Lobbying and Public Affairs

Public Affairs Services

Public affairs designate relations private entities maintain with public authorities. It groups activities, processes, and questions concerning public interests and shared governance between public and private actors.

Private actors comprise enterprises, investors, associations, and trade unions. Public authorities encompass governments, supra-national institutions, ministries, national and local agencies, and the legislature.

Public affairs form a multifaceted domain that includes regulatory surveillance, institutional communication, alliance building, international relations, awareness campaigns, and lobbying services.

It aims to influence public decisions and policies. The objective consists of creating balance where society's needs conjugate with economic ambitions private entities carry to generate sustainable impact.

Legislative Advocacy and Interest Representation

Lobbying (interest advocacy) is an operational branch of public affairs requiring specialized knowledge. This activity involves both private and public actors influencing decisions made by those responsible for developing, voting on, and implementing policy frameworks. Often centered on economy, energy, environment, or technology sectors, lobbying implies direct or indirect contact with governments, their regional sections, legislators, regulators, and executives.

Whether they represent associations, enterprises, federations, or ideological, cultural, political, religious, professional, technological, artistic, or scientific interest groups, lobbyists seek to orient political actions and decisions governments take. They base their approach on factual arguments, technical studies, and consultations with stakeholders concerned by the topics covered.

Integration Framework

Public affairs and lobbying share objectives: defending interests organizations carry, anticipating evolutions regulations experience, and building legitimacy. They operate at different scales. Their collaboration enables coherent and lasting influence. Public affairs define the "why" and "when" while lobbying ensures the "how" and "who". This integration ensures advocacy actions enroll themselves in a comprehensive approach to institutional relationship management.

This complementarity manifests itself in competence articulation. Institutional surveillance public affairs ensures feeds the argumentation lobbying develops. Reciprocally, relationships lobbyists maintain enrich understanding of political dynamics and refine influence strategies.

Regulatory Environment

Public affairs and lobbying challenges articulate around three dynamics: regulatory complexification undergoes globally, growing interconnection public decisions take, and transparency requirements citizens impose.

This superposition of norms and actors necessitates knowledge to identify opportunities and anticipate constraints. Without public affairs support, organizations expose themselves to non-compliance risks or miss influence windows legislative processes present.

The contemporary context imposes traceability of influence activities across jurisdictions. Transparency registers, declarative obligations, and control citizens conduct reinforce the necessity of adopting an ethical and documented approach. This evolution transforms lobbying into a structured discipline where legitimacy rests on argument quality and democratic process respect.

Client Profile

Public affairs and lobbying address any entity impacted by collective decisions.

• Private enterprises, from SMEs and mid-sized enterprises to multinationals, necessitate understanding of regulations and public actors to protect or favor their operations.
• Investors and Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWI) seek securitization of assets they hold against fiscal and geopolitical changes jurisdictions experience.
• Governments and public institutions mobilize public affairs to coordinate internal and international policies they conduct.
• NGOs, associations and trade unions promote societal causes and defend collective interests.
• Public-private partnerships (PPPs) necessitate fluidification of collaborations public and private spheres engage.
• Universities, think tanks and research centers influence scientific and political agendas, secure public financing states allocate, orient debates and prioritize research subjects.

Operational Methodology

Mad Middleman accompanies and reinforces teams of varied entities — SMEs, mid-sized enterprise groups, trade unions, public institutions, international enterprises — through neutral and transversal frameworks exceeding sectoral boundaries.

We position clients upstream of reforms by dialoguing with appropriate interlocutors. Our approach integrates entrepreneurial objectives into the public ecosystem through connection development. This method simplifies institutional relationships clients conduct to enable them to operate efficiently.

Service Architecture

In partnership with local and international practitioners, services cover the spectrum public affairs embrace and lobbying requires. Missions decompose into several phases that target anticipation, influence, and adaptation: anticipation and regulatory surveillance, influence and dialogue, management and execution, evaluation and compliance, capacity building.

An international enterprise, for instance, may externalize needs it identifies in public affairs and lobbying services while training executives it employs in institutional relations. Its objective consists of benefiting from experience to accelerate implementation it conducts in France. It seeks a counterparty capable of orienting officials it appoints to public affairs, realizing lobbying actions, and training future executives in the profession.

Geographic Scope

Public affairs and lobbying interventions extend to zones where decisions public authorities take are determinant for economic flows internationally. Each context necessitates specific cultural and regulatory adaptation.

In France (metropolitan and overseas), we anticipate or accompany national reforms governments conduct, treat local specificities regions identify, support economic diversification territories seek, promote targeted growth local actors aim for, position clients upstream of reforms, assist their implementation in new territory, and develop synergies between public sector and private sector.

Interventions extend to several zones depending on needs clients express and opportunities we identify through analysis:

• European Union institutions represent a decision-making level for regulations Brussels adopts that affect the single market.
• Middle East offers support opportunities for enterprises we advise that establish themselves in transforming regulatory environments.
• West Africa and sub-Saharan Africa necessitate frameworks that adapt to the institutional contexts these regions present.
• India and Central America are markets where understanding of federal and regional mechanisms is determinant.

We mobilize local practitioners for each geographical zone. We develop partnerships with institutional and private actors who master cultural codes and decision-making processes of authorities specific to each territory.