In Africa, beyond traditional public affairs, corporate diplomacy is the missing tool

Author: Kwame Senou

When a large multinational spent nearly eighteen months negotiating a major infrastructure deal in West Africa, it followed what many global firms still consider best practice. Its board chairman, a respected industry veteran with decades of industry experience was tasked with leading stakeholder engagement. The assumption was simple: seniority, industry expertise, and institutional gravitas would be enough. The deal ultimately collapsed. Not over technical specifications or financial terms, but over relationships that were never truly built.

A mid-level government official felt sidelined rather than respected. A local business leader acknowledged the chairman’s credentials yet found the engagement culturally tone-deaf. What was perceived in the boardroom as 'robust public affairs' was experienced on the ground as distant and transactional. This is not an isolated failure. It reflects a deeper structural misunderstanding of what public affairs means in African markets and why corporate diplomacy must be treated as a core strategic discipline, not a ceremonial one.

The misdiagnosis: Treating Africa as a sector problem

In many Western markets, public affairs practice has a clear and bounded definition: government relations, regulatory strategy, policy advocacy, and stakeholder communication. The rules are formalised, institutions are predictable, and professional roles are largely separated from personal identity.
African markets operate on a fundamentally different logic. Business engagement is rarely impersonal. Executives, regulators, and intermediaries do not act solely as representatives of institutions; they bring personal credibility, community standing, and long-standing relationships into every interaction.

Power and influence flow through informal networks that cut across sectors: banking, infrastructure, energy, telecommunications, logistics, and politics. Yet many multinational companies approach Africa as a sector challenge. They assume that deep industry expertise, elevated to the boardroom, will unlock markets. Former ministers are appointed to boards. Veteran executives are asked to 'handle relationships'. The underlying belief is that seniority plus sector knowledge equal influence.

This is a misdiagnosis. Sector expertise explains regulations, but it does not explain relationships. It clarifies formal authority, but not informal power. As a result, companies often misread relational gaps as regulatory delays or interpret political hesitation as technical resistance. The real issues remain unaddressed, and deals stall or fail.

The reality: Africa operates as a multi-sector relationship ecosystem

What companies encounter in African markets is not a fragmented set of sector-specific stakeholders, but an interconnected relationship ecosystem. Decisions taken in mining are influenced by dynamics in energy and transport. Telecommunications investments are shaped by banking relationships and political capital accumulated elsewhere. A partnership blocked in one ministry may be the result of unresolved tensions in an entirely different sector.

Board-level diplomacy, however prestigious, is rarely designed to navigate this complexity. Board directors tend to see the market through the lens of their own industry. They recognise formal hierarchies but often miss the informal networks and historical frictions that determine whether trust exists. This is where corporate diplomacy becomes decisive. Properly understood, it is not about access or protocol. It is about relationship architecture. Corporate diplomacy maps how sectors, institutions, and individuals interact over time. It identifies who influences whom, why certain actors remain silent, and where unresolved grievances sit beneath the surface.

Specialised public affairs practitioners operating as corporate diplomats bring three critical capabilities: cross-sector fluency, cultural intelligence, and strategic patience. They understand that what appears to be a technical or regulatory issue is often a relational one and that trust must be established before authority or expertise can be effective.

The shift required: Corporate diplomacy as the foundation of public affairs

For c-suite leaders, this reality demands a fundamental change in sequencing. Too often, companies lead with regulatory mapping and deploy board-level engagement early, hoping relationships will follow. In African markets, this approach is frequently reversed.

Corporate diplomacy must come first. Early engagement by specialists with continental experience and multi-sector perspective helps build trust, surface hidden interdependencies, and align expectations before commercial or technical negotiations intensify. Industry expertise and board authority then become accelerators powerful precisely because a relational foundation already exists. This expanded approach does not weaken traditional public affairs; it strengthens it. Government relations, policy advocacy, and communications remain essential, but they are effective only when embedded within a broader understanding of how relationships function across sectors and societies.

The companies that build durable positions in Africa are those that redefine public affairs to include cultural fluency, ecosystem intelligence, and long-term relationship management. They recognise that every engagement carries personal meaning, and that respect and trust are strategic assets, not soft considerations. As Africa continues to attract global investment, the question is no longer whether corporate diplomacy matters. It is whether executives are prepared to treat it as a professional discipline, central to strategy rather than peripheral to execution.

In a continent where relationships underpin commercial success, corporate diplomacy is public affairs, properly understood.