CEOs are ripping up old playbooks as war, AI and supply shocks collide.

From cyber wars to oil shocks, CEOs say flexibility is now key for survival.

Asia CEOs are preparing for a international community of higher costs, more powerful AI and endless shocks.

Business leaders are confronting a novel operating reality: one where war, inflation, AI and supply chain shocks are no longer exceptional events, but part of the baseline.

CNBC spoke to more than 30 CEOs, business executives and industry leaders at the annual Converge Live event in Singapore last week.

Across sectors — banking, energy, shipping, innovation and manufacturing — a clear theme emerged: uncertainty is no longer episodic. It is structural.

For DBS CEO Tan Su Shan, who runs Southeast Asia’s largest bank, the lesson is simple.

“If you are a manager, manage for maximum flexibility. Because guess what, you don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” she remarked. “Stress test, stress test, stress test, so be ready for the worst case scenario.”

1. A planet of constant shocks

Executives mentioned the cadence of crises has accelerated, from the pandemic to trade wars, and now geopolitical conflict.

“Long-term planning is becoming more and more difficult,” commented Stanley Szeto, chairman of apparel manufacturer Lever Style.

Companies are increasingly abandoning traditional planning cycles. “We kind of threw our three-year and five-year plan out the window,” another executive mentioned. This also touches on aspects of dividends.

Instead, leaders are operating in a state of permanent contingency planning.

“It’s no longer ‘just in time’, it’s ‘just in case’,” stated Thomas Knudsen, managing director for Asia of jewelry giant Pandora.

That shift is visible across industries: supply chains are being duplicated, inventory strategies rewritten, and logistics rerouted, often at higher cost.

2. Supply chains are under strain and getting costlier

Nowhere is the disruption more visible than in global trade.

More than “2,000 vessels in the Persian Gulf [are] stuck,” stated Captain Rajalingam Subramaniam, CEO of shipping services firm Fleet Management Limited, with “nearly between 20,000 to 30,000 mariners” affected.

“It is going to be higher for longer in terms of supply chain cost,” he warned.

For manufacturers, that is already feeding through into inflationary pressure.

“We produce garments … and to the extent that shipping is disrupted, then the cost goes up,” Lever Style’s Szeto stated. “Material prices have been going up … so … it’s very inflationary.”

Companies are adapting, but often at a price. Lever Style, for instance, has sharply increased the leverage of air freight despite higher costs compared to sea transport, prioritizing speed and flexibility.

“The agility of adaptation is key,” Knudsen mentioned.

Some executives were blunt about where those costs will end up: “Ultimately, it will all be passed to the consumer,” Knudsen added.

3. Inflation is testing the consumer

Executives serving mass-market consumers remarked demand has not cracked, but behavior is changing.

Hans Patuwo, CEO of Indonesia-based superapp GoTo, mentioned the country’s affluent shoppers remain resilient, while lower-income consumers are helped by government support. The middle segment, is shifting.

“Now they are willing to sacrifice assortment. They are willing to sacrifice speed for cheap,” he stated.

Martha Sazon, CEO of GCash operator Mynt, commented consumers in the Philippines are “really being very selective” about their purchases, with government subsidies and overseas remittances helping cushion the blow.

Asked to rate the ASEAN consumer’s resilience, Sazon put it at seven out of , on the other hand10. Patuwo agreed: “There’s enough history in Indonesia of shocks, and we have learned now how to adapt and overcome.”

4. AI is an opportunity, but also a threat

Most of the CEOs and executives CNBC spoke to stated they were grappling with AI, whether as a cost saver, growth driver, cybersecurity risk or existential threat to their business models.

In software, investors warned that traditional SaaS models are under pressure as AI agents reshape how companies procure and utilize software.

“Product is becoming less of a moat,” noted Magnus Grimeland, founder and CEO of Antler, a global early-stage VC firm. “The humans who don’t have that distribution mode and cannot reinvent themselves will really, really struggle.”

Daisy Cai, general partner at tech investment firm B Capital, commented Software as a Service (SaaS) companies may increasingly have to charge by outcome rather than on a per-user basis, or “seats.” “Traditional SaaS is based on per-seat model,” she noted, but with agents, software is “no longer charged by seats.”

Still, other executives whom CNBC spoke to emphasized that AI is not simply about job cuts, but implementing adequate guardrails.

5. Cyber and trust are keeping CEOs up

Cybersecurity emerged as one of the most urgent concerns, particularly as AI accelerates the speed and scale of attacks.

DBS’ Tan mentioned the team is “constantly red teaming” and taking a paranoid approach to cyber risks.

She noted that the ultimate differentiator in an AI-saturated earth will be trust. “Everybody has access to AI, everybody has tech, and everybody can get access to great talent, and knowledge is ubiquitous,” she stated.

“My cyber head says, you know, ‘inside is the outside’. And just, trust nothing, trust nobody,” she stated.

In a defense and cyber panel at Converge, Brendan Laws, COO of Blackpanda, an Asia-based cybersecurity firm, commented the cyberattack chain is accelerating as tools become more widely available.

“Response generally is a little bit behind offense at the moment,” he mentioned.

6. Energy security is back at the center

The oil price shock triggered by the Iran war has also sharpened the debate around energy resilience and the transition toward renewable sources.

TK Chiang, CEO of Hong Kong-based power producer CLP, remarked the need to achieve energy security is accelerating investment in renewables, but argued that diversification – including gas, nuclear and carbon capture – remains vital.

Assaad Razzouk, CEO of Gurin Energy, a Singapore-based renewables firm, pushed back, saying renewables and storage are already winning out globally against more traditional forms on cost and scale.

“We added enough renewable energy in 2025 to take care of 100% of all fresh electricity demand,” he noted.

Both sides agree that demand for energy is rising sharply, particularly from AI and data centers, adding urgency to the challenge.

7. The leadership playbook is changing

If there was one conclusion shared across industries, it was that the international community is not returning to the pre-crisis norm.

Instead, companies are adapting to a novel reality defined by volatility, fragmentation and rapid technological change. For leaders, that means the challenge is no longer just navigating the next shock. It is convincing employees, customers and investors that they can still adapt when the next one arrives.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau framed the biggest risk more broadly: citizens losing faith in their ability to shape the future.

“What keeps me up is the fact that so many humans are being convinced that they don’t matter anymore,” he mentioned.