A large per­cent­age of Caribbean CEOs have a pos­i­tive eco­nom­ic out­look for 2025.

Ac­cord­ing to the Caribbean cut of PwC’s 28th An­nu­al Glob­al CEO Sur­vey, launched dur­ing the World Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum an­nu­al meet­ing, al­most 70 per cent of Caribbean CEOs ex­pect glob­al eco­nom­ic growth to in­crease over the next 12 months.

The glob­al re­port, which sur­veyed 4,701 CEOs across 109 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries, in­clud­ing Caribbean CEOs, al­so finds that 42 per cent ex­pect to in­crease head­count by 5 per cent or more in the next 12 months – more than dou­ble the pro­por­tion who ex­pect head­count de­creas­es (17 per cent). Caribbean CEOs hold a sim­i­lar view with 44 per cent ex­pect­ing to in­crease head­count and half that ex­pect­ing to de­crease (22 per cent).

The re­port not­ed that Caribbean CEOs are op­ti­mistic about the glob­al econ­o­my, but have con­cerns about cy­ber risks (31 per cent), close­ly fol­lowed by in­fla­tion and work­force ca­pa­bil­i­ties (both 28 per cent) while macro­eco­nom­ic volatil­i­ty (29 per cent) tops the glob­al re­sults and the dif­fer­ences in top threats changes de­pend­ing on vary­ing re­gion.

The re­port not­ed that while cy­ber risks have had the cen­tre stage, "it’s some­what con­cern­ing that on­ly 2 per cent of or­gan­i­sa­tions glob­al­ly have im­ple­ment­ed re­silience ac­tions as high­light­ed in an­oth­er re­cent PwC re­port, Bridg­ing the gaps to cy­ber re­silience: The C-suite play­book, this sur­vey strong­ly sug­gests cy­ber is hav­ing an on­go­ing im­pact on Caribbean based busi­ness­es. "

Bri­an Hack­ett, ter­ri­to­ry leader of PwC T&T, said, "This year’s CEO Sur­vey re­veals that Caribbean busi­ness lead­ers are op­ti­mistic about the fu­ture but recog­nise the need to rein­vent val­ue cre­ation. Three-plus decades of digi­ti­sa­tion have start­ed to break down for­mer­ly im­per­me­able bound­aries be­tween sec­tors. The com­bined im­pact of the cli­mate tran­si­tion, AI, and oth­er mega­trends will in­crease this re­con­fig­u­ra­tion. To thrive, lead­ers must make bold strate­gic de­ci­sions, in­te­grat­ing GenAI in­to core process­es and ex­plor­ing new growth op­por­tu­ni­ties."

Al­so sig­nif­i­cant were the re­ports find­ings con­cern­ing rein­ven­tion and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence.

The re­port stat­ed, "Con­sis­tent with the last two years, four in ten (42 per cent) CEOs glob­al­ly be­lieve their com­pa­ny will not be vi­able be­yond the next decade if it con­tin­ues its cur­rent path. The di­al hasn’t moved much from the last Caribbean CEO Sur­vey ei­ther (re­leased in Jan­u­ary 2023). There is a mar­gin­al de­crease (30 per cent to 28 per cent) of those CEOs who be­lieve their busi­ness won’t be vi­able in 10 years. "

The re­port added, "Many Caribbean CEOs be­lieve that GenAI will in­crease ef­fi­cien­cy, prof­itabil­i­ty, and rev­enues in the year ahead. At the same time, less than a third (28 per cent) say they have a high de­gree of trust in hav­ing AI em­bed­ded in­to key process­es in their com­pa­ny. Trust in AI re­mains a hur­dle to more wide­spread adop­tion. As you might ex­pect, CEOs who trust AI re­port­ed high­er gains from GenAI over the last 12 months and ex­pect­ed high­er gains from the tech­nol­o­gy in the year ahead. They are al­so more like­ly to be mov­ing ahead with in­te­gra­tion of GenAI in­to tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms, busi­ness process­es, and work­flows."