Small and mid-size business (SMB) CEO confidence surged to 100.8 in Q4 2024, a 15.7-point quarter-over-quarter increase and the highest score recorded since Q2 2021, per the latest CEO Confidence Index released by Vistage. This sharp increase reflects growing optimism for future revenue and profits, with CEOs' plans for investments and hiring now exceeding both pre-pandemic levels and decade-long averages.
"We ended 2024 with a significant boost to CEO confidence, an indicator of the long-awaited growth cycle forecasted to begin in 2025," says Joe Galvin, Vistage's chief research officer. "Economic conditions are largely shaped by factors such as administration policies, trade regulations, inflation, and consumer confidence. More than half of CEOs expect the economy to improve in the coming year, with many optimistic about the new administration and the potential for pro-business policies, reduced regulations, lower inflation, and reduced borrowing costs to drive investment and fuel growth."
Key takeaways:
- Growing levels of confidence are driven in part by the more than half (55%) of CEOs who believe the economy will improve over the next year, a substantial increase from 32% in Q3 2024 and 21% in Q4 2023. This optimism is largely fueled by the upcoming change in U.S. leadership.
- When asked how potential changes to the following policies would impact their business under the new administration, 65% anticipate tax policy changes will positively impact their business; more than half (52%) anticipate regulatory compliance changes will positively impact their organizations (vs. just 13% that expect negative impacts); 44% expect new labor and employment laws to positively impact their organizations (vs. 20% expecting negative impacts); 32% expect environmental and sustainability policies to positively impact their organization, with 17% citing a negative impact; but 60% anticipate tariffs and trade policy changes will negatively impact their business; and 29% anticipate that immigration policy changes will negatively impact their organization.
- 65% of SMB CEOs expect their organizations' total number of employees to increase in the year ahead.
- When asked how they feel about open and Generative AI, 77% of SMB CEOs note they feel the technology presents a "tremendous" opportunity for their business.
- Only 5% of SMB CEOs say a cybersecurity incident resulted in lost or compromised data in 2024; 20% experienced an attack that didn't result in any lost or compromised data.
- 58% of CEOs noted that they have a current cyber risk strategy that is documented and communicated to executive leaders and is reviewed annually. 9% report they are actively working on a strategy. 16% report that their company does not have a defined cyber risk strategy.
