CEO Survey 2023: Diminished Optimism for the Road Ahead

For the last three years, GLG has surveyed CEOs around the world about the year that has gone by and their expectations for the one to come.

Our GLG CEO Survey: 2023 draws from a panel of global CEOs from our premier network of professionals across nearly every industry or country. This survey, conducted in the first two weeks of November 2022, includes a total of 458 CEO respondents — 150 from North America, 158 from EMEA, and 150 from APAC — spanning the minds of diverse business leaders.

Our previous surveys (2020, 2021, and 2022), largely conducted amid the COVID-19 pandemic, found executives hopeful and optimistic about the year ahead. The 2023 survey shows their experiences and what to expect going forward.

Just under half of the CEOs we surveyed said they feel “confident” or “highly confident” that their revenue will grow in 2023. This is a huge difference from 2021 when, with the pandemic waning, nearly 70% expressed confidence in increased growth for the coming year. The 2020 survey, conducted before the pandemic, saw the greatest optimism.

Similarly, when we asked our CEOs about the global economy, the 2023 survey saw a large dip in confidence. Exactly half of our survey respondents told us that they expect to see a decline in global economic growth. This is a difference from previous years when positive expectations for growth were high.

But what is shaking our CEOs’ confidence? In the pandemic-era surveys (2021 and 2022), respondents ranked “Public Health” as the number one factor they expected to impact their business. This year, “Geopolitical Uncertainty” comes in as the top concern, no doubt fueled in part by the Russia/Ukraine war and its global reverberations.

The CEOs responding to this survey remain resilient. The GLG CEO Survey: 2023 findings include their past growth, future expectations and investments, workforce plans, and top priorities for 2023. The findings show us that, with the right insight well applied, challenging times lead only to great opportunities.

Click here to get access to the GLG CEO Survey: 2023.