In a year of heightened uncertainty, boards and executives are operating in an environment where risk, ethics and accountability are being tested. The forum focused on organisational resilience and how organisations build trust through ethical decision making, strong governance and future focused capability in an evolving risk landscape. The brief commentary below will cover on a high level some of the key takeaways from the forum. 

The forum kick-started its national road show with an in-depth courage versus caution discussion. The challenge for leadership in a time of continuous change is balancing courage with prudence. Balancing rationality, emotion and values are a crucial component of this challenge. The forum emphasised that knowing who you are as a company and what your organisations stands for is key for bold decision making that will ultimately influence your strategic direction. 

The state of the local and world economy was discussed by HSBC’s chief Australian economist who provided an engaging update, analysis and overall predictions/outlook. Recent geopolitical matters i.e. USA/Iran war, tariffs and Australian housing were all on the table. Global economy growth rate was noted as approximately 2.8%. Australia has been growing at a rate faster than its speed limit over recent years with a downturn inevitable. 

Chief economist discussed Trump’s key strategy in world politics of immensely escalating a particular matter to ultimately de-escalate and find common ground. The initial escalation serves to flood headlines and assert America’s perceived dominance particularly from a geopolitical lens. This was visible in the recent trade war through the implementation of drastic imposed tariffs in the short-term which were significantly pulled back to tariff percentages higher than has been the case over the previous years. 

The fuel crisis has an immense effect on the global economy where all economies of the world rely on the regular interrupted supply of crude oil-derived products. As a significant portion of crude oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz including other key industrial/agricultural goods such as sulfur, aluminium, urea (vital for fertilizer), any interruption of this flow inevitably impacts local and global economies. Crude-oil derived product inventory has kept economists nervous about global oil policy. Large Asian economics are focused on AI as their biggest priority and are naturally more insulated to the fuel crisis.  

The general trend across global economies is high growth with economies attempting to lift inflation to gradually slow down growth. Australia is currently experiencing an economic environment of stalling real incomes, higher unemployment, stalled productivity with inflation higher than the RBA’s target. This prompted the RBA to continue its monetary policy decision to raise the cash rate. Chief economist was conservative in using the term stagflation during the talk albeit it was understood this was a risk the Australian economy is facing. Oil supply shocks impact an economy externally and contributed to its rising prices. 

A panel of AML/CTF experts took to stage to discuss the imminent reforms. It was evident throughout the crowd that understanding of the expanded scope under tranche 2 regulations was relatively limited. They noted Australia’s lag in taking up AML/CTF regulations and Australia’s rush towards full compliance. AUSTRAC was discussed as a relatively small regulator and that their expectation was not perfection from day one, rather pro-activeness in implementation and awareness in mind. AML/CTF policies should be written with the size and complexity of the organisation in mind. A risk-based compliance framework and approach to the new legislation was discussed in detail.

Artificial intelligence was undoubtedly the core buzz-word during the two-day forum. The majority of leaders and executives who spoke at the forum agreed that AI should be integrated within organisations through a rigorous risk-based process and adequate training across staff. The panel was unanimous that AI has its place in assisting operational aspects of an organisation though could not replace human judgement and intuition. The risks behind the use of agentic AI were discussed in depth and the panel outlined the various implications behind using agentic AI. The Governance Institute released a detailed white paper on agentic AI for organisations to consider. The use of confidential data especially into open-source AI was highly advised against. The panel discussed briefly the threat of quantum computing in the future should such technology be able to decrypt data. It was emphasised that although a company may not have information that has been hacked decrypted, that this could become a high risk in the future. 

A nine-network leader conducted a vivid experiment with the crowd at the forum. The first risk decision presented to the crowd as a mock risk team was sending a journalist in the middle of a war. The second decision was the approach to sending the broader media team to the Paralympics in Paris. Both were real cases with markedly different considerations. The purpose behind the experiment was for leaders to think about various risks that need to be considered from a very real-world physical deployment of staff. 

Psychosocial safety was raised as an important aspect of the workplace. Leaders should understand and be able to manage toxic behaviour within a work place. An all inclusive, consultative and supportive leadership at all levels will build an organisation from the ground up. As the way we work has largely shifted over the previous few years, it is more important than ever that a positive team culture is built and emotional intelligence is at the forefront of overall leadership. 

The organisational resilience session brought to light a silent issue called the “hidden factory” where organisations normalise workarounds from standard processes, thus undermining efficiency, productivity and capacity for resilience. A strong risk culture and focusing on foresight by utilisting data will pave the path for long-term organisational resilience. Similarly, the panel discussed the challenges for resilience when change is the only constant. Organisations must simply prepare for change ahead of time by not only responding but adapting and planning in advance by implementing defensive and offensive strategies to deliver resilience in crisis. Organisations will need to focus on its business continuity plans to ensure any disruptions will minimise the overall impact and provide clear guidelines for recovery. An inspiring story was presented to the crowd of an Australian paralympic athlete who won gold medals after losing both legs. A core message the athlete sought to drive home to the crowd was the importance of vision and purpose, even if it meant creating a new one adapting to his new life changing circumstances. 

Organisations should not be afraid of risk and adopt proactive risk mitigation and resilience initiatives to allow for organisations to potentially take advantage and grow from unexpected disruptions. 

Jun 2026