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It’s a new year, which means it’s time for all those reports telling business leaders what they should fear the most in 2025. According to these expert predictions, the risks that organizations should be especially anxious about include the economy, trade wars, geopolitics, technology, and cybersecurity.
We’ve rounded up several recent surveys to see what CFOs are saying they’re most concerned about in 2025. Spoiler alert: It’s everything.
It’s the economy, yo. Economic issues from inflation to labor shortages are giving business leaders globally the most heartburn, according to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) latest Executive Opinion Survey, which asked more than 11,000 executives from across the world “to identify the top five risks they consider the biggest threats to their country over the next two years.”
Among US-based business leaders who responded, the top five risks were a potential economic downturn, inflation, “adverse outcomes” from AI technologies, food supply shortages, and extreme weather.
“It’s no surprise that economic uncertainty and inflation are at the forefront of concerns for US business leaders given the tensions and concerns we are seeing both domestically related to potential tariff regimes as well as ongoing geopolitical unrest,” Reid Sawyer, head of Marsh’s emerging risks group and US cyber risk consulting, said in an emailed statement to CFO Brew.
Sawyer added that the “interconnectedness” of these risks “is particularly alarming, as any one of these risks has the potential to trigger another, creating a complex web of challenges that businesses must navigate."
Breaches abound. Technology, cybersecurity, and financial risks were the biggest threats to business growth, according to 517 business leaders in the US and Canada who responded to a survey commissioned by insurance carrier Chubb.
In fact, cybersecurity was a dominant risk among respondents no matter how Chubb sliced it.
- Example one: Four in 10 respondents identified the risk of cyber breaches or data leaks as a major “man-made disruption” to growth, putting it firmly in first place. Coming in at second and third were changes in government policies or regulations (25%) and social unrest (24%).
- Example two: Cybersecurity threats were also respondents’ top geopolitical risk (60%), followed by escalating tensions between major powers (42%) and resource scarcity and climate change (39%).
Respondents’ biggest concerns among financial risks included cash flow management (59%), inflation and/or interest rates (54%), and credit risk (50%).
Election results. Control Risks, a UK-based risk consultancy, identified in its annual RiskMap forecast the changing global role of the US, rising geopolitical tensions, trade wars, escalating political violence, and digital concentration as the top business risks of the next 12 months.
“Many of the risks presented by the United States are locked in regardless of who is in the White House; the Trump presidency layers on uncertainty,” Claudine Fry, partner at Control Risks, said in a video accompanying the report. “Despite a wealth of investment opportunity, polarized politics and structural political dysfunction will make the US an increasingly challenging market.”