The case for using crisis to force change for the better.

In the intricate political landscape of ancient Mesoamerica, Lady Six Sky, known in Maya glyphs as Wak Chanil Ajaw, emerged as one of the most powerful women of the Classic Maya period. Ruling the city-state of Naranjo (also referred to as Sa’aal) from AD 682 to around 741, she wielded authority in a society where kingship was typically male. Born around AD 667 as the daughter of Bajlaj Chan K’awiil, ruler of Dos Pilas and a key ally of the superpower Calakmul, she was dispatched at about age 15 to Naranjo, a city weakened by defeats to rivals such as Caracol, as part of a strategic alliance to revive its power and counter Tikal’s dominance.

History

Her “arrival” was ritualized in hieroglyphic inscriptions, and she assumed full royal titles, performing ceremonies to legitimize her rule. Stelae erected during her reign depict her in warrior attire, triumphantly standing over captives, blending traditional masculine symbols (shields, spears) with feminine elements.

In her early years, she oversaw aggressive military campaigns, restoring Naranjo’s influence. She timed actions to celestial events, reinforcing divine legitimacy, and later served as regent for her son, K’ahk’ Tiliw Chan Chaak, commissioning monuments that immortalized her achievements until her death around AD 741.

Lady Six Sky’s story illustrates how elite birth and geopolitical necessity could elevate women to executive power in Maya society, which showed relative gender flexibility compared with some contemporaries. Yet her position was fundamentally inherited and imposed through alliance, not earned through individual ascent from outside the royal sphere.

Today

This dynamic echoes in modern corporate leadership, where access to the highest roles often depends on networks, pedigree and circumstance rather than pure merit. The narrative of the “self-made” CEO rising solely through talent and grit is compelling but overstated. Many top executives benefit from privileged starting points, elite education or early opportunities that compound over time.

Consider the world’s largest companies by market capitalization as of late 2025: Nvidia (Jensen Huang), Apple (Tim Cook), Microsoft (Satya Nadella), Alphabet (Sundar Pichai), Amazon (Andy Jassy), Meta (Mark Zuckerberg), Tesla (Elon Musk), Broadcom (Hock Tan), TSMC (C.C. Wei) and Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett). All are led by men. Founders such as Huang, Zuckerberg and Musk built their empires from startups, but even “self-made” stories often involve supportive family backgrounds: Huang’s parents were a chemical engineer and teacher, providing a stable middle-class foundation and emphasis on education.

Among broader benchmarks, women lead just 11 per cent (55 out of 500) of Fortune 500 companies in 2025, a record high, yet still a stark under-representation. Prominent examples include Mary Barra at General Motors, Jane Fraser at Citigroup, Julie Sweet at Accenture and Lisa Su at AMD. Many of these women, like Su (immigrant family emphasizing education, rising through engineering roles), exemplify merit-driven paths, often navigating barriers that demand exceptional performance to reach the top.

The crux: structural factors, elite networks, biases towards “cultural fit”, limited access to profit-and-loss responsibilities, perpetuate homogeneity at the apex. Boards frequently favor “proven” candidates from familiar demographics, despite evidence that diverse leadership enhances innovation and returns.

To broaden opportunity:

• Adopt transparent, objective hiring: structured interviews, blind assessments and bias-audited metrics.
• Strengthen mentorship and sponsorship programs pairing high-potential talent with senior advocates.
• Prioritize skills-based recruitment over pedigree, alongside scholarships and inclusive networks.
• Support work-life policies, including flexible arrangements and caregiver support, to retain talent.

Yet, as with Lady Six Sky, inertia favors the status quo until external pressure intervenes. Crises often prove the catalyst for change, forcing boards to prioritize capability over comfort.

Mary Barra’s ascent at General Motors exemplifies this. Emerging from the 2009 bankruptcy and government oversight, GM needed rebuilding. The board chose Barra, a lifelong internal engineer with deep company knowledge, as its first female CEO in 2014, signaling cultural renewal. Weeks later, the ignition-switch scandal erupted, implicating decades of safety lapses and leading to recalls, fines and scrutiny. Barra responded with decisive accountability: restructuring safety protocols, dismissing executives and overhauling the culture. Under her tenure, GM regained profitability, pivoted to electric vehicles and autonomous technology, and restored trust.

Similar patterns appear elsewhere, such as Jane Fraser’s leadership at Citigroup amid post-crisis regulatory demands. When survival is paramount, exceptional talent, often from non-traditional paths, breaks through.

Lady Six Sky’s reign was enabled by crisis and alliance; modern breakthroughs often require equivalent disruption.

True progress demands proactive reform, not waiting for the next storm.  But the lead time for proactive reform has proven to be exceptionally long.

The Catalysts for Change: Five Potential Crises Poised to Reshape Leadership at the World’s Largest Companies

History shows that crises, from financial meltdowns to safety scandals, create the urgency boards need to prioritize capability, fresh perspectives and cultural renewal over familiarity.

As we enter 2026, several converging risks could force similar reckoning at mega-cap companies, particularly in tech-dominated sectors where homogeneity persists.

Here are five plausible crises in the coming years that could compel boards to accelerate leadership transitions, drawing on current trajectories in regulation, technology, geopolitics, and sustainability:

1. Escalating Antitrust Enforcement and Breakups
   Ongoing US and EU antitrust actions against Big Tech giants (Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Microsoft) could culminate in structural remedies by the late 2020s: divestitures, behavioral restrictions or even partial breakups. Precedents like the AT&T breakup in the 1980s show how such interventions destabilize incumbent leadership, prompting boards to install new CEOs with expertise in regulated environments or post-breakup navigation. With cases advancing and political appetite for curbing market power, a landmark ruling could expose governance failures in competition strategy, accelerating calls for diverse, externally proven leaders.
2. A Major AI-Enabled Cybersecurity Catastrophe
   The rapid integration of AI is amplifying cyber vulnerabilities, from deepfake-driven breaches to supply-chain attacks exploiting “shadow AI”. Forecasts highlight rising threats, including quantum advancements potentially breaking encryption by the early 2030s and AI-powered malware scaling attacks. A high-profile incident crippling a mega-cap firm (disrupting operations, leaking data or causing widespread harm) would echo the CrowdStrike outage or ignition-switch scandal, inviting scrutiny of insider-heavy boards’ oversight of emerging risks. Survival would demand leaders with deep cyber and AI governance experience, often from non-traditional backgrounds.
3. Geopolitical De-Risking and Trade Disruptions
   Heightened US-China tensions, tariffs and export controls on critical technologies (chips, rare earths, AI) could trigger supply-chain fractures or forced localization, eroding profitability for globalized giants. EY and other outlooks flag persistent volatility in 2026, with economic sovereignty policies reshaping operations. A severe escalation, such as restricted access to key markets or components, would test leadership’s strategic foresight, much like post-2008 regulatory overhauls. Boards may turn to CEOs with international diplomacy or resilience-building credentials to steer through fragmented global markets.
4. AI Investment Bubble Burst or ROI Crisis
   Mega-caps are pouring hundreds of billions into AI infrastructure, with data-centre energy demands soaring and capex projected to exceed $500bn annually soon. If promised productivity gains fail to materialize amid power shortages, regulatory pushback or overhyped returns, a sharp market correction could ensue (akin to the dot-com bust). Accounting concerns over extended asset lives and profitability questions would expose strategic missteps, pressuring boards to refresh leadership with proven turnaround experts or those emphasizing sustainable innovation over hype.
5. Climate and Sustainability Accountability Backlash
   AI’s environmental footprint, massive energy and water use for data centers, clashes with net-zero pledges, amid growing scrutiny of tech’s carbon impact. Extreme weather events disrupting facilities or regulatory mandates (e.g., EU sustainability rules) could amplify this, leading to investor activism, lawsuits or reputational crises. As with GM’s safety scandal, failure to align operations with stated values would force cultural overhauls, favoring leaders from diverse fields like engineering or policy who prioritize long-term resilience.

These scenarios underscore a pattern: when existential threats emerge, boards often bypass “safe” insiders for transformative talent. As Lady Six Sky’s alliance-enabled rise reminds us, opportunity often arises from necessity.

Women need to be prepared for the opportunities that a crisis offers.