The Unfiltered State of NZ CEOs
CEO Table Insights 2025 · Part 1
What leadership conversations behind closed doors reveal as New Zealand CEOs step into 2026.
Over the past year, Flux hosted a series of small, closed-door CEO Tables across Auckland and Christchurch.
These were off-the-record conversations held under Chatham House Rule — spaces where CEOs spoke candidly about what it actually feels like to lead right now.
More than 40 CEOs participated across industries, regions, and business stages.
This report brings those conversations together.
This report captures Part 1 of the insights shared across the 2025 CEO Tables.
It reflects the patterns that emerged when those conversations were viewed together — not as isolated stories, but as signals of how leadership is shifting.
This is not commentary from the outside.
It’s a view from inside leadership teams across New Zealand.
What Emerged Across the Tables
Across every table, different experiences were shared — but the themes were consistent.
CEOs spoke openly about:
leadership bandwidth being stretched thin
execution becoming deeply human, not structural
teams carrying change fatigue rather than resistance
customers signalling faster than organisations can sense
growing recognition that AI is creating a leadership divide, not a technical one
These are not future concerns.
They are the operating conditions CEOs are already managing.
What became clear across the tables is that leadership is being reshaped.
Not because technology is advancing — but because the pace of change is collapsing the distance between thinking and doing.
As AI accelerates, it amplifies everything: productivity, pressure, advantage, and consequence.
The leaders who felt most confident weren’t necessarily the best planners — they were the ones learning to sense earlier and adapt faster.
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The Unfiltered State of NZ CEOs
CEO Table Insights 2025 · Part 1
What leadership conversations behind closed doors reveal as New Zealand CEOs step into 2026.
All insights are anonymised and drawn from closed-door CEO conversations held under Chatham House Rule.
This report sets the context for deeper CEO conversations continuing through The CEO Table in 2026.