When the Message is the Strategy: Leading Through Political Risk and Market Shock

For most of my career, I’ve worked at the intersection of business, politics and public scrutiny — often when the ground is shifting fast and the margin for error is thin. In those moments, corporate affairs becomes the strategy.

From Brexit to COVID-19, from supply-chain disruption to the re-emergence of hard-edged trade politics, businesses are now operating in an environment where political decisions can destroy value almost overnight. The idea that organisations can “sit tight” and wait for volatility to pass is, frankly, a luxury most no longer have.

I explored this recently in a column for The Grocer, reflecting on the sudden tariff threat facing UK exporters amid the latest US trade jitters. For food and drink businesses trading on wafer-thin margins, the prospect of a 10% or 25% tariff increase was not a debating point — it was existential. Goods already on the water could have become worthless before they reached port. In that context, calm reassurance from politicians may play well on the airwaves, but it does little to protect balance sheets.

The uncomfortable truth is that the rules-based international order with which many of us grew  is unlikely to return anytime soon. If ever. Leaders such as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have shown how quickly norms can be discarded when it suits domestic agendas. For businesses, that means past assumptions about stability, predictability and “business as usual” are no longer reliable guides.

Why engagement beats reassurance

As Chief Executive of the Food & Drink Federation and later Chair of the Food & Drink Export Council, I repeatedly saw that the greatest risk was not volatility itself but disengagement. Businesses that failed to engage early and forcefully with policymakers, explaining, in practical terms, how decisions affected jobs, investment, and communities, were the ones left exposed.

Effective corporate affairs in this environment is not about messaging for its own sake. It is about translating commercial reality into political consequence. Ministers, shadow ministers and officials need to understand exactly what happens when tariffs shift, borders harden or regulation fragments. If they don’t, someone else’s interests will fill the vacuum.

That kind of engagement is slow, detailed and often exhausting. I’ve seen it done well — most memorably by the NFU in its successful campaign against proposed inheritance tax changes for family farms. It took over a year of sustained effort across Whitehall and Westminster. But it worked, because it was grounded in evidence, persistence and credibility.

The leadership challenge inside organisations

There is an internal dimension to this, too. Leaders need to ask hard questions about risk appetite and exposure. A simple test I have often used is this: can we afford to lose every product currently in transit to market X? If the answer is no, then the strategy needs revisiting.

That requires boards and executive teams to become far more literate in geopolitics, trade policy and regulatory risk than many are today. It also requires someone in the organisation with the confidence and authority to connect external threats to internal decision-making, not as a communications exercise, but as a leadership one.

Why embedded leadership matters

This is why I value the close working relationship between MagicDust Interim Solutions (MDIS) and Acuti Associates. Both organisations share a belief that the most effective leadership in moments of disruption is embedded, accountable and rooted in real operating experience.

Whether supporting boards, executive teams or investors, the emphasis is not on commentary from the sidelines, but on working alongside decision-makers as uncertainty unfolds — bringing judgement shaped by experience, an understanding of political and stakeholder dynamics, and the ability to translate external risk into internal action.

In volatile times, credibility is currency. It is earned through consistency, clarity, and the ability to see the whole system — commercial, political, and human — not just one part of it.

The organisations that navigate today’s uncertainty most successfully will be those that recognise this early. When the message is the strategy, leadership — not reassurance — makes the difference.

About the Author:

Ian Wright CBE is an experienced senior management adviser, speaker, and pundit with a career spanning over four decades at the intersection of business and politics. He previously served as Chief Executive of the Food & Drink Federation from 2015 to 2022, navigating the industry through the challenges of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.

During his fourteen-year tenure at Diageo Plc, he was instrumental in building the company’s reputation and leading its global corporate affairs agenda. His professional background also includes senior roles at Boots The Chemist and advisory roles for several Liberal Democrat leaders. A graduate of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, he was awarded a CBE in 2015 for his political and public service. Today, he maintains a portfolio career as a strategic consultant, broadcaster, and non-executive director.