Corporate Affairs Academy

Improve the impact of corporate affairs across your organisation.

The Corporate Affairs Academy is designed exclusively for senior corporate affairs directors of major international companies and we accept people on the programme who are already in the role and operating at the most senior level in the department.

Membership is by invitation only for a period of one year and will be open to a limited number of senior Corporate Affairs and Communications Executives from major corporations around the world.

Informed and strategic corporate affairs activity helps create significant business value and prepares organisations to best recover from downside risks and crises. Organisations operating in fast paced information overload environments are counting on corporate affairs professionals to make the judgements that are required to build long term success.

Participants benefit from a balance of leading academic research and functional best practices.

The Academy focuses on three core, interrelated themes:

Reputation research, theory and thinking Reputation engagement, trends and practices Professional development as reputation experts; high-value purpose, practices and resources You will be equipped with practical steps for immediate implementation in your organisation.

Run by the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation - our aim is to enable you to make a more strategic and valuable contribution to your business by providing you with an opportunity to connect with the latest academic research in the field and share experiences, ideas, and best practice with expert faculty and a global peer group of Corporate Affairs Directors.

Benefits

To you

• Develop senior corporate affairs contacts globally
• Opportunity to shape the future of corporate affairs
• Enhanced impact at Board level
• Ongoing access to the latest research and events

To your business

• Enhanced strategic direction
• Improved business efficiency
• Strategies to minimise risk

Programme outline

Module one (Virtual)

The introductory module will anchor the roles and responsibilities of the Corporate Affairs function to the latest insights, tools and techniques available to senior professionals in the field. Drawing on peer reviewed research in behavioural insights, network structures and narrative strategies, the plenary session will set up a series of in-depth breakout sessions where these core themes and strategies will be further developed. These breakout sessions will be led by faculty tutors and will result in short insight papers from each group. The breakout groups will reconvene in March to share and discuss the insights generated.

Module two (Virtual)

As a complement to our Academy Cohort discussions, this module brings in external perspectives from past members of the Academy and other global corporate affairs leaders. This event will have two parts: first, a presentation sharing the initial findings from the from 2022 Oxford-GlobeScan Corporate Affairs Survey; and second, a moderated panel discussion on these findings with corporate affairs leaders. These insights will immediately be available to members of the Academy to use and share with their colleagues, and will be supplemented by a written summary which will be shared shortly after the event.

Module three (Virtual)

We will bring insights from reputation, leadership, trust, governance, responsible business and purpose to develop a clear understanding around how to organise and articulate the function. High performing functional leaders are able to do this well, explaining the meta-power of these social approval assets on firm performance.

Module four (On-campus)

This in person capstone aims to achieve a number of important final objectives. First, it provides an opportunity for members of the Academy to meet in person, and to share in a semi-structured environment their insights and issues with peers. Second, it will be an opportunity for the faculty to hold deep dive in person sessions on the issues surfaced during the Academy year. Third, we will invite leaders from business, the professions, government and the NGO sectors to share their own perspectives on some of the themes discussed during the year. We will also explore the unique scholarly environment that is Oxford, with in-College dining and other cultural events.