(Edits headline, adds quotes)
LONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Refinitiv CEO David Craig said on
Tuesday that the COVID-19 pandemic had shown how fragile and
complacent the world was so leaders should prepare for the
unexpected by challenging their thinking amid the volatility.
"We're more fragile than we thought and we're probably more
complacent than we ought to be and we're certainly more
connected than we have ever been," Craig said at a virtual
meeting of the World Economic Forum.
"This pandemic - if there's a positive - it's going to
challenge our thinking," Craig said. "That complacency is
compounded by the additional risk of being far more connected."
Craig cited the pandemic and the 1859 Carrington Event, the
biggest solar storm on record, as the sort of issues that
businesses needed to be ready for.
"What happens if there's a major solar flare, or an issue or
a magnetic bomb that takes out technology?" he said.
He said he had sat through years of risk meetings but he had
never previously been asked what he would do in a pandemic.
"You can't plan for everything so you need to plan for
anything," he said. "What we've learned in life is that we
always prepare for the last crisis but never the next one."
Craig said that the world had to be careful about rules that
might stop the sharing of crucial data in times of crisis.
Refinitiv, which is 45%-owned by Thomson Reuters, the parent
of Reuters News, is one of the world’s largest providers of
financial markets data and infrastructure.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Alistair Smout and
Kate Holton)