentially an amoral one, even if it abides by law at all times. And so if you're incentivized to be influential but self-interested when it comes to making policy or influencing policy, and if you do those things that are socially desirable but are somehow less profitable, someone could come in and outcompete you. And yet we have now instituted perhaps a new way of looking, getting away from the Milton Friedman concept of the corporation in a sense. And so ESG has gone from being the absolute critical buzzword to now this highly politicized, even polarizing concept. Where do you think we're going on this, Ursula, both from the investor class, which is used as an opportunity to derive fees from massive movements of capital to companies that, I think, a lot of CEOs not only want to check those ESG boxes if you will, but also actually want to achieve the principles that are enshrined in the concept? But it's becoming more complicated.

Yeah, so Paul, on that point, it seems like the concepts of each of the importance of each of these pillars that Ursula's just been talking about are accepted as critically important and important to the social acceptance of the corporation. But is what we've just gone through kind of let's call it ESG 1.0 in a sense, and that perhaps this aggregation of this needs to happen a little bit? I mean, I think in some ways you could use Elon Musk as a poster child. He's a poster child for E: Tesla is the representative company of a green energy transition. But Elon on S and G is perhaps not as much of a poster child. So how do you see the evolution of this really organizing concept?

I think it's fascinating. I think corporations and the executives that run them have had a target on their back with ESG, most recently obviously and more securely the last number of years. My contention is, however, if you think about even the American factory floor or office floor, my contention is they're the most evolved places in America from an ESG perspective. It's where you can have differing opinions, you can have a different color of skin, different sexual preferences, different religious views, and everyone is focused on how do you move the customer experience forward, how do you serve, get your products and service to the market, how do you make sure that you get the next promotion, how do you drive the organization forward. And good leadership has aligned with that. It is completely ironic to me that the organism that is business has made most progress on E, S, and G, and it still bears all the brunt for society's ills. I haven't met a CEO or a CFO or any of the C-suite who doesn't want to leave the world a better place from when they took office, from a business perspective, from a society perspective, from an ESG perspective. And it is a genuine part of their intensive legacy and their sense of purpose. And there isn't an office floor or manufacturing floor, I think in this country — I'm based here in New York, in America — that all views, all shapes and sizes, aren't largely embraced. And as a consequence of that, it is largely frustrating for CEOs to understand that they're part of the solution every day, they're presented as the sole source of the problem. We're now at a stage where even your success in ESG is now going to be a point of contravention as to whether you're successful in your role as CEO. We've got misuse of the English language where 'woke' is now represented as both an issue that you're either for or against, leaving yet another issue for CEOs to try and navigate, or they're playing the role of politician, regulator, legislator as well as business leader and innovator. And I think there's a breaking point in this system soon if the regulatory and legislative class don't catch up to the successes in the C-suite and on those factory and office floors. So I think ESG is an area that I think the private market will improve the efficiency around standards, it'll improve the efficiency and efficacy around how companies respond, because that's what companies do: they evolve, they adapt, and they understand what consumers and customers need, which is progress on ESG. So primarily, most of my confidence on the next chapter for the planet, for the next chapter for social justice, for the next chapter for fair governance of businesses and resources, most of my confidence lies in the C-suite and the CEOs, the men and women who are trying to grow a business and leave the world a better place. And there's a lot of work to be done among all the other stakeholder groups — media, politicians, think tanks, industry groups, and the body politic broadly — to actually catch up to where corporate America is at. I think a real reimagination and a realignment around progress against ESG and who's affecting progress against that, and the deep politicization of some of this, will be a key outcome and that will strive to help companies with next year and beyond. But I think there's a realization coming soon that businesses are actually part of the solution, not part of the problem. And I think that day is coming.

And that is a fine and thoughtful punctuation to our conversation today. Thank you for that. The report, Teneo's Vision 2023: The CEO and Investor Global Survey — Where is the World Going in 2023 and Beyond? — is out today, December 20th. If you have not seen it, please reach out to us at [email protected], or it can be seen and available on www.teneo.com. And so, Ursula, I want to give you the last word and ask you one last question here. We've been talking about a world of amazing change. It's very, very unsettling, but it's also very exciting. So you were the CEO of a Fortune 100 company. You sit here today going, 'God, I wish I was back in that seat again,' or do you think, 'So glad somebody else has got to deal with all of that'?

Well, no calls, please. Ursula Burns, thank you so much. Paul Keary, thank you very much. And to our audience, thank you for joining today. As ever, we will be unpacking the issues that we've discussed today in greater detail on this program over the years to come. For now, I'm Kevin Kajawara in New York. Have a great day.