Who / What creates the Value (2/5)?

Management meeting, everyone wants to share thoughts, everyone wants to impress the others by contribution of the respective function to the business, everyone wants to highlight achievements.

Looking around the table, you see guys with the "stickers" like CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, CMO, CAO, CLO and many others. In ideal circumstances?they work as one team / one body, and sharing thoughts, making impressions, and highlighting achievements is running in a cooperative, professional, and respectful mode and manner to move forward the company and create value.

One of the questions often being discussed behind the scenes (or even on the scene....or at least resonating in the heads) is ,?who / what / which function brings the biggest added value to the business??To be honest, i have asked myself this question many times...however to resolve that "inquiring" question, and looking at that holistically, from the?view of individual leadership roles?(which represent respective teams) step by step, one by one. As a continuation, we look today at another important role – Corporate Affairs Officer (COA)

Corporate Affairs Officer

Benjamin Franklin said, “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” … this is true, true, and it also underscores the nature of Corporate Affairs paradigm and focus.

This role is very often called like Public Affairs, Corporate Affairs, External Affairs…. regardless of that, the most common areas where COA primarily concentrates efforts on are:

1)???? Protection of Company Reputation (=creating a favourable public image, and, at the forefront assessing possible risks resulting from behind-the-scenes development)

2)???? Relationships with External parties (=communication ranging from suppliers up Regulators)

3)???? Corporate Communication (=both internal and external, providing updates to the current Political, Economic, Social and Technological developments that could impact the company performance)

4)???? Sustainability (going beyond Corporate Social Responsibility with impactful ESG strategy)

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Corporate Affairs Officer

The role has many puzzle pieces as described above, and they all need to complement each other. Nowadays, when company is debating its strategic moves and future, COA plays a pivotal role in decision making process, and is (should be) included in discussions regarding future company direction.

COA and his TEAM should not only be in the forefront of actual development, diligently assessing not just past / current / future events and affairs. They should be looking into future opportunities in the market, competitive threats, and advising how to create the biggest value for the company.

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Corporate Affairs Officer

Does COA create the biggest value? Hmmm… as one of the main “top business enablers” it might seem so…however there are also others, so don′t jump to conclusions, and let′s focus on the others as well. Next time on Chief Legal Officer.

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