The Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA), established under the aegis of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India, organised a high-level Stakeholder Consultation on ‘Public Policy & Corporate Affairs: Evolving Roles & Professional Development’ at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, recently.
The consultation was convened to define the scope of the public policy function within organisations, identify the capabilities its professionals require, and consider how learning pathways can be strengthened to meet both organisational expectations and national priorities.
Delivering the inaugural theme address, Shri Gyaneshwar Kumar Singh, Director General & CEO, IICA, underscored the need for continuous and meaningful dialogue between the public and private sectors. He placed the consultation within IICA’s wider mandate of building capacity across government and industry for better-informed engagement between the two. He observed that the way organisations understand policy, contribute to its development and use it to guide their decisions bears on the quality of governance and the wider business environment, and that the consultation was intended to identify practical ways of strengthening the skills this work demands.
The inaugural session had special addresses from retired senior beurocrats and corporate leaders like Shri Amarjeet Sinha, IAS (Retd.), former Secretary, Government of India, who called for collaborative governance and predictable policy, with business engaging the regulator before, during and after a policy shift. It is important to focus the systems thinking approach in the professional framework evolving in public policy function.
Dr. Anup K. Pujari, former Secretary, Government of India, stressed the need to build the capacity of mid- and late-career professionals into a cadre able to bridge the public and private sides of the regulatory system. Shri Arun Goyal, former Secretary, Government of India, noted the growing part the private sector plays in the working of regulatory bodies and the development of regulation, which takes the function well beyond liaison. Shri Rajiv Agarwal, IAS (Retd.), Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Tata Consultancy Services, emphasised communication and behavioural skills and the alignment of policy work with internal stakeholders and corporate strategy. Shri Richard Rekhy, Vice Chairman, Grant Thornton Bharat, said policy professionals need financial acumen and a view of national and global value chains to advise corporate leaders, with evidence as the basis of trust.
The deliberations that followed were organized in three tracks, (i) on the public policy and corporate affairs function, (ii) the evolving role of its professionals, and (iii) their education and professional development.
Participants examined the evolution of the function in business eco-system and how is it placed between the private sector and regulatory framework. They noted that twin tasks of the public policy function is to help the organisation understand what policy means for its strategy and of contributing credibly to policy discussions, the division of responsibility with legal, compliance and business teams, and how early it is brought into strategic business decisions.
The consultation also sketched the professional acumen for the public policy professionals of the country with the skills expected of practitioners at different career stages, among them a working knowledge of how governments and regulators take decisions, economic and data-based reasoning, and risk and stakeholder management, joined by the judgement to balance institutional priorities with the public interest. On capacity building, the conclusions favoured a multidisciplinary, case-based curriculum, flexible delivery suited to working professionals and internships with government.
The consultation drew 50+ senior representatives from listed and multinational companies, consulting and advisory firms, think tanks, industry associations, academia and civil society, along with senior government officials and policy researchers.
Setting the context, Dr. Niraj Gupta, Head, School of Corporate Governance & Public Policy, described the consultation as the start of a sustained effort by IICA to give this emerging profession an institutional anchor. He laid out the key questions for the consultation on emergence of public policy, and how capability can be built through education and practice. The consultation was coordinated by Mr. Manoj Singh, Chief Program Executive, IICA.
The deliberations concluded with a roadmap for IICA to work with industry bodies and academic institutions in support of this emerging profession, so that public policy professionals are equipped to work at the interface of corporate affairs and national development.
The Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) is a think tank under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India, dedicated to serving the corporate sector through knowledge, governance, and transformation.
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KT/ONP