Key Takeaway: Beijing has launched a nationwide “anti-involution” (反内卷) campaign to address destructive price wars and overcapacity across multiple industrial sectors at once, not just renewables. Electrical machinery and equipment, communications equipment, and medical products all show 29% to 34% of firms losing money in 2024-25. Goldman Sachs estimates Chinese

Key Takeaway: Turin’s automotive cluster invested roughly €2.8 billion in electrification between 2024 and 2026. Over the same period, regional automotive employment fell by more than 3,200 positions. Fewer than 20% of local engineering graduates hold the specific battery, power electronics, and embedded software skills employers are actually hiring for.

Key Takeaway: 81% of US CEOs and COOs plan to bring supply chains closer to home, and 95% of manufacturers who have reshored report satisfaction with the outcome. Yet only 2% of companies with reshoring plans have fully completed them. Factory employment has actually fallen by roughly 82,000 jobs since

China’s solar industry has shed more than 200,000 jobs over the past two years. More than 220 solar companies have gone bankrupt in the same period, according to reporting by The Epoch Times. This is not a demand problem. China’s annual solar manufacturing capacity reached an estimated 1,200 GW in

Carla Geday – Middle East Senior Advisor Carla Geday is a seasoned executive with over two decades of leadership experience across the Middle East, where she has led high-impact initiatives in corporate strategy, business development, and large-scale operations. There is a growing narrative that regional uncertainty has put hiring across

China’s domestic jewellery label Laopu Gold, frequently described in industry coverage as “the Hermès of gold,” has grown explosively by combining traditional Chinese craftsmanship with investment-oriented gold jewellery demand, according to FashionBi’s 2026 analysis of China’s luxury recalibration. That a domestic brand now earns comparison to the industry’s benchmark for

Portugal generated 80.7% of its electricity from renewable sources in January 2026, its strongest performance since April 2025, placing it second in Europe behind only Norway, according to data reported by The Portugal News. This is, on its own terms, a remarkable achievement. It is also becoming Portugal’s central infrastructure

Author: Fernando de Zavala. Published: May 2026 China’s education and non-profit sector presents one of the most structurally complex executive search environments in the world. It combines the regulatory constraints of the Foreign NGO Law in effect since January 2017 and actively enforced with the talent demands of an education

Author: Fernando de Zavala, Partner | Zavala Civitas Last updated: May 2026 Italy’s education and non-profit sector is navigating a leadership crisis shaped by forces that go beyond the sector itself. The country recorded only 355,000 births in 2025 the lowest since national unification in 1861 while deaths stood at

Last updated: May 2026  Author: Fernando de Zavala, Partner | Zavala Civitas Portugal’s premium retail and consumer sector has crossed a threshold. The country is no longer a secondary market for international brands — it is an active strategic priority. Lisbon’s Avenida da Liberdade welcomed five new high-end flagship stores

Author: José Carlos Hassan, Partner Date: May 2026 Author:  | Zavala Civitas Canada is in the middle of one of the most ambitious infrastructure and energy buildouts in its history. The $40+ billion LNG Canada project the largest private investment in Canadian history is now operational. Trans Mountain and Coastal

Key Takeaway: Mexico faces a structural talent shortage in 2026, with 67% of employers struggling to fill roles in AI, logistics, manufacturing, and technical functions. Demand is not evenly spread. It is concentrated in four sectors, manufacturing, energy and infrastructure, technology, and consumer and retail, and companies in each are

Key Takeaway: 75% of companies in Spain report significant difficulties hiring talent with the right competencies, according to IESE Business School. The gap is not in volume — Spain has a deep pool of experienced professionals. It is in the type of experience that leading organisations now actually need. The

According to McKinsey’s Global Private Markets Review the United States remains the largest private equity market globally. It accounts for nearly half of global PE deal value.    Unlike traditional recruiting, Executive Search in the U.S. private equity-backed environments is much more complex.  In PE platforms, leadership is directly tied to value creation, EBITDA expansion,

Key Takeaway: Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer and generates approximately 80% of its electricity from non-emitting sources. This dual position — traditional energy powerhouse and clean energy contributor — creates leadership demands that no single profile can meet without both operational depth and governance sophistication. Canada remains one

Key Takeaway: Spain’s private equity market invested €7,015 million in 2025 — its fourth-best year on record — with 4,032 portfolio companies under active management. The executive who can execute a value creation plan in this environment is not just hard to find. They are, structurally, the scarcest resource in

Key Takeaway: Brazil’s Novo PAC programme has a USD 260 billion envelope — it had already deployed USD 142.2 billion by end-2024. BNDES disbursed $21.4 billion in 2024 alone, a 16.9% increase from 2023, with infrastructure receiving the majority. Private capital is now funding 72% of Brazil’s infrastructure investments. The

Key Takeaway: In Portugal’s compact executive market, the question is rarely whether a senior leader is competent — most are. The question is whether they have the judgment, adaptability, and self-awareness to remain effective as their role evolves. Executive assessment is the structured way to answer that question before it

Key Takeaway: Mexico attracted a record ~$41 billion in FDI in the first nine months of 2025 — driven by nearshoring. Manufacturing wages in nearshoring regions are now 15–20% above the national average. Execution speed is the competitive differentiator. The executives who can deliver it are not in the open

Key Takeaway: Portugal has over 2,700 multinational companies operating locally and a startup ecosystem generating salaries 81% above the national average. The market is more competitive than its size suggests — and far less forgiving. In a market where everyone knows everyone, a mishandled approach to a candidate does not

Key Takeaway: Brazil is Latin America’s largest economy — and one of its most demanding leadership markets. The CLT labour framework, the LGPD data protection law, and structural regional diversity create conditions where a technically strong executive can fail not because of capability, but because of insufficient contextual preparation. In

Key Takeaway: The US EPC market reached approximately USD 241.85 billion in 2024 and is growing at 3.1% CAGR through 2034. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law alone directs USD 550 billion in new spending. The capital is committed. The execution certainty depends entirely on whether the right executives are in place

Key Takeaway: Manufacturing represents 19–20% of Mexico’s GDP, FDI in the sector grew 27% year-over-year, and Mexico became the #1 trade partner of the United States in 2023. Yet 40% of companies report critical shortages of bilingual leadership. The investment is accelerating faster than the executive talent capable of executing