Iceland’s President calls for courage and purpose in a time of distrust

London Business School’s Wheeler Institute for Business and Development hosted an intimate conversation with Halla Tómasdóttir, President of Iceland, on 20 November 2025, an evening that asked what leadership looks like when trust is fracturing and change is accelerating. With opening remarks from Professor Gillian Ku, Deputy Dean, and a fireside discussion moderated by Professor Costas Markides at the Sammy Ofer Centre, the event blended pragmatism with moral clarity.

“We live in a trust crisis,” President Tómasdóttir began, arguing that effective leadership today is “more about bridge‑building than ever.” Her perspective is rooted in a career that spans multinational corporations, entrepreneurship, impact investing and civil society. Management education, she noted, helped connect the dots between business, political economy and culture, but solving complex problems “cannot be done from any single vantage point.” The imperative, she said, is to bring business, government and citizens to the same table.

The President urged a reset from a narrow reading of shareholder primacy to a deeper, purpose‑driven model in which enterprise solves material human and planetary problems. “Business at its best solves problems,” she said, pointing to externalities, from plastics and air quality to mental health, as symptoms of a system designed too tightly around quarterly profit. Change is already underway, she added, via broader sustainability disclosure standards and more diverse boardrooms to counter what she called a “crisis of conformity.” Examples ranged from Unilever’s long‑term orientation under Paul Polman to IKEA’s decision to engage youth climate activists as an advisory group, and Novonesis (formerly Novozymes), which scales nature‑based bio‑solutions for industry.

If short‑termism and conformity are design flaws, the human obstacle is fear. “Fear lives in our heads and is paralysing; courage lives in the heart,” she said, stressing that courage must be “sandwiched with humility,” acknowledging that no one has all the answers. Closing gender gaps is central to expanding the definition of value, she argued, because more balanced leadership teams tend to collaborate, lengthen time horizons and elevate employees, children and climate on decision‑making agendas.

Iceland’s own trajectory supplied a living case study. Tómasdóttir traced the cultural reset catalysed by the 1975 women’s strike, followed by universal childcare and equal parental leave that widened labour force participation and underpinned prosperity. “Using all your people is smart economic policy,” she said. Iceland now consistently tops global gender‑equality indices and participates in the Wellbeing Economy Governments Alliance with Scotland, New Zealand and Finland (and collaboration with Canada), embedding measures such as mental health into national goals and budgets. She also highlighted participative responses to social strain, including the youth‑led “nights of love” movement convened after a national tragedy to promote compassion and male role‑model dialogues, evidence that policy and culture must move together.

On the state’s role, the President was forthright: governments should set rules and incentives that reward long‑term value creation. She criticised environmentally harmful subsidies, especially during Europe’s recent energy crisis, and urged redirecting even a portion of them to accelerate the green transition. “Align incentives with the future we want and need, not the past,” she said, calling the transition both economically sensible and geopolitically stabilising.

Audience questions spanned youth opportunity, middle‑management “lostness,” AI risk and Africa’s development path. Her advice to younger generations and managers without formal power was to do the inner work, clarify purpose and principles, and exercise everyday leadership through voice, choices and contribution. On AI, she called for innovation guided by principles and a “compass.” On Africa, she advocated partnership over paternalism, citing Kenya’s renewable trajectory, supported by Iceland‑trained geothermal engineers, and urging investment in energy, education and entrepreneurship alongside governance reform.

The evening closed with a practical call to action for boardrooms and classrooms alike: broaden the stakeholder lens, lengthen time horizons, diversify who decides and measure what matters, including wellbeing. “There is a leader inside each of us,” President Tómasdóttir said. “Now we must lend it to a meaningful purpose, and to a better world.”