PROGRAMMES & CURRICULA
Global politics is transforming today’s business world, making the effective management of government stakeholders central to modern leadership. ESSEC Business School’s Srividya Jandhyala walks us through the mechanics of teaching corporate diplomacy as a means of equipping students to navigate the intersection of policy and profit A quick search on a typical online jobs portal will show that one of the key requirements for companies hiring managers is being able to manage different stakeholders. You will often see something along the lines of “collaborate with stakeholders” or “explore business opportunities through co-ordination with key stakeholders” amid the job descriptions. considered government affairs to be trivial. But Huang’s work changed when the company’s AI chips became enmeshed in global politics. To facilitate the sale of his company’s chips, he crisscrossed the world. He had to become a “geopolitical superstar” (as coined by a 2025 article in The Wall Street Journal ), convincing leaders from the US to China about his company’s role in their vision. Corporate diplomacy became the job. Huang is not alone. To understand why, consider
what is on the plate of a typical manager. Focusing on the teams, operations or finances of a business used to be the common mandate. A manager might ask herself if her company should expand abroad. She might evaluate if it is worth selling the company’s products to customers in foreign markets. She might strategise about operating new factories, offices or subsidiaries in another country. In most cases, these are what we might consider to be “simply business” decisions. Is the foreign opportunity attractive? Would the net present value of the project support investing? Are the investment risks manageable? Is the cost of capital reasonable? Does the company have sufficient human capital to manage this? At the end of the day, the company chooses to invest (or not) based on the direct costs and benefits that accrue to it. But the company’s corporate investment decision may also create indirect costs or benefits to other parties not involved in this transaction, known as externalities. Because of these factors, a business investment decision can end up with implications for a nation’s security. It is a negative externality if it harms the country’s security but a positive externality if it strengthens it. If what
Some go even further and explicitly mention government stakeholders, as illustrated in the following examples: “identify and develop strategic opportunities for collaboration with governments, regulators and law enforcement”; “ensure alignment of policies and procedures with those required by regulatory authorities”; and “assist in the implementation, maintenance and periodic review of policies and procedures”. I pulled these samples from actual job postings, but what is interesting is that I didn’t constrain my search to government and corporate affairs functions. In fact, they all come from job descriptions for various management roles. In short, managing government stakeholders is increasingly a part of the job. Whether students become managers, consultants, investors or creditors, it’s likely that their job will not just involve acknowledging the importance of government stakeholders but also actively managing them to allow their company to achieve organisational goals and objectives. It is a strategic, financial and operational imperative. Changing focus
might be a smart business decision for a company is not considered to be so good for the country’s economic and military security, governments will try to incentivise and restrain the actions of private companies in ways that strengthen their geopolitical position.
Jensen Huang is the CEO of the world’s most valuable company, Nvidia. For years, Huang famously hung out with video-gamers rather than Washington DC lobbyists. According
to one report in The New York Times , the electrical engineer
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Business Impact • ISSUE 5 • 2025
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