Is a foreign minister a good sales director?

In recent years there seems to be an increasing trend of politicians getting involved into business issues. Some politicians even get into trouble as they are accused of preparing a business career while still in office.

Many foreign ministers have started promoting their countries to foreign investors and have taken to the forefront when it comes to supporting their national champions in their global expansion. They are familiar with management terminology of ROI and EBITDA. Even among the governors of the various Russian republics and regions a race for investment attraction has been ongoing for some time now.

Not like in business headhunters rarely get involved when it comes to selecting those candidates as they those usually get appointed by their parties or governments. It is therefore not known if business like interview and selection proccesses are being applied here:)

However, sometimes headhunters get the chance to ask professional politicians. As the chairman of the Accociation of European Business's HR committee I asked the Russian foreign minister if he felt that his job spec had changed over the years and economics had become more important hence if he was also feeling like the Sales Director of a big business.

Sergey Lavrov confessed that he was a fully devoted foreign minister and with the current amount of global isssues there remains too little time he can devote to business. If my memory does not trick me he mentioned the number of 3-5 percent he spends on business only issues. His speech and the questions asked by our members confirmed this as both him and the audience were almost fully concerned about foreign political concerns than business topics.

My hint and question to the fact that in business the most likely career path for a Sales Director is promotion to CEO he answered as you would expect from a master in diplomacy very diplomaticly.

Lets hope that we all can soon move back to business both in business and political terms:)

Michael