Morning Drive | Mira Business FM | 15 Apr 2026
Decision Paralysis, Operational Resilience, and the New Reality for Multinationals in the Middle East
On April 15, Sicuro Group Founder Scott Wilcox joined Tim Elliott on Mira FM’s Morning Drive to discuss how rising geopolitical tensions are reshaping the way global businesses operate across the Middle East, and what it really takes to stay resilient when uncertainty becomes the norm.
From Growth at Any Cost to Operational Sovereignty
Scott drew on two months of transatlantic dialogue between US executives and Sicuro’s Middle East regional advisors to offer a more grounded picture than the headlines suggest. His central observation: businesses aren’t facing a security crisis so much as a decision-making crisis. The inability to plan reliably ahead is creating what Scott calls “decision paralysis” – where companies delay commitments and investments not because the risk is unmanageable, but because the intelligence driving those decisions is poor.
Key operational concerns include concentration risk around Lebanese talent, the emergence of Cairo as a regional fallback, and the recalibration of expatriate footprints as contract cycles shorten. For those who stayed in the GCC throughout, the experience has set a new benchmark of risk tolerance – one that is understood, contextualized, and increasingly workable.
Scott’s outlook, however, was notably optimistic. With the region’s core investment thesis around AI, data centers, and defense cooperation still intact, he sees real first-mover advantage for businesses willing to act on robust intelligence rather than headline anxiety. Operational resilience, he argued, is no longer a document – it’s a boardroom imperative, and the businesses that treat it that way are the ones that will come out ahead.
‘Turn your back to the news cycle. Watch how people on the ground are actually behaving. That’s where the real intelligence is – and where opportunity shows up first.’
Watch the full interview on YouTube to hear Scott’s take on fractional CSOs, duty of care, and why good risk management always comes back to the human element.