Volatility Is the New Operating Environment - And That's Not All Bad News
In July, North Ridge Partners sponsored the CEO Summit at WiT Queenstown, bringing our Travel Tech and Aerospace & Defence Tech practices together in the same room for the first time. Retired three-star officer and defence strategist John Frewen opened the summit with a timely question for an industry built on the free movement of people, goods and capital: what does a decade of rising conflict risk mean for business?
Frewen explored how conflict rarely arrives as a single event, instead escalating across a spectrum and creating ripple effects through critical chokepoints. From ports, airspace and undersea cables to cloud infrastructure, payment rails, insurance and supply chains, seemingly distant flashpoints can quickly become commercial risks. For boards and leadership teams, the challenge is not simply predicting what happens next, but building the resilience, redundancy and decision-making speed to respond when volatility arrives.
This article recaps the key themes from Frewen’s CEO Summit session, including why volatility should be treated as the new operating environment, how scenario planning and stress testing can turn resilience into a competitive advantage, and why the organisations that prepare before a crisis are best positioned to emerge stronger. Read the full recap to explore the frameworks and practical lessons shared with global travel CEOs in Queenstown.