Methodology and acknowledgements

The KPMG 2021 CEO Outlook provides an in-depth 3-year outlook from 1,325 global chief executives of major organizations on enterprise and economic growth.

This latest research is part of the KPMG CEO Outlook series, which offers a unique perspective on the mindset shift of global CEOs over the lifetime of the COVID-19 pandemic and looking forward to post-pandemic recovery. As well as this survey, which took place in July and early August, we also conducted a CEO Outlook pulse survey of 500 chief executives in January and February of this year. This allows us to examine how CEO thinking has evolved over the course of 2021. CEOs are drawn from companies with annual revenue over US$500 million and a third of the companies surveyed have more than US$10 billion in annual revenue, with no responses from companies under US$500 million.

The July/August 2021 survey included leaders from 11 key markets (Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Spain, the UK and the US) and 11 key industry sectors (asset management, automotive, banking, consumer and retail, energy, infrastructure, insurance, life sciences, manufacturing, technology and telecommunications). Note: Some figures may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.

_{Unless otherwise indicated, throughout this report, “we”, “KPMG”, “us” and “our” refer to the network of independent member firms operating under the KPMG name and affiliated with KPMG International or to one or more of these firms or to KPMG International.}