Practice Area 05
Government-linked corporations operate under conditions no private-sector playbook accounts for. We advise GLCs, statutory bodies, and state-linked enterprises on transformation that satisfies commercial expectations and public obligation simultaneously — because both are real.
A GLC is asked to deliver commercial returns and to serve a public purpose that is often in direct tension with them. Standard consulting advice tends to resolve this by treating the public mandate as a constraint to be minimised. That advice is not implementable, and management knows it.
The complexity compounds. Shareholder ministries, regulators, boards with mixed appointment pathways, employee unions, and public scrutiny all hold legitimate positions. Decisions that would be straightforward in a private enterprise require alignment across several of these before they can move at all.
Our principals have led and governed within this environment. We advise on transformation that is genuinely deliverable inside these constraints — sequencing change to build the political and stakeholder support it needs, rather than assuming that support and stalling when it is absent.
A transformation mandate has been issued with an unrealistic timeline attached.
Commercial and public-purpose objectives are pulling management in opposite directions.
Board and shareholder ministry expectations are not aligned and no one has said so.
Previous restructuring stalled at the point of stakeholder resistance.
GLC engagements typically run six to eighteen months. Sequencing matters more here than anywhere else in our practice.
We establish what is actually being asked, by whom, and against what measure — which is frequently less settled than the mandate document suggests. Every stakeholder with the capacity to enable or block is identified and their position assessed honestly.
We test the mandate against operational reality and surface the points where commercial and public objectives genuinely conflict. These are named explicitly rather than managed around, because unnamed tensions resurface at the worst moment.
The change agenda is designed and sequenced for deliverability within the stakeholder environment — early moves chosen to build credibility and coalition, harder moves positioned once support exists.
Structured engagement with the board, shareholder ministry, regulators, and employee representatives. Alignment is built before decisions are taken, not defended after they are announced.
Implementation support with a reporting architecture that satisfies public accountability requirements without generating a reporting burden that consumes the transformation itself.
Shaped by the mandate, the governance structure, and the stakeholder environment specific to the entity.
Translation of a high-level directive into a deliverable programme, including honest counsel on what the timeline permits.
Mapping of shareholder ministry, regulator, board, union, and public interests, with a deliberate engagement approach for each.
Structured work to make the trade-offs explicit and to establish decision rules for where they conflict.
Board composition, committee architecture, delegation, and reporting lines designed for dual-mandate accountability.
Measures that reflect both commercial performance and public purpose, resistant to gaming and defensible under scrutiny.
Advisory through chief executive and board transitions, where GLC appointment processes carry their own considerations.
Our principals have operated inside this environment as executives and directors. We are not applying private-sector method to a public-sector entity and hoping it transfers.
The constraint set. Decisions require alignment across shareholder ministry, board, regulator, and often employee representatives before they can proceed. Advice that ignores this is not implementable, however sound the commercial logic.
Not always, and pretending otherwise is where most GLC transformation goes wrong. Some trade-offs are real. Our contribution is to make them explicit, quantify them, and establish decision rules — so the organisation chooses deliberately rather than drifting.
Where the board mandates it, yes. Often our most useful role is helping the entity and its shareholder reach a shared and realistic view of what the mandate means in practice.
We will tell you so, in writing, and then help you design the sequence that gets furthest within it — usually by front-loading visible, deliverable change while building the case for what the remainder actually requires.
Early and directly. In our experience, restructuring that engages employee representatives before decisions are announced moves faster overall, even where the initial conversations are harder.
Yes, subject to the disclosure obligations that apply to your entity. We work within public accountability requirements and advise on what they mean for engagement documentation.
Most GLC transformation problems are stakeholder problems before they are operational ones. A first conversation usually establishes which you are facing.