New license to operate: How polarization is reshaping corporate comms and public affairs
By Ivanka Djoleva-Minioti
What a polarized world has taught me about the evolving role of corporate affairs
Polarization has become one of the defining characteristics of today’s business environment. Companies are expected to navigate increasingly conflicting expectations from employees, consumers, investors, governments and communities, all under unprecedented public scrutiny. Increasingly, success depends not only on whether a decision is commercially or legally sound, but on whether stakeholders accept it.
As a result, the notion of a company’s license to operate has fundamentally evolved. Once understood primarily as regulatory approval, it has become something much broader: stakeholder trust. Losing that trust can damage a business just as effectively as losing a legal license – and often much faster.
Over two decades in corporate affairs, including leading Global Internal Communications at Mondelez International, I have watched this shift accelerate. One lesson has become increasingly clear: the greatest threats to a company’s license to operate now originate as much from inside the organization as outside it.
Internal polarization: The new corporate challenge
I distinctly remember sitting in a leadership meeting in Valencia when news broke of a developing situation threatening part of our European business. Within minutes, the discussion moved beyond the issue itself. How would employees react? How would customers respond? How quickly would the story spread across markets? What decisions did leadership need to make before anyone outside the room expected an answer?
That conversation has stayed with me because it captured how much our profession has changed. Corporate affairs no longer creates value simply by helping companies explain decisions. Increasingly, it helps leadership understand the environment in which those decisions will be judged.
Global organizations cannot expect universal agreement. Diverse workforces bring different values, experiences and expectations. The challenge is not to eliminate disagreement, but to build enough trust for employees to understand why difficult decisions are made. In my experience, organizations achieve this most successfully when decisions are consistently anchored in purpose and values, and supported by cultures that encourage adaptability, collaboration and continuous learning.
External polarization: A fragmented stakeholder landscape
If managing internal expectations has become more complex, the external environment is even more fragmented. Traditional stakeholders continue to shape business decisions, but influence no longer belongs only to institutions. Small online communities, local activists and individual employees can now shape public debate at remarkable speed.
I experienced this first-hand when one of our global brands celebrated Pride Month in North America. The campaign reflected local consumer expectations and our company’s values. Within days, however, it triggered boycott calls in parts of Southeast Asia, where it was viewed through a very different cultural lens. The commercial impact proved limited, but the lesson was lasting.
Digital platforms have erased market boundaries. Local decisions increasingly become global conversations, interpreted through different cultural, political and social contexts. Traditional stakeholder mapping no longer reflects how influence works. Today, a local campaign, an employee post or a small online community can create enterprise-wide consequences within hours.
The answer is not to predict every crisis. That is impossible. The organizations that prove most resilient are those that use external pressure to strengthen their internal clarity, sharpen decision-making and continuously learn.
From reputation management to trust stewardship
This evolution has fundamentally changed the role of corporate affairs.
When I started my career, success was often measured by how effectively we communicated decisions after they had been made. Today, I believe success is measured much earlier.
Did we help leadership make a better decision in the first place?
That requires corporate affairs to bring the outside in – helping leaders distinguish between noise and meaningful change, connecting developments across markets and translating external complexity into business insight. As the boundaries between internal communication, external communication and public affairs continue to disappear, our role increasingly sits at the intersection of business, society and leadership.
Communication remains essential, but many of today’s reputational challenges cannot be solved by messaging alone. They require sound business judgement, consistency between words and actions, and an understanding of how different stakeholders will interpret the same decision.
For much of my career, protecting a company’s license to operate meant helping organizations explain themselves.
Today, it increasingly means helping leadership understand the world before it acts.
The legal license to operate remains essential. But increasingly, it is trust that determines whether a company can continue to thrive. That, to me, is the most significant evolution our profession has experienced over the past decade – and perhaps its greatest opportunity.
Key Takeaways
Polarization is not a passing crisis. It has become a structural feature of today’s business environment.
A company’s license to operate increasingly depends on stakeholder trust as much as on legal compliance.
The boundary between internal and external stakeholders has largely disappeared. Local decisions can quickly become global conversations.
The most resilient organizations use external pressure to strengthen internal clarity, culture and decision-making.
Corporate affairs creates the greatest value when it helps leadership make better decisions – not simply communicate them.
Difficult decisions grounded in a clear purpose and values achieve lasting acceptance even among stakeholders with differing viewpoints.
Ivanka Djoleva-Minioti
is a corporate affairs and communications leader with 25+ years of global experience across media, FMCG and education. She has led internal and external communications, public affairs, media relations and M&A communications, building high-performing teams across Europe, the US and Australia.