What if corporate affairs had a transfer market?
by Warren Madlin, Director
Football’s transfer market is strange, occasionally brutal and completely unlike normal working life.
But it does force clubs to think about talent as something that must be identified, developed, protected and planned for - not merely replaced when it disappears.
So, as a thought experiment: what if corporate affairs worked the same way?
Imagine a senior Brussels adviser has eighteen months left on their contract. FGS wants them to lead a new European offer; APCO wants to keep them. Instead of a resignation arriving without warning, the two firms negotiate a transfer fee - or the candidate activates a release clause agreed years earlier.
If no deal is reached, they stay. If their contract expires, they become a free agent and can move to London, New York or Washington without compensation.
That would immediately change the economics of developing people.
A consultancy might recruit someone at graduate level, train them for a decade, introduce them to clients and help them build a market reputation - only to watch a competitor hire them at precisely the point they become most valuable. Football recognises that investment through training compensation. Corporate affairs largely treats it as the cost of doing business.
Loans would also make sense. A promising London consultant could spend a year in Brussels; a Washington specialist could join another agency before returning with broader experience.
Then there is the MLS-style Discovery List.
Suppose Brunswick, FleishmanHillard and Edelman could each register five people from competitors that they believed might become important future hires. They would not own them - but they would have priority if that person entered the market.
Legally and ethically, the idea falls apart fairly quickly. But the comparison exposes something real.
Football clubs map talent years ahead, monitor contract risk, develop successors and know who they would approach before a vacancy exists. Many corporate affairs firms say that people are their greatest asset, yet still begin succession planning only when someone resigns.
Corporate affairs probably does not need transfer fees, release clauses or discovery rights. But it might benefit from treating talent less like an unexpected vacancy - and more like a market that never stops moving.
MadlinHanna Consulting is a recruitment consultancy specialising in public affairs, corporate communications and financial PR. Contact us in London on +44 (0) 20 8088 4102 or in Brussels on +32 (0) 2 586 38 98 for more information or a confidential conversation about these services and more.