Alberta Di Giuli, ESCP Business School: ‘In complex geopolitical contexts, boards are once again at the heart of strategic decision-making’
“The role of boards of directors is changing,” says Alberta Di Giuli, Professor of Finance and Dean of ESCP Business School in Turin – “from bodies primarily focused on supervision and control to entities increasingly involved in strategic direction, the management of global interdependencies and the safeguarding of the company’s resilience and values”
(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) – Factors contributing to geopolitical instability – such as the war in the Middle East – the security and resilience of supply chains, the increasingly widespread use of AI, but also ‘the choice of funding sources and financial partners, as well as the governance of corporate communications in contexts of high political and reputational sensitivity’. These are some of the challenges that CEOs and boards of directors are called upon to tackle today, ‘in a landscape marked by political risks, market fragmentation, trade tensions and the redefinition of the international balance of power’. This is explained in an interview by Alberta Di Giuli, Professor of Finance and Dean of ESCP Business School in Turin, who emphasises how geopolitical tensions are bringing boards and top management back to the centre of strategic decision-making.
Political uncertainty takes centre stage
In recent years, ESG issues have taken centre stage in board and management discussions, particularly in light of the growing awareness of climate-related challenges and, at the same time, the importance of gender diversity and inclusion in corporate decision-making processes. However, between 2025 and 2026, fuelled by tariffs and ongoing conflicts, political and economic uncertainty has become the dominant factor. Indeed, in a more unstable and polarised environment such as the current one, ‘companies are faced with new vulnerabilities, ranging from regulatory changes to geopolitical tensions’, explains Di Giuli. For this reason, climate and diversity issues – which until recently seemed set to remain at the centre of the debate – have gradually lost their prominence, particularly in the United States.
This trend is also borne out by the figures. According to the Conference Board’s C-Suite Outlook 2026 Global Survey, in 2025, 37.5 per cent of European CEOs and 36.3 per cent of their US counterparts cited political uncertainty as the main external governance factor likely to have a negative impact on business. Furthermore, ‘within this transformation, we can also glimpse a weakening of globalisation as we have known it so far’, notes Di Giuli. In its place, a multipolar and more fragmented order is taking shape, ‘in which large and medium-sized powers compete to define and impose rules and standards on a regional basis’. In this new landscape, forms of economic intervention used as instruments of power are also gaining ground: investment controls, sanctions, public subsidies, trade restrictions and exchange rate measures.
Learning to cope with uncertainty
Against this backdrop, ‘the role of boards of directors is changing – according to Di Giuli – from bodies primarily focused on supervision and control to entities increasingly involved in strategic direction, in managing global interdependencies and in safeguarding the resilience and values of the company’. Today, in fact, governing a company no longer means merely overseeing traditional economic, financial and regulatory aspects, but also acquiring new skills to interpret and manage political and geopolitical pressures. This factor, together with artificial intelligence – which is increasingly intertwined with dynamics of power, security and competitiveness – and cyber-attacks, has emerged as a central issue in 2026.
This ongoing evolution of the international landscape “requires boards to have the ability to adapt and more sophisticated analytical tools ”. For this reason, when considering the characteristics of today’s board members, we need to rethink governance, including by bringing in new types of directors who are better equipped to interpret the context, regulatory volatility and the political implications of corporate decisions. However, it is unclear whether boards of directors already possess the knowledge, time and organisational infrastructure necessary to adequately address this new scenario, as is also highlighted in the European Corporate Governance Institute’s *Corporate Governance and Industrial Policy 2025*.
