Global instability, crisis and new balances: Emma Marcandalli explains who the Chief Geopolitical Officer is and why companies are starting to bring geopolitics to the center of strategic decisions
In a world where wars, sanctions, trade tensions and diplomatic crises are no longer exceptional events but part of the daily landscape, companies are also forced to rethink their way of making decisions. This transformation is told Emma Marcandalli, Managing Director of Protivitia multinational group that offers management consultancy services in the areas of governance, risk and compliance, organization and processes, digital transformation, technology, data and artificial intelligence.
Marcandalli brought the topic to the center of the annual Forum Nedcommunitythe first Italian association of non-executive and independent directors, founded in 2004, during the meeting last January 22nd in Milan. And he spoke about a figure who is still little known, but who testifies to an important paradigm shift in the geopolitical approach to the strategic management of the company: the Chief Geopolitical Officer (CGO).
From a reactive to a proactive approach
The birth of the CGO, explains Marcandalli, is the response to a world that has changed more than anyone could have predicted in recent years. For decades, companies have managed crises reactively, intervening when the problem had already exploded. Today, however, instability has become structural: pandemic, war in Ukraine, Middle East, decoupling between China and the United States. In this context, continuing to think with organizational models designed for a stable world is simply illogical.
The CGO was created precisely to bring the geopolitical variable into the heart of decision-making processes. He is not a lobbyist with a new title, nor a traditional risk manager. Rather, he is a hybrid figure, halfway between strategist and corporate diplomat, who reports directly to the CEO and has access to the Board of Directors.
What does a Chief Geopolitical Officer do?
The main task of the CGO is to integrate geopolitical intelligence into business strategy. Monitors international contexts, builds scenarios, evaluates the impact of conflicts, sanctions, new regulations and diplomatic crises regarding supply chains, investments and outlet markets.
It does not, therefore, limit itself to analysis: it prepares contingency plans, coordinates the response to crises, supports top management in critical moments and manages relations with governments and international bodies. In practice, it transforms geopolitics from “background noise” to a structural variable of the business.
Where the Chief Geopolitical Officer is already present
The figure was born in the Anglo-Saxon world. Halffor example, already in 2018, had appointed a former deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom as Chief Global Affairs Officer, a role that in fact (even if it does not have the name) performs CGO functions. Also Nokia in 2024 it chose the former Finnish ambassador to Russia and the USA as Chief Geopolitical and Government Relations Officer. In Italy, there is an explicit case Fincantieriwhich included the figure of Vice President Geopolitical Studies & Advocacy in the organizational chart.
Yet, according to Marcandalli, diffusion, at least in Italy and at least for the moment, will remain limited. Given the versatility, seniority and consolidated experience required in institutional affairs and international politics, the CGO is not an easy profile to find on the market: its cost is often high, it implies a dedicated budget for staff and access to intelligence services, and requires a certain maturity in the governance model, which are not always present in Italian business realities.
The Italian model
In the Italian context, made up above all of pocket-sized multinationals, it is more realistic to adopt alternative solutions: cross-functional committees, strengthening of existing functions, collaboration with external think tanks, training of top management.
As Marcandalli claims, geopolitics must not remain an isolated competence, but become the widespread heritage of management. Some companies are starting to include advisors with diplomatic or international experience on their boards, bringing a sensitivity to the boards that was previously missing.
Meanwhile Nedcommunity is launching a course on geopolitics for boards of directors. A first step to understand tools and risks linked to the geopolitical variable. Because, whether there is a CGO in the organizational chart or not, geopolitics is now a variable that no company can ignore anymore.
The manager of the future
The Chief Geopolitical Officer is not a current fad, but rather the symptom of a profound change: business is no longer separable from global politics. And companies that continue to ignore this change risk discovering too late that the real critical variables are not just costs or revenues, but maps, borders and balances of power. In an unstable world like the current one, geopolitics can no longer be considered simply a chapter in foreign news. No, it has now become a company function.
