SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to Policy Catalyst. I'm Caroline Martin, and after my own transition from a long career in the public sector into a fast-growing tech company, I wanted to dig deeper into what it means to be an effective policy practitioner, but outside of government. So in these conversations, we're going to be sitting down with some of industry's foremost leaders on policy to unpack how they think about the function, the unique ways it can support a company's goals, and how they measure success. So now let's dive into today's conversation. Paul, welcome to the show. You've got a deep history in government relations and public affairs with experience working with some of the largest companies in the world. So I want to really dive into that experience today. But before we do that, could you tell us what was the first thing that you ever got paid to do and what did it teach you that you still find useful?

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Gosh, I'm um the immediate, the immediate image I have when you ask that question is me sitting on a small stool, age, I don't know, eight or something, uh, with in front of me um seven pairs of black uh English shoes. My father was a banker and I was his shoes every weekend because he was wearing a different pair, maybe there were five, because I don't think he did the weekend anymore in the 70s either. But it was a a big uh a big lineup and I had to uh sign them. Um and I got paid for that. Uh another good thing. Yeah, but in I was collecting stamps uh and so I could pick the things he actually had done.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

So slightly limited choice there, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Yeah, that's what happened, yeah. So AK, not what I ran newspapers or I did the class and worked in the summers later when I was older at banking institutions for some reason. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Okay. So you got that that you got that sense of value pretty pretty early, it sounds like early.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yeah, and well, I'm not uh the other the thing that it taught me is um I'm I'm not too good for for any job that needs to be done as long as the result is there, I suppose. But also um look at your parents, they can teach you something.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, yeah, no, it's true. It's true. Maybe you could take us to sort of like where you are now, but also kind of how you got there, because you actually started not in the policy and kind of gov affairs side of the business. You're much more, I guess, on the on the commercial side. So maybe tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

I think comparatively speaking, Caroline, I'm a bit of a newbie, which can be a disadvantage, but I'm trying to play it so so that it's to my ad advantage rather than the opposite. And because I I spent a long time in international companies, Udilever Shell, in the finance function. Um, and that was 17 years in Shell in finance. Um and I did chemical supply, internet ventures, up through credit management into a global function with hundreds of staff and lots of debt to manage, you know. Uh but when you're in finance, you you stay in your lane. Um, and the moves available to me, if I had been really pushing for it, would have been more finance, bigger finance, more responsibility. But then in 2012, I got what Shell calls a broadening assignment. And I had the opportunity to do something completely different: strategy, planning, and assurance for government relations, supporting the company's chief corporate diplomats. Uh, and so completely out of anything I'd done. And that was a time that I felt my my wings were unclipped. I'm like, oh, hold on. Uh there's much more available to me and for me to bring as well in that particular role. And what I found there was a function operating on tacit expectation and intangible influence. So real power, real value. I mean, this is one of the biggest energy companies in the world, but limited or flawed architecture underneath. And so coming from finance with a bit of a structured mindset, I couldn't really live with the fact that intangible meant unmeasurable, you know? And so over uh six years we moved it to much more explicit measurable delivery, bottoms bottom of plans, sign off by the business, the functions targets, and cost presented next to each other, where possible, what value they would uh would bring compared to the cost you would have to put into it. And and we sort of got to that stage at a time that the CEO and the entire company was under severe headcount pressure, and by able being able to demonstrate the value versus the cost, uh the current function was was not spared, any cuts and retired traffic light reporting, etc. So I basically I was told when I left that I built the backbone for the function, the architecture. I was just satisfying my own desire to understand stuff, really, because that that's my mindset. As then Shell runs a well, we might get into that later, but we run a carousel and you need to keep moving. And so there was a moment in time I had to decide: do I go back or do I do something different?

SPEAKER_00 5:25

This I really like this idea of kind of the professionalization of the function and and bringing metrics uh into the intangible, which doesn't mean it's unmeasurable. I really, really love um as something like I'm also very passionate about, something we sort of connected first about. So I'm I am I'm gonna dig into what those metrics might look like with you. But yeah, I do want to come to this decision around, I mean, you build this kind of benchmark leading function at Shell, but then you leave. Uh to start over, what was the the sort of real turning point? Or was it more, you know, there are push factors and pull factors? What was it really behind the decision for you?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Well, that option was available to move back to finance. Um, but I felt so, like I said, my dreams were unclear when I moved into this role in the very beginning, this was in 2012. And then when I left in 17, 18, I found myself uh half-heartedly applying for finance. And I noticed my heart wasn't in it anymore, and it felt like going back. And then, of course, with these big corporates, there's always re-org after rework after re-org. I was like, okay, well, if I do that, how long is my shelf life gonna be anyway? One more, all right, another t-shirt, blah, all that. And so that wasn't very attractive. Um, granted, I got an opportunity to have spent some time thinking about what I wanted next, but I first had to leave. And what was next was coming later. And so I had the opportunity in the support of the company to say goodbye to the company and and sort that out.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Yeah, which is a which is a special gift, I think. I mean it it's not an easy decision of itself, but there are some things which can make it which can make it a little bit easier.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

And like most people, Caroline, when you are made redundant, let's call a spade a spade, you go through the motions of I gave 24 years of my life to get upset. But that the fact that I went through that in less than a week meant I had already there were other signs, you know, that I started looking for other things outside. I developed an a non-executive directorship role, you know, outside of the shell. There were other things pooling me. And then it really helped me set yeah, become free uh to make the choices I wanted to make.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

I mean, a week is an incredibly short amount of time to go through such a big change pool. Like, what was the, do you think, like, what was the mindset shift that you had to go through to kind of I mean, like it can be a very big shock to everyone, and I appreciate your frankness about that reality because it happens to almost everyone at some point in their career. Um and so yeah, how did you move so quickly out of that like kind of necessarily woe is me, but like, you know, why me and so on and so forth, to like, oh okay, this is actually an opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Well, I need to be honest. The one week was I didn't permit myself to be angry.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

That that that that I got over and the frustration and all that disappointment. So I didn't that didn't last very long. Maybe it's my uh I prefer looking forward and not looking back, and and I was grateful, I suppose, also. And as I said earlier, I had sort of prepared at least my my my feeling and being okay to start exploring other things, but it's very difficult if you're consumed 40 plus hours a week. A satisfying job, I loved what I was doing until the very last minute. This was the best job I did in the company, and so all I'm saying is that realizing that was the end in shell didn't take me very long of pain and hurt and stuff, but then I took quite a long time to identify okay, what's next?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah, yeah. What did that look like? How did you get to because you know today you run a very successful consultancy and also developing some new things we'll get to, but like what was that process? Um, I mean, you said you looked at a few finance jobs, but like how did you get to where you are today?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

So so I left without a plan, as I said, and then I went looking for one. Um, and and part of that was going on the Camino, like also many other people do. I'm not that um and I took a notebook, like I'm sure many people have done as well. And the brief I gave myself was very simple like write down every career idea that comes to you. So on day one, I think I wrote two pages, on day two I wrote one page, day three, a couple of words, and then when I read them back, uh every one of those ideas, Caroline, was very tactical. Things to do, people to call, actually lists, but nothing that really answered the question. And so I I realized that the useful thing wasn't in the notebook, it was noise that sort of ran out, and my head becoming free. And um, I just walked away and walked onwards, but I didn't know exactly where until the answer started started coming. And what I did have on that trip was an American couple from New Jersey, and I ran into them twice, and we didn't neither had an agenda, or at least an agenda that was sensible. I had one, but it wasn't very sensible. They had a very sensible one. But um, I met them again on the last night, and so we had this entire meal together, and then uh I didn't bring any uh cash, just cards. But this is the time when there were still places uh, you know, where you can only pay with cash. And they offered uh when I started looking around me, um, they offered to pay for my meal. So I realized, because I had been listening to them and counseling them on their choices and their reason for walking that path, um, and they offered to pay the meal for me. So I realized, oh, this is my first uh consulting fee. One meal divided by two hours, I think it was 15 euros or something. So I started at the very low low low bar, but it was and then 18 months of trying things. I looked seriously at headhunting, I spent time in Boston and New York trying to sell my partner's artwork, I was offered a job.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Which might have been tempting really soon, like only six or seven months after I left. And then Shell would be my client, and that's I guess either yeah, poetic or a warning, depending on how you look at it. I turned it down. Um, I popped half-heartedly at private equity and venture, but nothing stuck. Yeah. So and then finally in 19, I wrote down the idea of what if I did for other companies, what I actually was quite successful at in my last job at Shell.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

And then glamorously went around to people who knew much more about being a consultant or being a political operator or being a lobbyist or leading a group of lobbyists internally in companies or externally for consulting firms. I said, look, this is my idea. I'm gonna work on it architecture bit that I think most people are missing. Do you think there's value in that? And and everybody said yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

So Yeah, well, look, my my experience really affirms that as well. So could you tell us a little bit about what you do today, the types of firms you work with, the problems that they come to you to solve, and whether those are the problems you think they they actually need to solve, because sometimes, like, well, my problem is X, and you're like, I don't think that's your problem, actually, your problem is Y. So, could you tell us a little bit about that and maybe you know some of the more recent kind of work that you've been doing as well?

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Yeah. So the the company I set up um is is really geared towards helping public affairs, government relations, but even communications outfits, because those are the type corporate affairs, the titles of the um experts that deal with the non-market stakeholders, as I call it. So all those people that have an opinion about you but don't necessarily have a financial relationship like investors do, employees, some suppliers, investment. Um what I help those companies with is um to create the right processes, systems, uh, organizations, ways of working, um, if necessary, cultural interventions to make that um that organization, those groups of people with that responsibility perform at a at a higher uh level of professionalism. That's what I do. And I've done that for a number of companies um in the Middle East, America. Uh I've consulted for companies in Japan, Europe, different places. Um and it's really back to what I said earlier is that architecture uh that sometimes people are very content focused, but not always take into account, okay, how do you run an organization like that? And that's actually my background. I did finance in Shell, but my degree is in management and organization.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Tell me a little bit about what are some of those structures and metrics and how do you think about what's the right one for each company? Because I've seen companies who put their government affairs, you know, public relations policy teams under marketing, I've seen them under legal, I've seen them under strategy, um, I've seen them under the CEO. Like, how do you think about where that function, you know, should live? And is there like I understand there might be some variations with firm. Do you have a rule of thumb about where it sits?

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Um and also what that structure looks like in terms of you know, geographic arrangements or thematic arrangements.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

So going back to your earlier question, the touch of clients I support are usually industrial companies that have a physical footprint once they invest in a country or a state, right? Speaking of, for example, or province, uh, where once you invest, you're gonna be there for 30 years. So they have an interesting long-term relationship. So uh a startup that does a software uh launch or a fashion line, it's probably not where I'm best able to add value because they're much easier to move. But if there's that long-term commitment, that that's where I focus on. Um and then in terms of how they organize themselves or how my clients organize themselves, um, and where the function lives, the government relations of public affairs function. Um, I've seen it, I've seen all the models uh that you've uh mentioned. Um I always caution legal, because if if what the function of public affairs and legal have in common is regulation, the instinct of the legal director is to protect the company from violating the existing regulation, right, and maintaining compliance, whereas the interest from the public affairs force is to change that very regulation that the legal director starts uh tries to uh comply with. And that that's that's logical, but it doesn't always work very well in one organization, particularly if it's led by the legal director who's you know grown up in the company, really doing a great job at protecting uh the company from violations of uh of regulations and and and and the law, the regulatory framework. So I I don't think that works very well. Marketing can work well if there is a big um external engagement component uh involved um that is strategic and long term. Um I have to think about, for example, shells the Shell Days um promoting and advocating for gas for a very long time. There you could see that marketing and public affairs slash public relations started to overlap. So it can be depending on the history and and you know legal. Uh it can depend on you know how big uh uh is the is the ask for particular change or at least a particular uh regulation to be uh accepted the way the company wants it, then maybe marketing is a better place, but it really depends on the situation. It's very hard to have one rule. I remember an article that McKinsey wrote in 2011. They answered, they try to answer this question, and there's a chart in there, Caroline, which you have to read about 10 times to understand 60% of it. And and and usually McKinsey folks are crystal clear. So I always say to myself, if McKinsey couldn't fix that problem in 2011, I I shouldn't be pretending that I know the answer to that. It's very country theme specific. It depends where the company's main listing is. If you through all the um compliance ethics and compliance regulations, for example, it makes a huge difference whether you're under UK law, European law, American law, or you're listed in the Middle East, just to give an example. So it's very, very hard to give a simple answer to that.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Okay, okay. Just come back that that time of shell where you you built this function and it kind of it does get ranked very highly in this benchmark study. Uh what's the like when you came into that function, what's the first concrete thing you changed?

SPEAKER_01 19:04

I remember a meeting with Chris, who was looking after the Middle East. And we were looking at um the reports, the quarterly progress report. Um, and I noticed that he had a list of a list of countries, then there was some text of what was going on, and then there was a traffic light. And then uh I I I just you know thought I'm not gonna kick any tires until I know what's going on. So I did the the report uh as it was done uh before. I went to all the regional IPs and said, Oh, tell me how it's going, and I made notes and I changed the color of the traffic light, and I put everything together. We had a nice deck, job done. And then I went back to the next month, and the story was different, and in some cases the traffic light changed, and in some cases it did not. And uh finally, maybe it took me through the quarter. I asked them, look, but what was the plan? What was your target? What was your objective? That that moment where we said, maybe it's not so sensible to fool ourselves with these beautiful colors. We need to go back and try to identify what we were trying to achieve in this regulatory environment in this country on this project. And of course, that's where the finance mindset helped me because you know, plan and actual reporting and then comparing kind of actual is what we do. Um, so we built that. That was the moment. Meeting with Chris, the sec reporter.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Okay, so not just sort of progress for progress's sake, but knowing why you're yeah, you're going where you're going.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

What are you aiming at? You know, because there's a lot of noise between meetings and you bring back things that they got to the business, they give you another steer because their business idea has developed again, and then maybe you need some tweaks in the regulation to you know support that. Is that achievable? Is that attainable? There's so much going on. Yeah, I'm uh frankly, uh I'm I'm I'm I'm not patient enough to listen to all the detail. I just want to know was that what you expected or not?

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Exactly. How do you think? I mean, of the different I I feel people throw around, oh, we have a policy function, we have a government affairs function, we have a public affairs function, you know. What like what is the purpose of the function? Or what are the multiple purposes? And then you have to work out which one fits the company or the region and so on and so forth. Like, what is the breadth of what this function can actually do?

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Well, I I like to say to my students, for example, in phoning in, I'm gonna do the executive MBA story on this. I mean, for me, the purpose of government relations, public affairs, it's threefold. It's bringing the intelligence, the political process into the company at the right moment for the right people at the right um in at the right level of detail. So, where is the political process heading in dossiers? That are relevant obviously for the company. Bring that and synthesize that and bring that to the people that need to hear that, with which you will influence them. Okay. And vice versa, bring what is required from the regulatory environment to make the business operable, manageable, and profitable to the people that have the power to decide on the regulations and that regulatory framework. And where I think the the real value is added is on exactly that intersection. So it's a very it's not so externally focused as most people think. No. It's a lot of homework you need to do to bring the business along and through understanding what happens outside and what is uh attainable and and and desirable inside, identify that sweet spot and then influence both parties on that. And that's uh a matter of engaging those two parties, so very different from communications where you define your audience and you send, you constantly iterate between the two internally and externally uh uh focused groups, uh of course for the interest of the company. That's the the job that you have.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

I mean, you've I guess seen presumably dozens of companies and they how they use this function. What's I guess a mistake that you've watched a company make with its function, uh given that you've got this kind of breadth of experience?

SPEAKER_01 23:45

I think the the a good example is an example of a function of a company where they were doing government affairs, but it wasn't a function. Okay. The mandate was was missing, or rather, it was in the wrong place. So it was a client, a large multinational, operating uh across 70 uh uh territories and countries, no government relations functions uh at all. And they sensed that there was an opportunity to create this, you know, that it was a big big company, uh tens of thousands of people. Uh so they hired a VP to do exactly that. But he had no team, no real budget, but he could bring me along with him early. And so government relations was happening, just not a function. It was the chief executive's personal activity uh and the leadership in the regions, but they ran it on instincts and access. And so we basically found some errors. There was your other question where the very top of the house uh had done a so the leader of the company had done a deal with the head of state directly, almost at a royal level, and then the president of the country changed, and a new one arrived to rearrange the deck chairs, uh, and the company had already put all its money into the ground. So that was the relationship uh was the only risk management instrument that they had, and at a single point of failure. Then I remember a premature announcement where a deal was announced in a hurry before the signatures were actually on paper to make this leader look good in the press. But it gave their counterpart a choice to extract more value or let the client lose face uh publicly, which they didn't want to do, so that was costly as well. Um and then there were also typical examples of calling up uh the local um uh uh municipality government or the mayor of a particular uh city and ask for help when there was no relationship at all. So the you know, you need to first put some put some money in the bank and then you draw it. So so yeah, the the the good thing about it was that the the the leader of the company had this inkling that something had gone wrong, clearly, and we do something about it. And I think the the proof came a couple of years after we really built a full function and launched it with 25 staff for the first time together around the globe with the trusted external advisors alongside us, that the same man and the business in the room, you know, senior leaders, that the same man who'd been doing this personally, um, on instincts stood up. Um I mean, virtually was not there, but he wrote it uh and told the room that um yeah, the program that this new organization had built for him around being president at major international summits was where he did most of his his business. So from a leader who was sort of part of the problem to someone who praised the function, that was quite a shift.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

That's interesting. How much of it is that kind of education of the business impact that you know a well-run function can actually have? Like, do you think there is a solid awareness sort of at the C-suite level of most companies of what the function does and you know where it can actually affect the bottom line positively?

SPEAKER_01 27:24

To be honest, there is more uh nonsense out there, if I'm really blunt, about what the government relationship about the fresh function is for. And lots of misunder misconceptions. I didn't know what this role of this function was until I was 45. I mean, let's be honest. You you don't get to that stage, right? In cur in your career, I always say you start as a functional expert, and it could be in business, but it could be in finance, HR, IT, and then you show your experience, expertise, and you start learning about how what it's like to lead people and lead to manage and motivate people and coach them and guide them to develop. And only when you're lucky, you get senior, you get some exposure to a microphone for the first time, particularly in big organizations, when you're in the mid-40s and you've got a family, right? You can learn all that stuff. So it's not surprising that it uh that it takes a while before that's something that people uh start understanding. And if you're not involved in it, some people spent their entire career without understanding. So there's a lot of misunderstanding. Some of the people think, like I said earlier, the role of these people is just to lobby, where entire internal synthesis and intelligence collection bit is more of the work than the external lobby. Some of them will tell you, oh, these public affairs people, it's just about whining and dining. Um, that's not entirely true, although sometimes that has to be part of the job to build your rapport and build relationships. Um some people, uh maybe the government relations folks themselves would love to see themselves as if they're part of the national or of the Security Council of the UN, but they're not. It's much more maintained than that. So lots of misconceptions. But one of the biggest ones is where we started, of course, it's my my thing, is that it's intangible, strategic, and you can't track it and follow it or do a cost-benefits analysis. You can, but it's hard work.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Yes. Okay, can we dig into that a lot a little bit? Like, what does like you know, what do good metrics look like in terms of being able to measure sort of impact and not just output?

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Uh well, uh that's a really interesting one. I focus on outcomes, which is close to output but slightly different. If I uh when I talk about this, and there is in these big industrial foreign furrow firms, of course, uh tremendous amounts uh because they're highly technical projects, so there are lots of engineers, lots of finance people, right? Before you drill a well, you gotta really know what's what, and you do your scientific assessments, etc., in the oil business, for example. Um, but there's lots of technology involved. So people look for numbers, and that's not always what the public affairs person is comfortable giving. So I turn it around, I turn it around. I say, all right, if you want to do this project, or you want to expand this business, or you want to enter that country for the first time, what is it that you need in the business from a government affairs or public affairs team to make that happen? That's the conversation we had earlier, right? Where we look at okay, what in that external environment is needed or needs to change for you to be conducive to the business, right? That's the conversation we had earlier. You start with that, and when you start with that and you define what success looks like for the business, you identify what their mirror image is for this function, one of many functions. You need for market access, perhaps a tweak and one or two uh regulate regulatory bits of um of paper, importantly, but you also need um to understand and do the market research, and you also need to know how you're gonna build up your team and hire people. So it's one of the functions that supports that business objective, and then you basically agree if you can, you say, I think, look, I'm in Asia, I got 15 government affairs people, I um there's more work for us than that there's uh people. So give me a number. What's it worth? You don't have to ask me or contract me, you know. But as if we deliver that bit or help you at least try to deliver that bit for your company and for your project, and it's a hundred million, do you think we are important enough to be able to claim 10% of that? That's how I built a spreadsheet. But if there's no number, then find another metric. Maybe it's good enough to say, oh, I don't want to give a number, but please, for this will never fly unless the CEO meets the president four times a year. Well, then your metric is that four. And if you achieve three, that's 75%. So so starting with a real plan, outcome-based, where possible with a number on it, a dollar number. If not, find another metric and then measure against it. The risk is if you look for the metric magic metric without agreeing what it's for, you end up in a very academic conversation. About in which situation do you need what metric? It's a it's a matter of agreeing it with the business.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

And I guess that close relationship with the business, the kind of commercial side is kind of part of what is necessary to even kind of set your parameters to begin with, let alone actually do the job.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Well, that's that's that's right. It is critical and it's it's a little bit of a dance because sometimes you know you you get asked, what are you bringing before you're allowed uh a seat at the table? But to be able to bring anything, you need to know what's happening at the table. And I think everybody, that's a dilemma. And yeah, you need to be a little bit opportunistic to break through that cycle if that's where you're in. Uh, but if it's mandated from the top that this is how we do our planning, uh and the leader of the company believes that metric setting or planning on that basis is necessary, you're gonna find uh reception.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Well, I know a lot of your more recent work has also focused not just on sort of the the function as a whole, but on the individuals responsible for leading those functions. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Why you personally made that kind of, I wouldn't say kind of switch, but sort of addition to to the work that you do. And I guess what what you're finding kind of the challenges are for people who are in those in those roles, sort of leading government affairs at very large firms.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

What I really enjoyed about all my projects was because I come at it with this sort of process mindset, none of the public affairs leaders I helped felt, I think, threatened by me. Because they have skills I don't. So I was never gonna take their job, let's say. That's a good start, right? For trust to be built. Um and then I think the moments where I felt most impactful and useful and valuable were the moments where there were certain dilemmas my my clients faced, which went beyond what is the process, what's the metric, what's the plan, what's the consulting piece of work, but what's my position here? What's ethical to do? How do I deal with a particular staff problem, for example? Because look, you know, I've been now working with people for 30 years. I've made plenty, plenty of mistakes in that time, and I will never pretend I know all the answers, but if I can get someone comfortable to land on an answer that's true for them, a couple of times, and uh they are then then suddenly things start shifting and changing, and people come into their own. That that's that I found really rewarding to be able to do. And so uh I've I've developed where I'm developing is the is the truth, my coaching practice, uh, slowly but usually. I'm in the uh accreditation or certification process right now, but I've completed my training, and and I'm in the process of developing a yeah, what I call a um a government affairs and public uh public affairs uh program uh for leaders who who like to have someone that can help them with those dilemmas and find their North Star because sometimes it's very overwhelming when you're in a role like that. Uh it's quite low at the top. You don't have a lot of other people that do this in your organization. You're usually the only one with your folks um uh in your in your uh hierarchy. Um and I find that some of the people there would love to have someone to talk to who's been there and understands a little bit of the uh dilemmas that you face.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

I think through that challenge where you know, in an organization, people know what the head of sale, you know, chief revenue officer does, they know what the chief marketing officer does, and then they come to like the chief policy officers there and like, what? What are you doing? So you almost have them to like justify your existence and explain that value um kind of almost constantly um to people who may not have even sort of been thinking about the world of policy and politics as being really core to to the business.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Yeah, that that challenge is is again, I I take that from the from my perspective is manage it at the top and it will trickle down. If you can convince with numbers, with delivery, uh and that could be as simple as what we did uh at Shell with success stories, you know, uh that you distribute like this was the problem, this was the team, this was our desired outcome, this is what we did, and this was the result. You keep beating that same drum and you align your existence with the CEO who funds your organization by demonstrating the value at one point, uh it you don't have to keep repeating that uh and justify your existence. It will it'll become part of the institutional knowledge that this is why they're important. But that's not a matter of uh one slide tech or one webinar.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

Sadly, uh something that will have changed like over the course of you doing this this poll is kind of the innovations around AI. How are you seeing AI being used for the function when it's done well?

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Yeah, so what already is done well um is monitoring across jurisdictions, summarizing legislation, mapping stakeholders. I'm working with a friend that's particularly good at that. Um and you can do even reputational and sentiment monitoring, I'm sure you're things, and I'm building that now for a client, and the quality today is not comparable to what was possible three years ago. It's going really, really fast. And realistically, that work, uh, those activities, they cover a large share of what junior analysts have historically spent their time on. And I'm certain that firms that don't adopt it will be paying um professional salaries for what is becoming clerical work. Um, but what it doesn't do is judgment about what will land in which way correct and conducive with the minister. So the credibility to be to be believed in a room full of people, uh, or the coffee machine uh conversation. So if anything, uh AI makes those uh types of engagements uh more relevant and more valuable because of the yeah, the the the information uh edge is gone, everybody sort of the same briefing. And so I think to sustain and build that relationship and trust muscle, so to speak, um that's probably what the AI needs to. That's probably what's now been become becomes possible. So I'm I'm not the AI architect, uh, but I am I think able to see a couple of things that companies therefore must do, which is know where your team's hours go. Like what I was saying earlier, you know, you don't want to pay twice for uh synthesis work. Machine can do it for you, you gotta know. I think data governance is really important because GR handles politically sensitive material, and a number of connectors that AI plugs into and it starts to do things for you on your machine or your server is becoming exponential. Before you know it, you're out of control, and you cannot let that happen. So safety and security, putting in those tools so you can safely really use it. What's the infrastructure that's important? Um, and I think AI policy is now a GR issue in its own right. It's no longer a technical thing, it's part of what GR does. And the other thing I would say is step back and don't join the floods of people that have realized how much bombardments you can execute to political players using an AI machine. Think that the more hail I shoot, one of them goes. It's gonna annoy. It's gonna truly annoy. And you've got to bring it's even more important to bring exactly the information that a decision maker to have at the right time than before.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I worry about the kind of public consultation process, for example, where now it's not five pages per firm, it's like 50 pages per firm, because they've all had it written by by some sort of Gen AI. And like actually, I think the value in succinctness will become even greater because you do have to exercise a huge amount of judgment to write, and you have to have such a deep subject matter knowledge to be succinct.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

I agree. It's like what Churchill said, right? I I'm writing you a very long letter because I didn't have time to write your issuable plan.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

I love it. It's perfect, it's perfect. Um, Paul, I know we are uh at time, so if I could ask you, how can people find you? And what's one piece of advice for a CEO or C suite on using the function to catalyze their business goals?

SPEAKER_01 42:21

People can find me through my website on www gr-iq.com. But uh, or you find me on LinkedIn as well, uh Paul Bayer. And then in terms of one piece of advice to a CEO, I would almost say what I also say to other leaders new in a particular role, um, and what I've tried to do in my own new roles as I went through my career, which is uh take the time to really understand um the themes in your business or in your function that the people uh talk about, listening, and listen again, and then ask again, and then listen again and ask the same question over and over again. Where almost, if you if you don't have the time, the scope is too big, send an auditor. Um I I always found it very valuable. I'm coming new into a function. Can somebody else tell me what's missing, where the gaps are, so I can work on it rather than trying to defend everything from the first day? There's always good stuff you inherit. There's always some stuff that can be better, that's why you're there. So be very honest about assessing um what's there uh and where you see opportunity for improvement.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Paul, this has been really wonderful, and I really appreciate the frankness and just the experience you have brought to the conversation. So thank you so much for being with us on Policy Catalyst. Um, and I will make sure that there are links to everything that you've mentioned uh in the notes and uh best of luck with the work that you're doing, both on the coaching side, which I think is very necessary, but also sort of the consulting work to bring this kind of sense of professionalism to the functional broadly.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Amazing. Thank you very much, Caroline. Great to talk to you. Thank you.