CEOs are getting guff for pulling up to the table with Trump.
As we’ve drawn closer to January 20 and the start of a new administration, national news organizations have turned their focus to business leaders and companies who have donated to Donald Trump’s inauguration committee, as well as those who have signaled a new posture towards working with the incoming administration.
Both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post invited me to share some insights based on Penta’s work with corporate executive and public affairs leadership who are navigating the new landscape.
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Some excerpts:
Consultants have been advising companies that it is in their interests to support the inauguration and secure a meeting with Trump. “The old saying is, if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu,” said Kevin Madden, a longtime Republican strategist who said he advises his corporate clients to be proactive in getting involved in policy discussions. “There’s going to be a lot of work being done in 2025 and 2026, and the process starts now.”
Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist and senior partner at the corporate consulting firm Penta Group, said companies would rather spend money than be sidelined as "spectators" by an administration whose decisions could reshape tech policy for years to come.
"They've all been through a decade-long learning process about Trump and the changing Republican Party," he said. "If you have that opportunity to be at the table, you have to take it."
Corporate and organizational leaders will continue to endure scrutiny as they prepare and implement their strategies to deal with a new administration.
And that’s fine. “Expedite the inevitable" is a good rule, for both politics and business.
The best approach? Embrace this period of change for exactly what it is (and what politics has always been): an ongoing learning process where the country’s elected leaders and corporate leaders are regularly humbled by the voters—and the marketplace—into learning something new.
Business leaders—and organizational leaders, more broadly—have currently been through a decade-long learning process about Trump's influence on our politics. This includes a transformation of our country’s major political parties, along with a dramatically changed consumer marketplace.
Views about major topics, ranging from the role of business in communities, to technology, the workforce, automation, the media...have all shifted in that same timeframe.
Organizations and their leaders have a responsibility to their shareholders, their employees, and to the communities their businesses call home, to remain constantly engaged with their elected officials.
There is simply no substitute for the effectiveness of direct engagement.
Players on the field, obviously, have a better chance to shape the outcome of a match. You can't just be a spectator.
The policy and market implications of AI, tax policy, trade policy, workforce policy crafted over the next five years will reshape the economy for the next 25 after that. Organizational leaders have to establish their seat at the table as those decisions are made.
Because, to reiterate a point, if you're not at the table, there's a good chance you'll be on the menu.
(C) 2025 - Just Maddening
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