Canadian business leaders are contending with a specific, layered set of pressures right now, according to Teresa Palandra (pictured), newly appointed CEO of Marsh Canada, who pointed to trade uncertainty, sluggish growth and the pace of AI adoption as the three forces shaping boardroom decisions today.
Palandra, who also serves as president of Mercer Canada, said the state of the Canada-US relationship, along with ongoing CUSMA negotiations, sits at the top of the list for many executives.
"The Canada-US trade relationship and CUSMA negotiations and the broader fracturing of what we'll call global order are certainly keeping CEOs up at night," Palandra said. "We're in an era where there are ground wars, culture wars and trade wars that are all happening simultaneously."
Even as labor markets stabilize, Palandra said modest growth is putting sustained pressure on how companies make strategic decisions.
"Growth is likely to remain quite modest, which puts pressure on organizations, on margins, on how you make strategic decisions," Palandra said.
The third and most immediate anxiety, Palandra said, is whether organizations can move fast enough to keep up with AI rather than fall behind.
"That's creating genuine anxiety amongst leaders who wonder if their organizations can move fast enough to capture opportunities or if they're going to be left behind," Palandra said. "Unfortunately, these aren't really hypothetical concerns. They are really immediate and practical worries that are shaping capital allocation and strategic planning decisions today."
Palandra said AI is reshaping her firm's client work in three distinct ways. First, Marsh is helping clients deploy AI strategy and redesign their workforces around it. Second, and less obviously, the firm is managing new risks created by AI's physical infrastructure, particularly data centers.
"The rapid expansion of data centers is concentrating facilities in key power hubs, and that amplifies risks from energy interruptions, technology obsolescence, construction delays, and workforce shortages," Palandra said. "That creates new exposure that clients need to understand and make sure that they are insuring against that."
Third, Marsh is using AI internally to sharpen its own advisory tools, including a proprietary analytics platform.
"We're expanding strategic relevance by helping clients deploy AI in a coherent and cohesive way while preserving that trusted advice and human judgment piece that we think sets us apart,” Palandra said.
Despite the anxiety, Palandra pointed to three converging opportunities for Canadian organizations willing to act now. The first is treating AI as a genuine driver of competitive advantage rather than simply a cost-cutting tool.
"If you can embrace that strategically, and not just as a cost-cutting tool, but a real driver of competitive advantage, those organizations are going to emerge stronger," Palandra said.
That, she added, means investing in things like workforce design, upskilling, and using AI to deepen client relationships and create new revenue streams.
The second is building operational resilience ahead of continued trade volatility, particularly with a looming CUSMA deadline forcing companies to revisit their exposure.
"Companies have to revisit supply chains and cyber exposure and overall business continuity planning," Palandra said. "Those organizations are going to be better positioned to weather disruption, because it will come, some form of it, to some degree."
The third belongs to companies willing to treat volatility itself as an edge rather than purely a threat, she said, citing research from Marsh's own management consulting arm.
"Our recent Oliver Wyman research found that 65% of CEOs see competitive disruption as an opportunity," Palandra said. "Those who invest in resilience and innovation and are able to stay agile now are going to capture that market share from those that don't."
Palandra said resilience depends on three things working together, not any single policy or tool.
"It's not just about buying insurance or creating contingency plans," Palandra said. "Those are very important, don't get me wrong, but real resilience is going to come from three things working together."
The first is integrating risk thinking directly into strategic planning. The second is pairing traditional insurance with real operational stress-testing.
"That means reviewing supply chain vulnerabilities that could exist, stress testing technology infrastructure, and ensuring you have both backup systems and human expertise to manage through the disruption," Palandra said.
The third, and what she called most critical, is cultural: building leadership teams that treat uncertainty as normal rather than exceptional.
"Companies that invest in resilience now, in their supply chains and their cyber defense, workforce flexibility and their decision-making processes, those are going to be the ones that can turn volatility into opportunity," Palandra said. "That's the mindset that we're trying to help our clients with, and that's the mindset we're trying to encourage them to build."
