2024 was an eventful year. Over the past 12 months, eight of the world’s 10 most populous countries held national elections. Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt and reclaimed the US presidency, while, in the UK, Keir Starmer led the Labour Party to its first general-election victory in 14 years.

Conflicts raged in several regions. Ukraine marked 1,000 days of fighting since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022; the war in Gaza escalated to include Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Iranian proxy; and crowds took to the streets in Syria to celebrate the downfall of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad, who had ruled the country for nearly 25 years.

In pop culture, 2024 brought us ‘brat summer’, the announcement of a long-awaited Oasis reunion and the record-breaking Eras tour by Taylor Swift. Meanwhile, the Summer Olympics were held in Paris, which brought breakdancing to the competition for the first time. Rachael Gunn – aka Raygun – briefly became a celebrity after she was ridiculed for her unorthodox performance.

It’s also been an eventful 12 months in the corporate world. Here, Raconteur reflects on the year in business.

Scandals rock the business world

2024 was punctuated by several corporate scandals. In the UK, the year began with the airing of Mr Bates vs The Post Office, the TV drama that tells the story of the British Post Office scandal, and it will end with the conclusion of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, the investigation into this miscarriage of justice. 

For Boeing, the American aerospace company, the year began with a shocking mid-flight panel blowout and ended with strike action involving 30,000 of its factory workers. Meanwhile, stories of workplace bullying emerged at the BBC and the Financial Conduct Authority.

Half the world heads to the polls

Voters in more than 60 countries headed to the polls in what proved to be a disappointing year for incumbents. In July, political power in the UK swung to the left as Kier Starmer’s Labour Party won a decisive parliamentary majority. In the US, however, the left-leaning Democrats were defeated by Donald Trump’s Republican Party. 

Economic uncertainty, high inflation and a general disillusionment with democratic institutions, have opened the door to right-wing populist parties, which gained supporters in many countries. CEOs at the world’s largest organisations now rank geopolitics and political uncertainty as the greatest risks to business and economic growth, according to KPMG.

Nvidia becomes world’s most valuable company

Nvidia overtook Apple as the world’s most valuable company by market capitalisation, as the AI boom continued to push the chipmaker’s share price upwards. The value of Nvidia’s stock has risen by almost 190% this year.

Tech companies also introduced a new wave of AI agents, which promise to tackle more complex tasks than their AI-chatbot predecessors. And, it appears that AI will continue to dominate the business agenda in 2025.

Disappointment in Baku

COP29 was labelled “the finance COP” because of its focus on securing new climate-finance goals and encouraging greater private sector involvement. However, several finance leaders shied away from the event and the final deal that was struck in Baku – $300bn (£238bn) a year for developing countries by 2035 – was $1tn (£790bn) short of the total recommended by experts.

Extreme weather events, meanwhile, made headlines. There were deadly floods in Spain, hurricanes on America’s East and Gulf Coasts and wildfires across South America. It was also the hottest year on record, with average temperatures tipping 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time ever. It appears the world is already paying the price of climate inaction. 

The DEI pushback

The backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives had been bubbling for a while but it reached fever pitch in 2024. Six US states passed anti-DEI laws this year and a number of companies dropped policies aimed at promoting diversity and inclusion in response to social and political pressure.

Ford, Walmart, Molson Coors, Harley-Davidson and Toyota were among those that opted to weaken their DEI policies this year. There has been a steep decline in the number of DEI roles, as many professionals working in the space faced redundancy rather than redeployment.

Crowdstrike causes unprecedented IT outage

On 19 July, a faulty software update from Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity firm, caused the largest IT outage in history, locking an estimated 8.5 million Windows devices into a so-called ‘blue screen of death’.

The outage grounded flights, froze online banking systems and disrupted emergency service providers. According to one insurer, the incident cost Fortune 500 companies roughly $5.4bn (£4.3bn). The incident served as a timely reminder of the internet’s fragile infrastructure for the many businesses and services that rely on it.

Workers won’t return

Whether it was coaxing people back into the office or back into the labour force, businesses and government organisations struggled to get people back to work.

Economic inactivity has been a problem for the UK government since the end of the pandemic. Over the past 12 months, more than a fifth of UK adults were out of employment and not actively looking for work. Long-term sickness remains the primary driver of this phenomenon and addressing the issue is a priority for the Labour government.

But firms have also been pushing for employees to come into the office more frequently as leaders increasingly turn their back on remote working. Amazon was the biggest employer to instigate a five-day return to office in 2024. Boots, Dell, Barclays, Liang O’Rourke and Rockstar also issued full-time RTO mandates this year.

CEO pay reaches new heights

The average total remuneration for FTSE 100 CEOs reached £5m in 2023, according to company reports released this year. This is up from an average of £4.3m in 2022.

The annual growth in executive pay outpaced that of employees, creating a widening gap between CEOs and their workers. The average FTSE 100 CEO is paid 98 times more than the median worker.

London Stock Exchange loses its lustre

However, low CEO salaries in the UK were frequently blamed for a lack of competitiveness in the country’s stock market. A total of 88 companies have delisted or transferred their primary listing from London’s main market this year, with only 18 new listings to take their place. This marks the worst year for departures from the London Stock Exchange (LSE) since the 2008 financial crisis.

Ashtead, a construction rental company, is the latest to announce its intention to leave the LSE. Tui, Just Eat and Flutter, a gambling firm, are among those that have delisted in London this year. The private takeovers of Darktrace and Hargreaves Lansdown have also depleted the exchange’s numbers.

New York has been the preferred destination for many companies, owing to better investment opportunities and its consistent outperformance of the UK market.

M&A deals break their deadlock

At the end of 2023, it was widely predicted that 2024 would be the year M&A activity took off. However, a challenging macroeconomic climate meant deal activity was slow to start. Over the first six months of the year, the number of deals was down one-fifth compared to the same period last year.

But there has been a recent surge of activity. Mars bought Pringles maker Kellanova for $36bn (£28bn) in August, Carlsberg struck a deal to buy Britvic in September and, in December, Direct Line accepted a takeover bid from Aviva, an insurer, and Vodafone and Three received approval for a merger that will create the UK’s largest mobile network.

In the US, Trump’s return to the White House is expected to lead to a new wave of dealmaking thanks to his laissez-faire approach to antitrust regulation. The return of ‘Merger Monday’, which saw US companies seal deals worth $35bn (£28bn) on 16 December, could be a sign of things to come.