Solutions/Executive search/Government relations
Regulated markets
Government relations
A country organisation needed a government-relations lead who could work with local authorities on filings, permits, and stakeholders.
Project background
The client’s Philippines country organisation had to handle licences, privacy filings, and local stakeholders at the same time. The commercial team could keep customers. It could not sit hearings or file supplements with the authorities.
Headquarters wanted the head of sales to own government relations, on the view that “the relationships are already in the market.” Locally, SEC and NPC paths run on files and deadlines. A sales call does not shorten them.
The search ran in the Philippines. The seat was country government-relations, reporting to the country GM — not a regional public-affairs side job.
Profile
- Philippines government-relations, public-affairs, or regulatory experience — able to describe licence and privacy-filing steps.
- Can work with authorities in the local language, and write progress to headquarters in English, without a verbal chain.
- Will report to the country GM, on the country organisation’s headcount.
- Pure sales or pure PR profiles who could not name filing clocks and supplementary types were kept off the first list.
Search timeline
First gate
6 business days
Second gate
About eight weeks to offer
The first list went out on business day six. Client interviews and the background check followed. Country GM and regional compliance both signed the hire. The offer went in about week eight.
CVs presented
Presented
7
Landed
3
Seven CVs on the first list, each with a written interview report. The client met three. The person hired could list the filings due in the next year by authority — not only “relationship maintenance.”
What we took from it
Government relations was split from commercial. Licences and privacy filings moved to one person against a calendar. Sales stopped sitting the hearings.
The country GM kept the external line. Files and supplements stopped travelling through the weekly sales note. Headquarters read risk by filing gates, not by orders.
For the next brief: name the authorities at kickoff, and refuse a combined sales-and-government-relations job. Keep the first list to people who can describe the filing path.