As a significant slice of the world’s corporate leadership class descends on Johannesburg this week for the B20 Summit, difficult questions will be circulating along with the canapes and discussed at length at numerous panels and side events.
How should business position itself in the face of dramatic geo-economic shifts? How fast is new tech, such as AI, rising and what are the implications for our operations? Is the apparent global backlash against ESG real or merely ‘green-hushing’ in the face of Trump’s hostility? Are the G20/B20 processes even worth engaging with, and if so, how and to what end?
These are just some of the typical complex or even “wicked” problems that confront corporate leaders on a daily basis.
Closer to home: is the rise of the MK Party likely to continue and what are the implications for the macro environment? Is another burst of violent and destructive rioting as in July 2021 possible? Which NGO activists should we talk to and even form alliances with?
In this sea of uncertainty and rising system-level threat, who does the CEO turn to? How can risk be turned into reward and opportunity?
Societies, both physical and digital, are increasingly defined by complexity, contestation and volatility. Yet, one role has quietly but profoundly risen in strategic importance and looks set to transcend it all: corporate affairs (also called public affairs, external relations or chief sustainability officer).
This is the function that Susan Njoroge, a former Unilever East Africa head of corporate affairs, calls the “catch-all docket” that often comprises sustainability, strategy, communications and government and regulatory affairs.
“This role now mirrors the complexity and inter-connectedness of the context that business must navigate”, Njoroge says.
Once seen as the place where the “soft” skills of communication and stakeholder engagement resided, it has now become the crucible where many of the hardest, most complex challenges of modern corporate life converge — political risk, sustainability strategy, reputation management and crisis navigation.
Last month’s second edition of the JSE Corporate Affairs Symposium made this shift visible, covering an appropriately diverse range of topics — from AI and its ethical implications, to the geopolitics of the G20/B20, to sustainability strategy and the backlash against ESG — underscoring just how complex the corporate affairs landscape has become.
Sandile Shabalala, CEO of Access Bank South Africa, told the audience of 150 corporate affairs executives that the relationship between the CEO and the senior corporate affairs executive must now be a compact — a partnership of equals in strategy and stewardship.
Shabalala’s words echoed those of MTN CEO Ralph Mupita from last year’s inaugural symposium, when he argued that the modern corporate affairs executive operates at the intersection of business, government and society — a demanding space of competing priorities, relentless scrutiny and complex ethical choices.
These are two CEOs who really ‘get’ the importance of the function; that, when they look around their Exco, it is no longer the CFO or the general counsel that they lean on most heavily.
Dr Andile Sangqu’s keynote address last year captured the rising significance of the role perfectly, offering a framework for modern corporate affairs that traversed government relations — not as transactional lobbying, but incubating new policy thinking, bringing evidence to the table and helping restore constructive dialogue between business and the state and community relations, addressing power asymmetries, co-curating solutions, and showing up with authenticity and thought leadership; helping business lead societal change, not just adapt to it.
Corporate affairs leaders are no longer confined to drafting press releases or managing media relations; they are now strategic advisers and stewards of the company’s conscience. Through the Corporate Affairs Leadership Forum (CALF) — convened jointly by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and the Wits School of Governance (WSG) — we’ve seen this transformation up close.
At its monthly meetings, the CALF invites thought leaders and policy makers to share their thoughts with practising corporate affairs leaders about policy challenges facing the country and explores ways to enhance the corporate affairs function. It can be a lonely as well as demanding position. So the forum is becoming a key platform for these corporate leaders to share their experience and learn from each other.
If the modern company is to be both profitable and purposeful — resilient and responsible — it needs corporate affairs leaders who can interpret the world, convene dialogue, bridge divides and, ultimately, help business play its full part in society’s renewal.
Talking of complex tasks, Sangqu now chairs the Transnet board as the beleaguered SOE drags itself back to operational integrity. He has been in the frontline before, when he was Anglo American group head of corporate affairs at a time when the mining sector faced community severe unrest over social licence issues.
Corporate affairs leaders helped shift the approach from defensive crisis management to proactive co-curation — building partnerships that shared decision-making power and created a “new sense of good faith” — a point that Sangqu made again last week at a WSG event on the future of mining.
Sangqu’s message: don’t lobby for short-term gain. Work with “deliberateness” about the long-term endgame and offer ideas, not just complaints.
That is why CISL and WSG have joined forces to offer the Corporate Affairs Executive Leadership Programme, with modules in Johannesburg and Cambridge — a learning journey designed to equip current and future leaders to thrive in this complexity.
During the Cambridge leg, the South African corporate affairs leaders participated in the annual gathering of chief sustainability officers that CISL convenes. The 15 African corporate affairs executives mingled with their European counterparts and discovered that they face common problems, albeit with local peculiarities.
The ability to grasp the interconnectedness of transnational and domestic issues is the final piece of this complex professional role. Because if the modern company is to be both profitable and purposeful — resilient and responsible — it needs corporate affairs leaders who can interpret the world, convene dialogue, bridge divides and, ultimately, help business play its full part in society’s renewal.
In South Africa’s charged social context — scarred by inequality, corruption, and distrust — this is no small task. Whether it was when riots erupted in July 2021, or revelations of ‘state capture’ in the Zuma administration rocked the national psyche, or more recently when South African government stood firm on its foreign policy and approached the International Court of Justice, or the once global hegemon began to weaponise trade tariffs, it was often the corporate affairs executive who partnered with the CEO and board to craft an ethical, as well as strategic, response.
Consider MTN’s deft handling of the load-shedding crisis and vandalism of telecom infrastructure — transforming what could have been a public relations disaster into a platform for national dialogue about infrastructure resilience.
That is corporate affairs as strategic enabler: translating crisis into leadership. To CISL Fellow Khanyi Mlambo, a former head of responsible business at Old Mutual, corporate affairs executives are “stewards of the company’s purpose, custodian of its stakeholder universe, and strategic enabler”. It demands professionals who are politically literate, ethically grounded, and strategically agile.
As such, corporate affairs has become the centre of gravity where commercial strategy, reputation and purpose meet. “Their profession deserves to be institutionalised in similar fashion to accountants, lawyers and engineers”, Mlambo argues.
As Sangqu challenged his corporate affairs colleagues to recognise their leadership opportunity, telling them: this is our time to lead; and to leave a legacy for the future. As the engine room of the modern, progressive corporation, they will be in their element this week in Sandton, driving positive change with colleagues from across the globe.
Prof Richard Calland is Director of the Africa Programme at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and Visiting Adjunct Professor at the Wits School of Governance.
Prof Themba Maseko heads the its School of Governance
They co-convene the Corporate Affairs Leadership Forum.
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