Even in the face of a projected modest 3.4 percent global economic growth for the coming year, a less-than-robust recovery in the United States, China's long soft fall, and European economies still struggling to find a sustainable growth formula, CEOs are undeterred in their quest for new sources of growth. They say a strong and aligned leadership cadre, a highly engaged workforce, improved organizational agility, a focus on customers, and building an entrepreneurial spirit around innovation capabilities are the tools they need to make headway against the buffer of slowing economic growth.

At least for now, CEOs show few signs of hunkering down into the defensive postures seen in our CEO Challenge surveys immediately after the 2008 financial crisis. This year, they profess a focus on topline growth, backed by product and process innovation, more productive use of technology, a stronger leadership bench, and increased employee engagement and workforce upskilling to contribute to organizational success. But, perhaps more important, they are not being driven by a win-at-all-cost pursuit of revenue or a quarter-to-quarter short-term focus. What CEOs say they are seeking is high-quality sustainable growth-and the strategies they selected to meet their top challenges in this year's survey reveal a longer-term focus around capacity building and developing strong cultures around innovation, engagement, and accountability within their organizations. They are optimistic about profit expectations for 2015, with almost three-quarters of respondents saying they expect profits to increase either moderately (58.5 percent) or substantially (15.5 percent) in the coming year, but they realize they must cope with fundamental changes in their customers' behavior, the emergence of new competitors globally, and a slowdown in emerging market economic growth to get there. And they are coming to realize that risks and opportunities resulting from slower global growth are not equally distributed across regions, sectors, or countries.

Since 1999, The Conference Board CEO Challenge survey has asked CEOs, presidents, and chairmen across the globe to identify their most critical challenges. In the 2015 edition of the survey, based on 943 responses, CEOs rank Human Capital, Innovation, Customer Relationships, Operational Excellence, and Sustainability as their top five long-term challenges to drive business growth. With the exception of Sustainability, the other four challenges make CE Os' top-five lists in every region of the globe. However, the strategies they are employing to meet these challenges highlight the disparity of the issues in their micro business climates.

As the top challenge for 2015, CEOs view Human Capital in all its forms-from dynamic leadership to a skilled workforce cadre-as the primary fuel that will drive the engines of growth within their organizations. The prominence of people-related strategies to meet their other most-critical challenges is evidence of that. [p. 4]

Since 1999, The Conference Board CEO Challenge survey has asked CEOs, presidents, and chairmen across the globe to identity their most critical challenges. In the 2015 edition of the survey, based on 943 responses, CEOs rank human capital, innovation, customer relationships, operational excellence, and sustainability as their top five long-term challenges to business growth.