Shanghai Executive Breakfast Session: Internal Engagement

This Tuesday, we kicked off our Beyond Business as Usual September series by hosting a breakfast discussion focusing on the challenges that companies face after they have developed the vision, created the strategy and now need to develop support from within the business to carry out the mission.

To help participants gain an insider perspective on the topic, we invited Mr. Roy Zhang, the Director of UTC Community Affairs/CSR, Asia, to speak about his experience in engaging internal stakeholders.

Before joining UTC, Roy served as the Senior Manager of Global Citizenship & Policy for Abbott Laboratories China. There, he has developed a local five-year corporate citizenship plan, succeeded at cross-function integration of CSR programs, and built a successful corporate citizenship communications strategy. Prior to Abbott, Roy was an Internal Communications and CSR Manager at SAP Labs China, with over 12 year experience in the area of corporate communication, CSR, sustainability, government and community relations.

Speaking in front of representatives from leading companies, there were a couple a key points that were shared in the room:

  • The interaction between companies and their stakeholders has moved from ‘company-centric’ to ‘Issue-driven’
  • Creative methods to engage leadership can be very effective in getting management team on board; methods include inviting them to give keynote speeches on high-end occasions
  • Sales can be a challenging group to engage with because of their independent personality and their focus on numbers

The breakfast session generated a lot of interesting discussions, and later this week this conversation will be followed by similar conversations in Beijing and Hong Kong as we engage in similar conversations with industry leaders from those markets.

Should you wish to learn more about the Beyond Business As Usual series, please click here to learn more or reach out to Charlie Mathews at [email protected]

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