CEO INSIGHTS – Week Ending 14 March 2025

Global Consumer

“I mean, every day is a new set of headlines that consumers have to try to navigate through and make decisions on. But in total, right now, we feel confident about what we see.” Joe Vernachio, CEO, Allbirds Inc

“The Chinese are changing their tastes. Some of it is exposure to Western ways: they have worked for multinational organisations and have seen what their colleagues eat and they try it and like it.” Peter Verry, MD, Peloris Global Sourcing [China supply chain specialists]

Dentistry

"We do believe that there is a demand for dentistry services that exceeds the supply right now. So, to the extent you can get a practice to expand their capacity, they're able to fill that capacity and make the practice more profitable." Ronald South, CFO, Henry Schein Inc [world’s largest dental equipment company]

International Payments

"[When] I look at cross-border trends, cross-border trends are holding up pretty well." Sachin Mehra, CFO, Mastercard Inc

Mining Royalty Companies

"The model is very well established in other parts of the world, particularly in North America. It's been around for many decades, but it's really taken off in the last 15 or 20 years…Despite this growth in some of those other jurisdictions, we remain the only listed ASX royalty company of any kind of scale." Julian Andrews, CEO, Deterra Royalties Ltd

Industry Super Funds

“It will always be the case that Australian assets form a large part of a super member’s assets.” Paul Schroder, CEO, AustralianSuper

Health

“I think retail is going to get absolutely squeezed in the labour market in the next 5 to 10 years and that, coupled with so much competition around leasing, paints a tougher picture for retail…But if you take my category, then I’m very optimistic. We’re very blessed to be in health and fitness, which when you look at the young generation in Western countries, they’re moving away from alcohol and into the gym.” Domenic Giampaolo, CEO, Elite Supplements [sports & nutrition retailer]

“We're not going backwards. What's driving this market is stability, external and internal reasons. Externally, you know the deal with demographics. We're getting older. We are active…That's a fact that you see across all of ‘medtech’. So, if you talk to people in cardio, general surgery, diabetes, it's not an orthopaedic phenomenon. This is the reality of demographics.” Ivan Tornos, CEO, Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc [major global manufacturer of orthopaedic implants & tools]

Australian Exports

“We are diversifying into new international markets with 70 per cent of our farmed production being sold to 169 markets.” Anthony Pratt, Exec. Chair, Visy Industries

Food Waste

“Eliminating food waste is one of the most effective ways to eliminate world hunger…If food waste were a country it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases because food rotting in landfills emits methane gas which is 84 times worse than CO2. It is also one of the most practical ways every person can make to tackle climate change.” Anthony Pratt, Exec. Chair, Visy Industries

Corporate Travel

“We saw companies start to pull back. Corporate spending started to stall.” Ed Bastian, CEO, Delta Air Lines Inc.

Social Media

“We see an opportunity to make a new kind of social media app that is built from scratch to be AI native. Facebook, Instagram, Snap, Pinterest and Reddit were all built over a decade ago. Even TikTok is almost a decade old, and all of them were designed before the explosion of generative AI capabilities…Existing social media platforms’ vision for AI is completely backwards.” Jonah Peretti, CEO, BuzzFeed Inc [US listed internet media company]

Toys

“The toy industry has been growing consistently over the last 25 years with a few exceptions, a few years of exception, the last 2 years being notable exceptions, primarily driven by the post-COVID era or period and the slowdown in the movie industry.” Ynon Kreiz, CEO, Mattel Inc.

Mining & Civil Industries

“Higher cost, low productivity, very, very challenging to do to develop greenfield, brownfield mines today, not enough supply, high demand [are megatrends our customer base face]. All of that plays into the integrated solution we offer.” Sanjeev Gandhi. CEO, Orica Ltd