Global fractures will not be healed by politics alone.
It’s time for business to lead.
In a world where decisions are increasingly made behind closed doors—beyond public reach, and far from the voices of everyday citizens—the boardroom must become as influential as the ballot box. It’s no longer enough to expect change to come from governments. We, as founders, leaders, builders, investors, innovators, and strategists, must take ownership of the world we are shaping.
The Trust Gap Is Not a Talking Point
This is not simply a matter of conviction. It is a matter of where public confidence has actually gone.
The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, now in its twenty-sixth year, found that business is the only institution the public regards as both ethical and competent. Government, by contrast, ranks lowest on both measures. The gap in overall trust runs to double digits, and it widens further when people are asked about their own employer rather than institutions in the abstract.
Read that carefully, because it is not a compliment. It is an assignment.
When people stop believing that public institutions can deliver, they do not stop needing the things those institutions were built to provide: stability, opportunity, a sense that the future is being managed by someone. That need does not disappear. It relocates. And increasingly it relocates to the organizations people actually interact with every day—the ones that employ them, supply them, and shape the conditions of their working lives.
We Build Our Own Table
When we are not given a seat at the table of global diplomacy (or the lack thereof), we don’t wait for an invitation.
We build our own table. Not for visibility, but for impact.
Not just to be heard, but to shape the conversation.
We speak to challenge inertia. We speak to confront decisions made without us. We lead not with ego, but with clarity, conviction, and purpose.
I’ve spent my career working across borders, industries, and cultures. I’ve seen firsthand how commerce and innovation can bridge divides that politics so often widens. Business—when led with intention and integrity—can be the stabilizing force the world desperately needs. It can:
- Drive sustainable growth across geographies
- Spark innovation across industries
- Build connection across cultures
- And create value that transcends markets
The Objection Worth Taking Seriously
There is a reasonable argument against everything I have just written, and it deserves a direct answer rather than a dismissal.
The objection runs like this: business leaders are not elected. We answer to shareholders and boards, not to citizens. Nobody voted for a chief executive to weigh in on the shape of the world. Expanding corporate influence into the space vacated by government is not a correction. It is an accountability problem wearing better tailoring.
That objection is fair, and it is why the distinction I am drawing matters so much.
I am not arguing that business should replace government. I am arguing that business should stop pretending it is a bystander. There is a meaningful difference between a company that lobbies to bend the rules in its own favor and a company that builds infrastructure, opens a market, trains a workforce, or holds a partnership together across a border that politics has closed. The first is influence extracted. The second is stability created.
The test is simple. Would the outcome survive scrutiny from the people it affects who do not work for you? If it would not, it is not leadership. It is leverage.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Grand statements are cheap. What separates a company that leads from a company that issues statements is whether any of it is visible in ordinary decisions.
- Where you operate. Committing to a market through a difficult period rather than withdrawing the moment conditions turn.
- Who you build with. Choosing partners across borders and cultures when a domestic option would be simpler and cheaper.
- What you invest in. Backing capability that takes years to mature, not only what reports well this quarter.
- Who is in the room. Ensuring the people affected by a decision are represented before it is made, not consulted after.
None of these are gestures. They are choices with a cost attached, which is exactly what makes them credible.
This is also why the trust findings should be read as fragile rather than flattering. Trust granted because the alternatives have failed is trust on loan. It can be withdrawn faster than it was given, and it will be, if business treats it as permission rather than responsibility.
A Turning Point
This article reflects a truth I hold deeply:
We are standing at a turning point in global business. And we must rise to meet it.
The boardroom did not ask to become the ballot box. But influence does not wait for anyone to feel ready for it, and declining to use it is itself a decision with consequences for everyone downstream of the company you run.
If you believe that leadership is about action, not position—this is for you.
Trust figures cited are from the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer.
Related reading: A New Chapter: Joining Chartwell Speakers and Announcing My Upcoming Memoir and When the Old Map No Longer Works: Why Leadership Requires New Thinking, or browse the full Insights archive.
A version of this article was originally published on LinkedIn.