Harnessing Geopolitical Intelligence to Prevent Business Disruption
Geopolitics is now a boardroom priority — here’s how you can leverage intelligence to drive business impact and secure security’s seat at the table
For years, corporate security has been viewed as a cost center — a necessary spend to protect people and facilities, but not a function that drives measurable ROI. But as geopolitical risk rises to the top of the corporate agenda, that perception is beginning to change.
According to the Clarity Factory Annual CSO Survey, geopolitical risks now rank as the number one security threat for U.S. Chief Security Officers (CSOs). Boards recognize that armed conflicts, sanctions, and political instability don’t just create safety concerns — they directly influence supply chains, revenue forecasts, regulatory risk, and expansion strategies.
This is where you have a unique opportunity. Geopolitical risk is a key intersection of corporate security and business strategy. By delivering geopolitical intelligence that translates global disruption into business impact, you can do more than protect people and assets. You can guide the business through uncertainty, strengthen resilience, and prove that security is a driver of strategic value.
“Boards today can’t afford to treat geopolitics as background noise. The ripple effects — from supply chain bottlenecks to regulatory shifts — can determine whether a company protects its margins or loses competitive ground. Security leaders have a critical role in making sure that intelligence on these risks informs the decisions made at the very top.”
— Fred Burton, Executive Director of Protective Intelligence at Ontic
From risk awareness to business enablement
As geopolitical issues increasingly threaten business outcomes, what your executive leaders and board often lack is proactive intelligence and context to guide the right decisions. What does a crisis overseas mean for expansion plans? How might sanctions affect revenue? Which regions remain stable enough for long-term investment? These are strategic questions, and you are in a position to provide the answers.
When you deliver intelligence this way, you help the board view risks in business terms. A potential armed conflict isn’t only a travel safety issue; it may represent billions in supply chain exposure. Political instability in a key market isn’t just a regional concern; it could delay expansion plans and impact shareholder confidence.
By connecting geopolitical intelligence to corporate outcomes, you show that security is not just about mitigating threats. It is a business enabler.
Action steps you can take
If you’re thinking about how to bring geopolitical intelligence to your executives, it helps to have a clear strategy. Here are some steps you can take to make your briefings more relevant, impactful, and connected to business outcomes.
1. Start with the business
It’s important to anchor your intelligence gathering and analysis in your company’s strategic priorities. A good place to start is by reviewing the 10-K and annual reports. Pay close attention to areas such as global operations, growth goals, expansion plans, and market diversification. This knowledge helps you identify relevant risks and frame intelligence in the language that matters most to the C-suite.
2. Unify your threat intelligence
Global risks are constantly evolving, and fragmented data only creates blind spots. Figuring out the facts without direct eyes on the issue can be difficult—just because something is reported in social media or the news doesn’t mean it’s true. Early reports of incidents or attacks are often inaccurate, making ground truth hard to establish.
By unifying intelligence sources into a single, connected view, you can see geopolitical developments in context, enabling you to brief executives and act quickly. When insights flow seamlessly across teams and functions, leadership gains confidence that recommendations are grounded in accurate, real-time information.
3. Brief the board and C-suite regularly
Make geopolitical intelligence a standing part of executive briefings, not an occasional update during crises. Keep your updates concise, timely, and delivered on a consistent cadence that leaders can rely on (like weekly, monthly, or quarterly). Structured insights that cut through the noise help executives focus on what matters most and position you as a steady, trusted advisor.
When it comes to format, think about how executives actually consume information:
- One-page executive briefs. Summarize the top risks, their potential business impact, and recommended next steps in plain language. Use clear headings and no more than a page to respect time constraints.
- Visual dashboards. Red/yellow/green indicators or trend charts can quickly show whether a risk is escalating, stable, or declining. A simple visual often lands better than paragraphs of text.
- Scenario memos. For more complex issues, provide a concise memo (1-2 pages) that estimates the business impact of potential scenarios, along with the corresponding decision options. This helps boards see risk in terms of strategic choices.
Over time, this consistency builds trust, and your briefings become an integral part of strategic planning.
4. Quantify the stakes clearly and concisely
When you present geopolitical intelligence, the most important step is to translate complex findings into tangible business outcomes. Boards and executives want clarity on what risks mean in dollars, market share, or strategic direction. Highlight both potential risks and opportunities so your intelligence becomes a decision-making tool, not just a warning system.
To get there, consider two key practices:
- Leverage cross-functional relationships. Geopolitical risk touches every function, so work closely with finance, legal, operations, and supply chain leaders to ensure intelligence is translated into actionable implications. For example, collaborating with finance to model the financial impact of disrupted supply routes gives the board a concrete way to weigh options and prepare.
- Use scenario-based planning. Boards care less about what happened yesterday and more about what could happen tomorrow. Scenario planning allows you to anticipate and frame “what if” possibilities: What if a major trade route closes? What if sanctions disrupt a supplier? What if energy prices double? Presenting best-case, worst-case, and most-likely outcomes helps leaders prepare with foresight and confidence.
By quantifying the stakes in this way, you make your intelligence indispensable — not only in mitigating threats but also in identifying opportunities to strengthen resilience and maintain a competitive edge.
The board-level payoff
Your board is already focused on geopolitics. The opportunity for you is to translate complex geopolitical intelligence into actionable insight that helps leadership protect revenue, reduce costs, and drive growth. By doing so, you shift perceptions of security from a cost center to a strategic business enabler.
Your role isn’t to completely control the impact of geopolitical events on your business — it’s to bring intelligence that informs strategy, builds resilience, and enables smarter decisions. This is how you demonstrate your value as a true contributor to business success.
