Author: admin_poj

“So much has been blown up. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” said the Guardian’s economics editor, Heather Stewart, after her week in Davos. She also described the week as “unusually alive”. 

As the delegates start to leave the Swiss Alps, I want to emphasise another point she made: that the World Economic Forum isn’t just about world leaders. Although geopolitics has dominated this year — not least because there were some huge egos in the room – it is also a place “…to exchange ideas, business cards and do deals,” she says.

Nervous but focussed

While many are feeling understandably jittery – some probably feel like they’ve been walloped with a sledgehammer – there will also be many who come away from Davos with a renewed sense of purpose. 

The transformation of the world order is well under way, and for those of us who take a people-centric approach, this is a moment of opportunity: a chance to raise up businesses – and countries and continents – that have too often sat on the periphery.

“…A hard interrogation of what has worked and what hasn’t is not just healthy, but essential.”

I don’t want the genie back in its bottle. In fact, I think a hard interrogation of what has worked and what hasn’t is not just healthy, but essential. This is true of any meaningful transformation. You can’t set a path and then doggedly stick to it when evidence, context and lived experience tell you there are better alternatives. 

Keeping conversations going

Over the years, I’ve seen strategies fail not because they were wrong at the outset, but because leaders refused to revisit them. The organisations that thrive are the ones that keep talking – with their teams, with their partners, and with themselves.

We’ve seen this before. When Microsoft began its cultural reset a decade ago, the real shift wasn’t a product launch or a rebrand, but a change in how the organisation communicated. Leadership made space for learning, challenge and feedback – internally and externally – and, crucially, allowed strategy to evolve rather than be defended. That willingness to keep the conversation going, and to change course without ego, proved transformational.

Rupture or redirection?

Five or ten years from now, I suspect we’ll look back on this period less as a moment of rupture and more as a moment of redirection. In a world where certainty is increasingly scarce, agility will have 

become the most important currency of all – more valuable than scale, dominance or even capital. The institutions and businesses that emerge stronger won’t be the loudest or the most forceful, but the most adaptive: those that learned quickly, listened constantly, and invested in trust, capability and long-term resilience rather than clinging to rigid plans and short-term advantage.

“In a world where certainty is increasingly scarce, agility will have become the most important currency of all – more valuable than scale, dominance or even capital.”

Those who stay on an increasingly narrow path, even as far more viable options open up to the left and right, often do so out of ego (perhaps rooted in fear) and nothing else. Instead, we need a more organic approach to transformation. 

Speaking specifically about trade, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, said something at Davos that really resonated with me: “We have always traded and we will always trade. Trade is like a river, water. You put obstacle, it goes around it.” The clashes at Davos are not ruptures, but boulders fallen into a river that perhaps had become too shallow, too wide and choked with weeds. It won’t be the shouty strongmen who reshape the riverbed with their shovels, but those who have spent the week meeting, talking, sharing ideas and making plans. They will start the digging – and others will join.

Transformation is not driven by data, processes and technology roll-outs, it is driven by people. I have read countless articles about the realities of transformation; and each one underplays the role of the human element. 

A few days ago, I shared a quote from a McKinsey article that promised to unveil the truth about transformation. In it, the authors shared six questions that executives should be asking themselves when driving change. They touched on the flow of value; the huge leadership challenge ahead and the importance of setting high aspirations. All of this, I agree on. 

Asking the right questions

However, one question stood out for me: “What’s it going to take to get the organisation to take the change seriously?” This should be the first question. It is where strategy lives or dies, because this is where human reality collides with ambition. However, it also needs rewording. Let me explain. 

In May, Deloitte published an interview with Patrick Jany, the CFO of Maersk, a venerable shipping giant, which has embarked on an ambitious digital transformation to become a “global logistics integrator”. In it, Jany spoke about how one of the key learnings has been that it is essential to thoroughly understand business processes before you start building systems to manage workflows. This quote crystallises my argument. Jany says: “It is easy to build a nice system, but if it is based only on theory and not grounded in reality, people will quickly stop using it after rollout.” 

“It is easy to build a nice system, but if it is based only on theory and not grounded in reality, people will quickly stop using it after rollout.”

He adds that he has seen first-hand the impact of the resultant ‘unhappy flow’ and saw that “80-90% of users end up focusing on problem-solving and making exceptions to the intended workflow”. This resulted in reduced productivity and bad service delivery; but, I would add, possibly also led to confused employees who felt that the transformation had been foisted upon them without any understanding of how they actually work. 

Observation and agency

Jany says that the company’s ELT have ensured that this doesn’t happen by observing operations first hand to see what challenges their employees are facing and to ask for constant feedback. This then, he says, “…guide[s] decisions and set priorities”. Maersk’s team has given the employees agency in the transformation. 

“We often frame business transformation in terms of ‘people, process, technology’. We put ‘people’ first for a reason.”

It is so important for leaders to design transformations with this in mind because change is hard. As John Chambers from the Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company, Ricoh, wrote: “We often frame business transformation in terms of ‘people, process, technology’. We put ‘people’ first for a reason.” He continues: “It starts with a mindset shift – a shift away from what has always been done and towards what could be. And when employees feel like they are actively involved in the change process (as opposed to it being done to them), this could even help to embed the changes quicker and bring about lasting change.”

There it is – sustainable change or a true transformation can only happen if people are at the heart of it. This is where EQ comes in and is the key tool in a leader’s pocket to negotiate a time of upheaval. So coming back to the question posed by McKinsey, it may be directionally right but it feels transactional. It implies effort and not belief. What we really need to be getting at is: “What must be true for our people to feel safe enough, motivated enough, and confident enough to truly change?” 

It always amazes me when conversations started in one room in one country on one continent seem to seamlessly carry on in another room, in another country and, in this case, on another continent. 

At Elevate Africa Convening, I was privileged to chair a high-level panel that felt both timely and poignant. I was joined by the CEO of BNETD, Kinapara Coulibaly, Zurina Saban, General Counsel and Partner at Africa50, Kuso Kamwambi, Head of the Presidential Delivery Unit of Zambia, and Elizabeth Jack-Rich, CEO of Elin Group – all very accomplished leaders in their professional spheres.

As at Concordia in New York, which ran alongside the UN General Assembly, we explored a fundamental pillar of the economic growth theory – sustainable infrastructure as a catalyst for economic transformation. 

The foundations to build transformation upon

Infrastructure is often called the backbone of economic transformation because it provides the physical and organisational foundations that let economies shift from low-productivity to high-productivity activities. 

 “Infrastructure is often called the backbone of economic transformation”

Africa has gargantuan task ahead of it. As Coulibaly said in his keynote speech, nearly 70% of the infrastructure the continent will need by 2040 has not yet been built. He further highlighted during our plenary discussion that infrastructure development is not just a physical or economic imperative – it is the enabling foundation for human capital, innovation, and productivity growth.

The net benefit of investing in more resilient infrastructure is clear – the economics make sense – with $4 in benefit for each $1 invested. Yet as Saban highlighted, despite a global funding allocation of nearly $3 trillion to the infrastructure agenda, a mere 3% was currently allocated to Africa.

The African finance gap

I underscored this point during our plenary session, referencing The African Economic Outlook (AEO) 2024 report published by AfDB (PDF), which estimates that to accelerate Africa’s structural transformation, the continent needs to close an annual financing gap of $402.2 billion (about 13.7% of its projected 2024 GDP) by 2030. 

Coulibaly and Saban challenged financiers and institutional capital to do more, highlighting the need for smarter de-risking mechanisms, greater transparency, or more innovative blended finance models.

Interrogating standards and governance

But financing is only one of the bottlenecks in Africa’s infrastructure story: execution and governance also need to be examined. The panellists noted that while many projects have been completed, execution often falls short of the scale, quality, or resilience needed to deliver lasting impact. 

Kamwambi argued that there was also a need for reforms and agility in governance to ensure that policies were enabling rather than limiting – to drive the continent’s transformation agenda. This was further echoed by Jack-Rich – a pioneer and titan of industry rewriting the narrative of Africa’s capability and competency. Elin Air hit the history books in June by completing the first 7,800 landing check for a Bombardier Challenger CL604 aircraft entirely in Nigeria. It was the first time this level of maintenance had been achieved anywhere in Africa. 

 “There is a need for reforms and agility in governance to ensure that policies were enabling rather than limiting.”

For Jack-Rich, it was a moment that countered the stigma that anything done in Nigeria is not professionally done. As she told the press: “Completing this check is not just a technical achievement, it is a statement of endless possibility.”

Encouraging more innovation

Jack-Rich acknowledged the strong collaboration her organisation has enjoyed with regulators and policymakers, but highlighted that simplifying regulatory processes and directing funding more strategically could further unlock infrastructure growth across the continent. This would encourage more innovation if policies were infrastructure-enabling and unleash even more entrepreneurial spirits on the continent.

The continent must address all three issues with a matter of urgency not least because it is this infrastructure that will support growth even as Africa bears the brunt of global climate change. These impacts are projected to erode 2–4% of Africa’s GDP each year by 2040. Inaction on the continent and beyond is not an option as it will lock Africa into a low-growth, high-vulnerability trap, where the cost of recovery continually outweighs the benefits of prevention.

While there will never be enough time for these necessary discussions, each panellist left with a single continental commitment – taking ownership and accountability in their role in the ecosystem, either as policymakers, financial partners, technical partners and leaders of industry. The power of the words shared was evident – we need to increase collaboration and it starts with dialogues like this. And dialogue must be followed by action. 

Sitting at an event in Hong Kong this week, I declared that Africa’s time is now. This isn’t hyperbole. Chatham House writes that Africa will be the second-fastest-growing region globally this year. It adds: “The African Development Bank projects an annual economic growth rate of 4.3 per cent, up from 3.7 per cent last year”. The upward trajectory continues despite rocky geopolitical conditions, including the impact of climate change, war and economic wars. 

Looking to the future, the possibilities become awe-inspiring. By the end of this century, Africa will be home to four billion people and Asia to five billion. This means that these continents will account for nine out of 11 billion people on Earth. This, coupled with innovation and action, will mean that the bilateral partnership between Asia and Africa will define our future, and not for decades but centuries. 

A meeting of minds 

I wrote before that the future of markets, innovation, and growth will not be written in Washington, Brussels, or London, but in Kigali, Nairobi, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Jakarta. What I have seen and heard in Hong Kong this week has absolutely confirmed this to me. 

“The bilateral partnership between Asia and Africa will define our future.” 

Our host and guest of honour represented the two continents. Raffles Family Office group CEO, Chi Man Kwan, and The Honourable Minister, Yusuf Murangwa, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning of Rwanda, opened the roundtable discussion. The event brought together CEOs and business leaders from Asia’s banking and wealth, real estate and hospitality sectors with some of Africa’s brightest entrepreneurial minds. 

Our focus was the unlocking of Africa’s potential and we grounded high level concepts in reality with Rwanda as our case study. This is a country, which is recognised as a hub of economic growth and innovation in Africa. The World Bank reports that Rwanda’s real GDP grew by 8.9% in 2024, beating the previous year’s growth rate of 8.2%. 

Small but Mighty Rwanda 

Hortense Mudenge, CEO of the Kigali International Financial Centre, walked the group through Rwanda’s Vision 2050 – ‘the land of a thousand hills’ – highlighting the policies that have made Rwanda a high-interest geography for investors and the priorities of the plan. 

Make no mistake, Rwanda is a small but mighty country – small in geographical and population size, but mighty in ambition – leading the ‘Africa Rising’ charge. As Minister Murangwa stated, Rwanda has one clear ambition: to become the facilitator in terms of access to the region, driven by credibility in partnership, and underpinned by uncompromising stability in governance and institutions. Many already view it as the rising ‘Singapore of Africa’ – and these claims certainly aren’t far-fetched. 

The discussion explored multiple components, from investment incentives to exciting collaborations like being the first African country to host F1 grand prix, from technology to connectivity and being accelerator for economic development. 

The key takeaways 

For me, though, there were three fundamental takeaways. Firstly, the degree of exposure and awareness about the potential of Africa varied greatly. Some of the senior executives simply didn’t have an idea of the potential and future size of the market, while others had led operations on the continent and shared their experiences. It reminded me of one of the conclusions that came out of a similar roundtable at Concordia in NYC last month. There was consensus that Africa needed to take control of the Africa story narrative – people simply do not know what they don’t know, and we can’t continue to let narratives built on negative facts propagate. 

“Africa needs to take control of the Africa story narrative.” 

This is a mission Elevate Africa, is actively pushing – with one of their programmatic pillars being reshaping Africa’s self-image and global perception. But it’s a marathon not a sprint – as noted by Dennis Chiu, the Executive Director of Far East Consortium International Ltd, who committed, at the end of the dialogue, to visit Rwanda in the near future and learn more about the possibilities on the continent. That one commitment confirmed that dialogues do change narratives. 

Secondly, one of the participants reminded us of the journey of China – which started at a lower base compared to Rwanda’s current GDP per capita – and is now the second largest economy in world (and by some metrics joint first with the US). Everything is a journey, but every journey also requires focus. You have to play the long game but with clarity. Rwanda has a huge opportunity to set the financial infrastructure for the rest of the continent. 

Chi-Man Kwan: “Don’t just talk about the future – let’s create it together.” 

Finally, while the opportunity for Africa remains massive, it requires the right partnerships. As I reminded the group, the bilateral continental relationship between Africa and Asia will be the most important and most defining for the next century. 

History is being written and it starts with dialogues like those I was honoured to chair at this event. I look forward to participating in and shaping more dialogues like this, and progressing insights to actions. In the words of Chi-Man Kwan: “Don’t just talk about the future – let’s create it together.” 

Is technology undermining trust? This is a huge question. Let’s take AI. A quick glance through recent headlines suggests that there are not only issues of trust towards technology itself – namely questions over learned bias, accuracy and use of copyrighted material; but beyond this, there are also issues of whether we can trust companies who are using AI. Customers want to know why these companies are using this technology and how – what does this mean for their privacy, their autonomy and their safety? 

Trust is undoubtedly growing but there are significant blockers. In collaboration with KPMG, a global study led by Professor Nicole Gillespie, Chair of Trust at Melbourne Business School at the University of Melbourne and Dr Steve Lockey, Research Fellow at Melbourne Business School, surveyed more than 48,000 people across 47 countries between November 2024 and January 2025. The data revealed that “although 66% of people are already intentionally using AI with some regularity, less than half of global respondents are willing to trust it (46%)”. 

Uptake as a metric of trust

In a fascinating talk at Concordia by Teresa Hutson, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, delved into building trust in the era of AI and the work Microsoft is doing in this space. She succinctly stated: ‘People won’t use your technology if they don’t trust it’. 

Let’s be blunt – uptake has been staggering. According to Forbes last year, 72% of businesses have adopted AI for at least one business function. On the consumer side, ChatGPT had one million users within the first five days of being available. There is still a trust gap to bridge to propagate AI globally, and even before this, we must tackle issues of accessibility. When these are addressed, the numbers will grow dramatically. 

People won’t use your technology if they don’t trust it’. – Teresa Hutson, Microsoft

This furious interest is a metric of trust, explained Hutson. But she also candidly admitted that the entire industry is still trying to figure out whether there are other metrics for trust. As the KPMG survey reveals, business leaders are iterating fast to include AI in their workflow, but they are also incredibly nervous of it. It’s a situation of cognitive dissonance. 

But it’s not the only metric

However, said Hutson, while Microsoft grapples with allegations and concerns with its AI practices – (like all of the major players in this space) – she argued that it is also taking time for self-reflection. This is essentially when building tech. She explained that to build trust, companies must reflect on ‘what did we do wrong’, and then innovate to address the issues. 

The Trust equation – Credibility, Reliability and Intimacy

Later, when sat on a separate roundtable, hosted by TikTok on the theme of Building Trust in the Age of Gen AI, I reminded the group about the Trust equation – Credibility, Reliability and Intimacy. The speed at which technology is developed is pretty hard for most people to get their head around; and in this situation, when you are feeling flummoxed, nervous and under-prepared, it’s natural that the first stance you’ll take will be mistrust. 

Building credibility

Tech companies need to build their credibility to calm fears; show that they are reliably addressing concerns and fixing issues but they also need to build relationships with their customers that feel honest and transparent. This is where the intimacy comes in. Do I think companies like Microsoft, Google and Apple have achieved this with AI? No. The race – especially between the US and China – has become so frenetic and politicised that the consumer has been forgotten. Do I think that these companies are now recognising that this is something they got wrong – well Hutson suggests perhaps they are? 

But this is a lesson to all leaders. Innovation is what can keep your business ahead – but if it is at the cost of your EQ – you will lose your people. Just look at the exodus of key figures from OpenAI to rival Anthropic. And what starts with your employees will soon impact your customers. Nothing rattles more than staff voting with their feet. In a space has hot as AI, leaders need to be building trust as feverishly as they innovate. 

There are moments in most of our careers where a clash of personality can make life really fraught. These incidents are scarily commonplace. A CIPD survey of 2000 employers and 5000 employees last year revealed that only a third who had experienced conflict in the past year believed that the matter had been resolved. More than this though, employees squarely placed the blame with their managers with nearly half of respondents saying that their managers can cause conflict in their teams. This rose to 61% in the public sector.

When tensions escalate

I have seen it myself in action. In one project, I worked with a highly results-driven leader who thrived on challenge and directness – an approach that was, in many ways, very effective. She was paired with a team member who was deeply empathetic and attuned to tone and relational nuance. Their working styles clashed significantly: the leader saw feedback as a tool for performance, while the team member often experienced it as personal criticism. Tensions escalated to the point where the leader threatened to resign, believing the team member had deliberately manipulated the situation into a formal bullying claim.

“Differing EQs, when left unchecked, can lead to deep mistrust.”

This could have derailed the whole project. I had to step in. I found myself acting as a translator and then a connector – reframing intent, softening language, and helping each person better understand the other’s lens. It wasn’t easy, but it was a clear example of how differing EQs, left unchecked, can lead to deep mistrust – while also highlighting the critical role of bridging and perspective-taking in restoring psychological safety.

Lack of balance

What was lacking was a balance in EQ between my colleagues. Tone, timing, and intent all matter – but in my experience, friction escalates when these differences are taken personally rather than viewed situationally. Both handled their roles so differently but did not have the ability to meet the other in the middle. In fact, there was a complete lack of empathy and zero constructive communication. As Craig E. Runde and Tim A. Flanagan write in Becoming a Conflict Competent Leader: “The better able team members are to engage, speak, listen, hear, interpret, and respond constructively, the more likely their teams are to leverage conflict rather than be levelled by it.”

What we did have, however, was a whole lot of ego. 

Ego as a blocker

It’s ego that stops people being able to move past the problems. I’ve faced this recently in a professional setting. While shared frameworks for feedback and collaboration – grounded in respect and mutual understanding – can create alignment, they only work when everyone buys in. If someone believes they’re above the process or more important than the team, it breaks down. For me, respect is non-negotiable. It’s foundational to doing business. I’ve 

walked away from engagements where that principle couldn’t be upheld, and I’d advise anyone to do the same. No outcome is worth sacrificing psychological safety or basic human decency.

“No outcome is worth sacrificing psychological safety or basic human decency.”

EQ allows us to understand and manage our emotions and other people’s too. This alone makes it easier to win respect but also trust. Where ego dominates, it becomes almost impossible to move toward collective outcomes. But when trust is present and egos are set aside, it becomes very possible to build a shared framework for feedback and decision-making – one that honours both emotional intelligence and analytical rigour.

It is this combination that I look for when I’m building a team. I’ve often said the best teams aren’t simply the “smartest” – they’re the best balanced for the mission. Differences in emotional style don’t have to be a problem (once ego is parked). When we name them and work with them, they become complementary. The emotionally attuned teammate can spot early signs of misalignment or disengagement, while the more analytically driven teammate can cut through noise and bring clarity and decisiveness when emotions are running high. Together, they see more of the whole system – and act sooner, smarter, and with more resilience. This is how you use EQ to bring people together and keep them together, focussed on a shared goal.