Speaking on the Board of Changemakers panel of CEOs and other senior financial services executives, O’Hanley shared his views on the major challenges and opportunities confronting the world economy and capital markets in 2025 and beyond.

He expressed optimism, noting that “prognostications” of global recession at the start of 2024 had not come to pass, and described the threats and opportunities of decarbonization.

“The big challenge is the lack of global growth. What growth we do have is very lopsided,” he said. “You see the US doing pretty well in terms of growth, and then it's really hard to find substantial growth everywhere else.”

“Think about the past 30 years in China and compare it to the kind of growth we're seeing now out of China. And it's just not there – Europe hasn't seen growth.”

O’Hanley shared his concerns about recent political shifts moving away from the globalized financial and economic model of the past few decades, as national governments take an increasingly protectionist view of their domestic economies.

“Everybody in this room, I would venture, has benefited from globalization over the last 30 to 40 years. But the growth of globalization has ceased and we're now starting to see that reverse,” he said.

He called decarbonization “both a threat and opportunity,” adding: “Moving forward requires electricity. There's a lot of investment that's going to be required here, both in terms of mitigation of carbon and also adaptation to the climate change that we're seeing, which will pose inflationary pressures.”

Finally, he warned that meeting these future challenges and opportunities could prove difficult “at a time where debt levels are very, very high.”

“We don't talk enough about the fact that we're at 93 percent of GDP for global debt, which is a real risk that we have to think about at a time when we're not in a global recession,” concluded O’Hanley.