How to handle populists: a CEO’s survival guide

THIS YEAR Western bosses must work their way through a lengthy list of obsequious phone calls. Around 80 countries, home to some 4bn people, are holding elections in 2024. Some chief executives may already have drafted their compliments for Narendra Modi, who is near-certain to keep his job as prime minister of India, where citizens are now casting ballots in a weeks-long poll. After Mexico’s election in June corporate leaders expect to be congratulating Claudia Sheinbaum, the anointed successor of the incumbent, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.