CEO INSIGHTS – Week Ending 8 May 2026

GLP1

“The GLP1 sales uplift in these [Australian Chemist Warehouse] stores is expected to be an enduring benefit, with the average basket size of a GLP1 customer 40% higher in units.” Vikesh Ramsunder, CEO, Sigma Healthcare Ltd

Travel

“As cruising continues to benefit from healthy industry fundamentals, including record passenger volumes and encouraging indicators of both repeat and first-time cruise demand, I am confident in the industry's long-term trajectory.” John Chidsey, CEO, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.  

“I can’t remember a time where we’ve actually seen that level of reduction (outside of Covid), and the Middle East represented 65 per cent of the way in which Australians travelled to Europe… So, we are seeing customers not just on our services to Europe that we’ve increased, but we’re seeing that traffic go over Africa, over the US, particularly over Dallas and Los Angeles.” Vanessa Hudson, CEO, Qantas Group Ltd.

Demand & Consumption

"However, following the escalation in geopolitical tensions in late March, which contributed to higher fuel prices and a significant deterioration in consumer confidence, both sales and gross margin were adversely impacted during April. As a result of the changes in macroeconomic conditions, and the Company’s expectation that these conditions are unlikely to abate in the short term.” Market Statement, Accent Group Ltd

“Consumer sentiment has deteriorated sharply.” Andrew Irvine, CEO, National Australia Bank Ltd.

Inventory Management

“In light of the Middle East conflict, to ensure commercial resilience and create a buffer against potential supply chain constraints, the Group is proactively increasing inventory cover for key fast-moving products.” Market Statement, Endeavour Group Ltd

Financial Markets

“I’ve compared the markets to a church with a casino attached. People can move between the church and casino, and I would say there are more people in the church and more people in the casino. But the casino has gotten very attractive to people. If you’re buying one-day options, or selling them, I mean that is – that’s not investing, it’s not speculating, it’s gambling. We’ve never had people in a more gambling mood than now. But that doesn’t mean that investing is terrible. It does mean that prices for an awful lot of things will look very silly.” Warren Buffett, Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Pictures Vs. Words

“Pinterest is a destination where our 631 million monthly active users, all of whom are logged in, come to discover what they want and go do it in the real world…they allow us to solve a problem that text-based general-purpose search was never built for. It's the classic, I'll know it when I see a problem. When a user knows what they want, but cannot quite describe it, an image can do what text cannot.” William Ready, CEO, Pinterest Inc.‍

Protein

“As we've discussed, there is increasing demand for protein, which helps us drive strong revenue and cash flow even through economic ups and downs. We also benefit from being a producer of several different animal proteins, as the timing of these cycles can vary. This trend insulates us from an otherwise fragile macro environment.” Donnie King, CEO, Tyson Foods Inc. [one of the world’s largest food companies]

AI Investment & Agents

“So, there will be losers in that, there will be winners, or people saying I told you so, and stuff like that. But the technology itself is so powerful, it’s worth $US1 trillion of investment.” Jamie Dimon, CEO, JP Morgan Chase & Co.

“You are programming these agents in plain English and then tweaking it so that within two or three hours you have cleared an agent which is at least as good as that staff member. In the next six months, you might tweak it a few more times, but that agent is now fully trained and doing the work. It never goes to sleep, never complains, never asks for a pay rise, doesn’t have holidays, and works 24/7 without complaining.” Richard White, Exec. Director, WiseTech Global Ltd

Electronics

“As we enter the important end of financial year trading period, in the technology categories we are seeing significant supplier component related cost increases and stock availability shortages, along with heightened competitive activity." Nick Wells, CEO, JB Hi-Fi Ltd

Data Centres vs. Energy Assets

“We don’t have enough assets built in this market to get anywhere near that sort of data centre growth. To get any more growth in data centres, we’re going to need to build more assets into the future.” Damien Nicks, CEO, AGL Energy Ltd

Capital Gains Tax Vs Start-ups

“If the government abolishes the ‘discount’ on capital gains and replaces it with indexation and don’t carve out start-up founders and employees they will set back the start-up ecosystem in Australia by a decade or more…Founders will leave Australia in big numbers. At a time when we are about to see a tsunami of job shedding [due to artificial intelligence] by existing businesses, Australia’s best hope is a wave of start-up innovation.” Paul Bassat, Co-Founder & Partner, Square Peg

Explosives & Blasting

“We have entered the second half of this financial year with good momentum. Looking ahead, while we remain vigilant to geopolitical and market volatility, demand remains robust.” Sanjeev Kumar Gandhi, CEO, Orica Ltd

Media

“Australia's media landscape remains fragmented, governed by outdated ownership laws conceived in a pre-digital era. As a result, local media businesses are increasingly constrained in their ability to consolidate, innovate and compete on an equal footing with global tech giants. We believe structural reform and industry consolidation are necessary.” Hamish McLennan, Chair, ARN Media Ltd‍