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Call it the “Great Divergence.” The next five years promise to sort global enterprises onto a spectrum from dramatic success to dismal failure, and to test the foresight, grit, and cunning of leaders who will have few easy choices.

For the 15 years after the 2008 crisis, chief executives grew accustomed to being borne upward on the rising tides of free money, receptive markets, and relative geopolitical calm. Even the pandemic broke that prosperity only briefly, as a $16 trillion gusher from global central banks neutralized strengths and covered for weaknesses. Everything went up.

But Donald Trump’s second presidency promises to bring about the biggest changes to the global order since World War II. Multilateralism is giving way to multipolarity; mutual cooperation to transactional power relationships. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs are the biggest upset to world trade in at least half a century. Money is expensive, and looks to stay that way for some time. Governments are putting their thumb on the scale in ways not seen in decades. And the blistering pace of advances in AI could upend everything.

Leadership skills prized in the previous era — financial engineering and a carefully crafted public image — will prove woefully inadequate. Executives will face decisions ranging from the existential (should you redesign your whole supply chain?) to the trivial (should you call it the Gulf of America?), and bets will be punished or rewarded alike with merciless swiftness.

Semafor created the World Economy Summit to offer insights from global thinkers and decision-makers on how to navigate the coming storms. In this special report, Alex Karp proclaims Silicon Valley’s moral duty to take up arms, Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu predicts the next financial crisis, and Unilever’s longtime CEO, Paul Polman, offers advice for other CEOs. Dan Yergin writes on energy independence; another Nobelist, Michael Spence, outlines Europe’s pull-together-or-perish moment. Azeem Azhar explains what AI means for big business, Ngaire Woods defends multilateralism, and Bill Bishop describes China’s tightrope walk.

All business leaders will have their own tightropes to tread in the coming years. We hope that the voices here and onstage at the World Economy Summit can help you keep your balance.