77% of Organizations Caught Off Guard by Geopolitical Risks

AUSTIN, Texas, September 22, 2026 /CourierPR/ -- Stanton Chase, a leading executive search firm, has released findings from its latest survey, revealing that 77% of organizations were caught off guard by geopolitical developments in the past year. The survey, which drew on anonymous responses from 112 senior executives across EMEA, North America, Latin America, and Asia Pacific, working in nine industries, highlights the significant impact of geopolitical uncertainty on businesses.

In the past year, nearly half of the executives (48%) reported being caught off guard by a geopolitical development at least once, with 18% experiencing it a few times, and 11% facing repeated surprises. The remaining 23% of executives stated they were not caught off guard at all. This suggests a significant gap between the frequency of geopolitical events and the preparedness of organizations.

Geopolitical stress tests, a structured exercise in which leadership teams model how specific events would affect their business, are rare. Only 16% of leadership teams have run such a test in the past three months, while 55% have never conducted a structured stress test. This lack of preparation is further emphasized by the fact that 62% of leadership teams that have never run a structured exercise are also the least prepared.

Geopolitical uncertainty has led to significant delays and reversals in decisions that had already been approved. According to the survey, 49% of leadership teams delayed, revisited, or reversed a decision that had already been approved. For 16% of teams, the decision was reversed or abandoned, while another 16% delayed the decision, and 17% revisited it before proceeding. In contrast, only 33% of teams that had recently run a stress test changed an approved decision, compared with 50% of teams that had never rehearsed.

Pricing and cost pass-through felt the greatest impact from geopolitical uncertainty over the past year, with 31% of executives citing this as the area most affected. Supply chain and sourcing followed closely at 23%, while 15% said no part of their business was notably affected. When asked about their greatest concern, 37% of executives named the difficulty of predicting second-order and knock-on effects, well ahead of the instability itself at 29%.

In response to the challenges posed by geopolitical uncertainty, cost discipline and efficiency have emerged as the top leadership capabilities that matter more. Fifty-one percent of executives chose cost discipline and efficiency as the most critical capabilities, followed by operational resilience and business continuity at 47%. Government and policy fluency and cross-border leadership ranked lower, at 31% and 19%, respectively.

Geopolitical risk has not changed where organizations hire or base senior leaders, with 68% of organizations continuing to hire or base senior leaders in the same way. However, 18% of all respondents now favor a local hire for a senior role, where steadier conditions would have sent them searching across borders for the best candidate available. This preference is more common in EMEA, at 23%, than across the rest of the panel, at 10%. Of the organizations now hiring locally instead of searching across borders, 55% picked regional and local market knowledge as a capability that matters more because of geopolitical uncertainty, against 35% across the whole panel.

Stanton Chase's findings underscore the need for organizations to better prepare for geopolitical risks. The firm's six-move action plan, which includes running structured stress tests, is aimed at helping leadership teams navigate the complexities of an increasingly uncertain world.