The Centre’s Daniel Arias speaks with Dieter Lehmann, Director Corporate Affairs at Bupa, and Peter Metcalfe, General Manager Government Relations at Woodside Energy. Dieter and Peter both appeared as guest speakers at the Centre’s 2017 Corporate Public Affairs Institute which was held at Melbourne Business School. Dieter ruminates on internal communications in corporations today, while Peter considers the evolution of the function, good practice issues management and issues management systems.

Managing issues, in the public affairs arena, requires a thorough understanding of the latest trends. In this episode, Wayne Burns, the Director of the Centre, presents the top five predictions for corporate public affairs for the coming 12 months in 2017. These include the proliferation of evidence-based communication to influence stakeholders and deal with fake news, infographic mania, the rise of in-house audio-visual production as well as the increase of women at the head of the public affairs function in different organisations.  

Growing scrutiny of the CEO and more socio-politically savvy corporate public affairs executives are putting the issues management life cycles on double-speed. This is the outlook for public affairs in Fortune 100 corporations, according to Doug Pinkham, President of the Washington-based Public Affairs Council. He joins Very Public Affairs host Wayne Burns.

Crafting and stewarding a corporate narrative has become a primary focus in many corporations, and is the well from which corporate public affairs teams are drawing messages and content to engage stakeholders and steward reputation.  In this episode, the Centre’s Wayne Burns examines the elements of a good corporative narrative, and seeks the views from senior executives from Twitter and Shell about their approaches to managing a corporate narrative and delivering it through corporate storytelling.