When you can’t plan operations five years ahead, nobody can know the full roadmap. Wait, and the opportunity to act will have passed. Vital Farms offers an example: when many egg farms were knocked out by avian flu, its approach of using smaller, local farms meant it could win ground 2 . A leader’s role is now to weigh up the options, decide the strategy and reinvent as they go – however uncomfortable it feels. “Balance today with tomorrow. That is leadership. Doing one at the expense of the other is not.”
Set the journey How is it possible to lead with clarity without offering certainty? Start with who you are as a business. Emma Harris, CFO, Mitchells & Butlers, one of the largest operators of restaurants, pubs and bars in the UK, recommends posing one question: “What parts of your customer proposition are sacred?” The question forces choices. “Because you can’t be the cheapest, most reactive, with the best customer service and offer every option,” says Jazz Swift from Newton. Knowing this brings clarity to decisions so they can drive towards current targets and strengthen long-term resilience. “Balance today with tomorrow,” says Vicky Grinnell-Wright, Director at Systems Transition and former Food Tech/Futures Director at Lloyds Corporate and Institutional, “That is leadership. Doing one at the expense of the other is not.” Scan the horizon To navigate from here, foresight needs to be built into decisions, says Ruth Kelly, COO from Aldi: “We can’t get too wedded to what was right today. Tomorrow it could be the wrong answer. What is your best guess?”
“We have a plan,” says Claire Atkins-Morris Sustainability Director from Sodexo. “But we love to work out how we will pivot from it when the signals show why it’s needed.” Such adaptation requires testing against a spectrum of futures. What if revenue dropped 5%, 10%, 20%? What if key suppliers went under, legislation banned UPFs, you invented the next big disruption, your top people left? Predictive analytics and digital twins are getting better at modelling scenarios, paving the way for action when shocks hit. Harnessing this information to provide plausible, directional insights is where it proves its value. “We need to be making data-driven decisions, doing the real analysis to find and map the most significant opportunities, figure out how to fund them and make informed big bets,” says Katherine Pickus, CSO at ADM, one of the world’s largest agribusinesses. “We can’t afford to play it safe, can we? That could be what trips us up – not being ambitious.” All this is not the role of one person alone. The idea that leaders have all the answers is dangerously outdated. “Increasingly, the challenge is knowing who needs to be in the room,” says Vicky Grinnell-Wright. The role then is not to lead change; it is to lead people.
Vicky Grinnell-Wright Director, Systems Transition
Former Director, Food Tech Futures Lloyds Corporate and Institutional
2. Fast Company, Vital Farms’s CEO on turning the eggflation crisis into opportunity, February 2025
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