From Resilience to Readiness: What Legal and Governance Teams Need Now

In recent days, global leaders have been focused on a familiar, increasingly urgent theme: resilience. As conversations coming out of Davos make clear, resilience is no longer viewed as a defensive posture or a crisis response. It is now widely understood as a prerequisite for sustainable growth in an environment defined by rising complexity and constant change.

That framing aligns with recent analysis from McKinsey, which highlights a growing consensus among leaders that resilience is essential — alongside a persistent gap between aspiration and execution. While many organizations recognize the importance of resilience, far fewer feel operationally prepared to deliver it in practice. The challenge is not one of intent, but of readiness.

This gap is particularly visible inside legal and governance teams.

Resilience looks different on the ground

At an executive level, resilience is often discussed in terms of capital strength, supply chains or macro risk exposure. Inside legal, compliance and governance functions, it shows up in far more practical ways.

In this context, resilience is the ability to act decisively when conditions change. It is having confidence in entity data when a transaction accelerates, and responding to regulatory or structural complexity without slowing the business down. It is supporting growth while maintaining consistency, oversight and accountability across jurisdictions.

Legal and governance teams are increasingly expected to provide this kind of operational support, often with limited resources and under intense scrutiny. When resilience is missing, the impact is rarely dramatic or immediate. Instead, it surfaces quietly through delays, uncertainty and risk accumulation.

The execution gap no one talks about

McKinsey’s analysis points to a broader issue: Many organizations struggle to translate strategic priorities into day-to-day execution. Nowhere is this more apparent than in governance-related work.

Entity data is fragmented across systems, spreadsheets and advisors. Processes rely heavily on manual coordination and institutional knowledge. Governance is largely still treated as documentation rather than infrastructure — something to maintain, not something to design.

In this environment, even well-intentioned teams find themselves operating reactively. Decisions take longer than they should. Meanwhile, confidence erodes when information is incomplete or outdated. Risk increases not because people are careless, but because the system itself does not support speed or clarity.

This gap becomes even more pronounced in today’s geopolitical environment. Multinational corporate structures are operating under sustained pressure as tax regimes, treaties and tariffs evolve in real time. What once changed over years is now shifting in months, sometimes weeks.

In this context, operational agility matters more than organizational complexity. Legal and governance teams are expected to adapt structures, assess exposure and support strategic decisions quickly, while ensuring compliance across jurisdictions that are increasingly misaligned.

At the same time, the credibility and reliability of counterparties has become a strategic consideration in its own right. Knowing who you are doing business with, how entities are structured and where governance accountability sits is no longer a background exercise. It is central to managing risk and maintaining trust in uncertain conditions.

Governance ops as operational readiness

If resilience is the goal, execution readiness is the requirement. For legal and governance teams, that readiness depends on how governance work is structured, supported and integrated into the broader organization.

Governance Ops™ is not about adding more process, but rather about creating the operational foundation that allows governance to scale with the business. That includes:

• Centralized, reliable entity data
• Clear ownership and accountability
• Workflows that support collaboration across legal, finance and external partners
• And systems that make it easier to act with confidence under pressure.

When governance operations are treated as a strategic capability rather than a back-office function, legal teams are better positioned to support growth without increasing risk. They move faster by eliminating friction, and contribute earlier and more effectively to business decisions. Plus, they are less vulnerable to disruption when conditions change.

In other words, governance ops is where resilience becomes real.

From conversation to capability

These emerging conversations signal where leaders are focused: adaptability, resilience and long-term value creation. The next challenge is translating those priorities into operational capabilities that hold up in practice.

For legal and governance teams, resilience will not be measured by policy frameworks or intent statements. It will be judged by execution: by how effectively teams can support complex decisions, manage risk and enable growth in an increasingly unpredictable world.

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