The business agenda of Spanish CEOs faces the same challenges as CEOs from the rest of Europe and the world, but does not assign them the same priority. 60% focus on long-term business transformation, while globally, 65% of senior executives see current volatility as an opportunity for growth. On the other hand, in Europe, 94% want to acquire other companies to expand, whereas in Spain they are much more cautious, with almost half not considering acquiring companies in the short term. These are some of the conclusions from the CEO Agenda 2026 study, conducted by Oliver Wyman in collaboration with NYSE, which gathered responses from 415 CEOs worldwide, representing 10% of global market capitalisation and around 30% of the companies in the Ibex 35.
M&A presents a more selective agenda in Spain than in Europe and other international markets. 44% of the Spanish CEOs surveyed have no M&A activity planned in the next one or two years. Furthermore, those who do show interest in growth consider 1.9 types of operations, including geographical expansion, entry into new products or channels, and the acquisition of key capabilities and talent, compared to 2.39 in the EU and 2.53 globally.
On the other hand, despite the Spanish M&A market producing a lower number of transactions, the transactions are of larger size. In 2026, the volume of transactions records year-on-year declines of between 13% and 18%, while the capital mobilised increases by between 64% and 69%. This trend was already observed in 2025, when the number of transactions fell by 6% despite their aggregated value growing by 42%.
To meet their short-term growth objectives, European and international CEOs combine in their agenda the promotion of investment cycles, productivity improvement, and strong cost pressure. In fact, 61% in Europe and 58% in the rest of the world include cost management among their top three priorities. In Spain, only 50% rank cost management among their main challenges.
A separate chapter deserves the entry of AI into the CEOs' agenda. The adoption of AI is progressing in Spain at a pace comparable to the rest of the world, but CEOs show greater caution regarding its return: 60% believe it is still too early to assess the return on AI compared to approximately 55% in Europe and 53% globally. The study also points to a growing gap between organisations that continue to experiment and those that have already scaled these technologies, which report returns growing at a faster rate than the investment.
At the same time, cybersecurity and data protection have strengthened their importance on the executive agenda. This issue is already a concern for 40% of CEOs of European companies and 60% of those from Spanish companies.
Regarding the planning horizon for the agenda, in general, CEOs admit that due to current uncertainty, timelines are becoming shorter: now half of the planning time is for less than a year (it was 43% in 2025). And almost all (96%) say that their Board of Directors is showing greater involvement in at least one area.
