11 | PwC’s 21st CEO Survey The question is, what will happen to CEOs’ Interestingly, there was some foreshadowing and are vulnerable to interest rate hikes. generally positive outlook beyond 2018? of the Great Recession in the two preceding CEOs are prescient enough to consider the years, when ‘very confident’ levels began possibility that a downturn might be on the When we asked CEOs about their own their descent. longer-term horizon and are placing their organisation’s growth over the next three bets accordingly. years, the bandwagon slows down (see But don’t read into this dip as a similar Exhibit 6). While still generally confident, harbinger of doom. It may simply be harder Ironically, it is those CEOs who have been in more CEOs say they are ‘somewhat confident’ for CEOs to see beyond the near term. office longer – 11 to 25 years – who are rosiest rather than ‘very confident’. In fact, all regions So much has happened in political arenas in their assessment of the global economy and –North America included – report flat to around the world that expert observers could their own organisation’s prospects. They’ve diminished levels of ‘very confident’ not have predicted. Meanwhile, geopolitical weathered previous storms and can see the in their own longer-term prospects. sabre-rattling and terror incidents multiply opportunities ahead. Particularly restrained are CEOs in the and intensify, and the impact of technology Middle East and Central & Eastern Europe, is becoming increasingly disruptive. What emerges as we look more closely where ‘very confident’ responses reach Combined, these conspire to cloud any CEO’s at the data is an interesting dichotomy: near-record lows, down 33% and 26%, view of the road ahead. a resoundingly optimistic global outlook respectively, from last year. with a more tempered view of their own More than half of the CEOs in this year’s organisation’s performance. Typically, CEOs report more confidence in the survey have been in office for less than five longer term than in the immediate future. The years, which means they have never led their last time we saw ‘somewhat confident’ levels current company through a serious downturn. above ‘very confident’ levels was in 2009, The global economy has been in recovery for when confidence, in general, took a nosedive eight years since the post-crisis low point of in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. mid-2009. Asset prices today look fully valued