Always-on geopolitics: Why quarterly risk reviews are no longer enough
Consider what unfolded in a single fortnight in January: The United States signaled intensified interest in the Arctic, prompting Denmark to include a NATO ally in its threat assessment for the first time. China expanded military exercises in the South China Sea, testing regional supply chain assumptions. Ukraine's conflict entered a new phase as European leaders debated security guarantees independent of Washington. Venezuela's political crisis deepened, affecting energy markets and regional stability. At Davos, leaders from middle powers – Canada, the EU and others – called for renewed multilateral cooperation as traditional alliance structures showed strain. Meanwhile, trade policy announcements and reversals arrived within hours, not quarters.
For any corporate board still conducting quarterly geopolitical reviews, these two weeks should serve as a wake-up call. The world now moves faster than board calendars.
Directors recognize the problem - but haven't solved it
Diligent Institute and Corporate Board Member's What Directors Think 2026 survey reveals that boards understand the risk landscape has fundamentally changed. Eighty-four percent of directors report strengthening their scenario planning approach in some way. Nearly half have increased time spent on scenario planning and 49% have expanded the scope of scenarios considered. These are meaningful investments in risk oversight.
Yet 71% of directors do not incorporate geopolitical conflicts into their crisis planning scenarios, a significant gap given current volatility. Meanwhile, less than a third of directors worry most about "a black swan event we have not scenario planned."
The problem isn't effort — it's rhythm. Boards are investing more time, but the cadence remains periodic rather than continuous. Most directors receive real-time data only "sometimes," "rarely," or "never" between meetings. That means many boards are reacting to last quarter's world rather than today's.
From periodic to continuous: The shift required
Directors themselves are signaling the need for change. According to the survey, 47% want more frequent and structured risk discussions at the full-board level, and 32% seek clearer linkage between risk oversight and strategy setting. The survey also found that directors want their agendas balanced toward forward-looking discussions, yet most meetings remain retrospective.
When tariffs can be announced – and reversed – within hours, when regional conflicts escalate overnight, when alliance structures shift in days, quarterly snapshots become dangerously stale. Geopolitical risk assessment must shift from a calendar-driven exercise to an "always-on" discipline.
Technology as the enabler
I’m based in Silicon Valley, where we seemingly have an app for everything. I believe that technology can help close the gap between the speed of geopolitical change and the pace of board oversight. Indeed, a quarter of directors surveyed also think enhanced use of AI-powered data and technology tools would most improve risk oversight. Yet only 23% regularly use such tools to support strategic decision-making, and 40% don't use AI at all for this purpose.
Imagine a "Geopolitical Intelligence Brief" – a company could create a proprietary LLM with the last 10 years of quarterly and annual reports and press releases, updated weekly, and partner with an AI company to create an app that continuously monitors global headlines, generating an automated morning alert for the board and senior leadership. Each alert would identify two or three potential implications for the company's specific business lines, markets, or exposures. Not definitive answers, but prompted questions: "Given overnight developments in [region], consider reviewing [exposure], [contract], [supply chain node]." This horizon scanning exercise would then connect dots between macro events and micro business implications – and notify management for a further discussion if warranted. Or the app could be queried about the effects of a certain geopolitical scenario on revenues or supply. This isn't about replacing human judgment – it's about ensuring directors have current information in a timely fashion when judgment is required.
Three steps boards can take now
If a geopolitical scanbot is too avant garde, here are three steps to take now.
- Choose where to focus: Identify a few discrete issues – maybe tariffs, maybe technology, maybe distribution – where advance preparation for some kind of asymmetry will create a market opportunity, and plan for that eventuality.
- Establish a geopolitical monitoring cadence between meetings: Designate responsibility for weekly or bi-weekly briefings to the board – even a single-page summary keeps directors current.
- In this era of polycrisis, build compound scenarios: Combine geopolitical shocks with cyber, supply chain or economic triggers – because in the real world, crises don't arrive one at a time.
The competitive advantage of vigilance
The difference between boards that preserve value and those that destroy it will increasingly be decided before a geopolitical event occurs – not after. This January's rapid-fire developments compressed what would historically unfold over months into days. This year, the question isn't whether your company will be affected by geopolitical disruption. The question is whether your board will see it coming – and whether you'll have time to act. Quarterly reviews assess yesterday's risks while today's threats materialise in real-time. The boards that thrive will be those that treat geopolitics not as background noise, but as a continuous strategic variable requiring always-on attention.
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