Navigating today’s volatile economic landscape requires more than just gut instinct. For any size business or organization, but especially the individual founder, it demands agility, discipline, and a clear reassessment of risk. Uncertainty is now the hallmark of the market environment, with even the most experienced strategists acknowledging their predictions are filled with more caveats than clarity.

Failed mergers create perfect storms of executive departures, talent flight and investor lawsuits, but they also offer strategic reset opportunities. Using Kroger’s post-Albertsons crisis as a case study, Alvarez & Marsal’s Conor Johnston maps the three-pronged approach boards need to transform regulatory setbacks into competitive repositioning.

A difficult economic environment has put pressure on companies to operate in a new era of financial discipline. Whether driven by economic volatility, competitive pressures or the need to free up capital for new investments, businesses are tightening their belts and making hard choices about costs, resources and priorities.

The era of relentless corporate expansion has ended, exposed by rising interest rates and technological disruption—a shift that’s undermined the growth-at-all-costs mentality that shaped corporate America over the last decade. Survival now demands that companies ruthlessly prioritize profitability, strategic focus and sustainable financial management over blind expansion, changing the rules for successful CEOs.