How A Global Energy CIO Pushes Scenario Planning Beyond Theory

Scenario-driven planning is breaking down at the point where strategy is supposed to turn into action. Organizations invest heavily in foresight, models, and scenarios, yet daily operations often continue unchanged. As volatility accelerates and AI reshapes execution itself, the gap between planning and action keeps widening. Siloed structures persist, strategy becomes a performance exercise, and planning drifts without ever being tied to concrete outcomes.

Nick Giannakakis brings a global operator’s perspective to the problem. The Group CIO at Motor Oil, he has held senior technology leadership roles at British American Tobacco, Richemont, and Coca-Cola HBC, leading large-scale digital transformation and IT strategy across complex enterprises. A recognized Top 100 CIO and an alumnus of executive programs at IMD, MIT Sloan, and London Business School, Giannakakis has spent his career working at the intersection of strategy, execution, and risk, Giannakakis noted that scenario-driven planning only works when it reshapes how organizations actually operate.

"A lot of organizations say they are scenario-driven, but until those scenarios show up in how they operate, how they document risk, and how decisions are made, it’s just conversation," said Giannakakis. The issue runs deeper than execution gaps alone. The conditions that once made scenario planning workable are themselves changing.

• Defining normal: While the world is moving faster, a core challenge for modern leaders is the erosion of the stable "baseline." Increased market volatility is undermining it, making many traditional planning models less effective. "A scenario-driven world means I can anticipate something and have a baseline to play around with. But the main question now is, can I even have this baseline anymore?" questioned Giannakakis. "I think this is the fundamental question we have to answer."

• Not so agile after all: When the strategic baseline disappears, the operational methodologies built upon it must also change. The methods used to execute plans have to adapt, because the old rituals weren't designed for the new reality of collaborative, AI-driven work. "We in IT share responsibility for this," he continued. "For years, organizations have talked about agile as the answer, but that model no longer fits the reality we’re operating in. Especially with AI, work has become far more collaborative and adaptive. Agile, as it was practiced, reflects an earlier way of working, and the operating model has to evolve with it."

• Walk the walk: Real change shows up in the paperwork, not the rhetoric. Giannakakis said that when scenario planning moves beyond discussion and into documented reality, it becomes impossible to miss. "I started seeing those scenarios built directly into our business continuity plans and formally recorded in the risk registry," he said. "They were quantified in a tangible way, and they began to shape how we actually operated. At that point, it stopped being talk and started becoming part of the system."

Of course, this carries its own risks. Many leaders rightly fear getting trapped in "pilot purgatory," debating endless what-ifs without ever committing to action. But avoiding that trap doesn't mean finding a new baseline to cling to. Instead, Giannakakis pointed to a powerful change in mindset already happening in cybersecurity.

• The resilience mindset: The approach shifts the goal toward consistently mitigating impact, accepting that avoiding risk entirely is an unrealistic goal. It's an important move from prevention to resilience, an outcome-based approach. "The way organizations approach cybersecurity today is more realistic. The focus is no longer on trying to prevent every attack, because that simply isn’t achievable. Instead, the emphasis has shifted to mitigating impact and reducing the damage when an incident occurs. That change reflects a broader shift in how leaders think about risk."

• All aboard: That shift places a heavier burden on leadership clarity, but Giannakakis said boards are prepared for it. "You cannot go to the board with options anymore. You have to make a recommendation grounded in specific facts, be able to defend it, and stay ready to adapt as conditions change. At the board level, there is a real willingness now to identify scenarios, assess risk, and make decisions, even knowing things may not unfold exactly as planned. That adaptability has become widespread across large enterprises.”

Ultimately, governance frameworks function more as guardrails than engines of change. Embedding scenario-driven thinking depends on whether organizations are willing to reshape their underlying culture, not just formalize new controls. For CIOs and senior executives, the real work lies in changing routines, expectations, and decision-making habits so that planning becomes part of how the organization operates rather than something layered on top.

"I’m a big believer that culture has to come first," Giannakakis said. "You can put as many frameworks and guardrails in place as you want, but reality will always find a way around them. The real enabler is building the right routines and driving gradual cultural change. My advice is not to treat scenario planning as a separate initiative, but to make it an integral part of the strategies you’re already building. When you connect it to how the organization actually works, the results are far stronger," he concluded.