We create positive change by connecting separate worlds. Can’t think of a better reason to be in business.
Combining perspectives from different places – identifing strategies, positions and ideas that may surprise you
Analyses and Insights. What we read and write, share and think about
From Influence to Coherence: The Leadership Challenge Behind Corporate Affairs
Corporate Affairs has spent years securing a seat at the leadership table. The question now is what comes next. As the boundaries between markets, politics, regulation, and societal expectations continue to dissolve, influence alone is no longer enough. Organizations are increasingly judged as coherent entities rather than collections of specialized functions, and reputation, trust and legitimacy are becoming reflections of organizational behavior rather than communication efforts. What’s at stake isn’t visibility. It is the ability to align decisions, commitments, and accountability across competing demands. In that environment, the challenge is no longer coordination between functions. It is coherence across the organization – and the leadership required to sustain it.
When Sustainability Becomes Leadership
In his latest column for Børsen, Kresten Schultz Jørgensen argues that sustainability has entered a new phase. After years centered on legitimacy, targets and mobilisation, the challenge is no longer to promote sustainability but to govern it. As the public visibility of ESG declines, the real test becomes organisational: how to embed responsibility in decisions, priorities and leadership when the moral momentum begins to fade.
The executive suite is closed territory for the communicator – that is where responsibility is taken
In this Kommunikationsforum column, Kresten Schultz Jørgensen argues that the absence of communication executives from top management is not an oversight, but a consequence. Despite the profession’s claim to own trust and legitimacy, it rarely holds decision-making authority where it matters most.
He points to a structural weakness: a field without clear mandate or monopoly tends to operate in generalities that fall short of real business accountability. Executive teams, by contrast, are defined by responsibility for choices and their consequences.
The conclusion is clear: communication must either take co-responsibility for decisions on operations, capital and risk – or accept its role as an external corrective. Only one leads to a seat at the table.
Welcome to Tom & Kresten
An intellectual cushion room for those who care about communication – or are simply curious about the world.
Every month, two seasoned advisors meet at the mic to unpack what lies beneath the messages of the moment: big ideas, subtle trends, and timeless thinking.
We meet once a month. And we promise: it’s never boring. Just necessary. Tune in – and think along.
Episode 1: Kort og terræn
Episode 1: Kort og terræn
Podcast Launch: Tom & Kresten
We have launched the podcast Tom & Kresten – a new conversational space about a world in flux, leadership under pressure, and the growing sense that the terrain is beginning to move faster than the maps designed to navigate it.
Together with Tom Bue – a seasoned radio and media personality from Northern Jutland and a long-time observer of people, power, and media dynamics – Kresten Schultz Jørgensen explores the shifts currently shaping public discourse, institutions, and organisations.
The conversations revolve around geopolitics, technology, narratives, legitimacy, leadership, and media. But also about doubt, judgement, and the art of finding orientation while the world order improvises in real time.
The format is intentionally more clubhouse than channel. An intellectual sanctuary for people who may not lack information – but perhaps miss perspective, direction, and meaningful conversations without PowerPoint and panic.
And yes: there are quizzes. There are tangents. There is seriousness. And, occasionally, a surprising amount of Northern Jutland woven into it all.
The podcast is now available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Latest perspectives
Case Interview – Thomas Børve, Kvadrant: On Growth, Autonomy, and the Decision to Join Something Larger
Danish consulting firms are increasingly joining global organisations – not because they lack capability, but because clients now demand broader reach, implementation capacity, and technological depth. Kvadrant’s decision to join Elixirr reflects this shift. But beneath the logic of scale lies a more delicate challenge: how to expand capabilities without losing the organisational qualities that created value in the first place. What is being integrated is not only expertise, but a way of working shaped by proximity to clients, fast decision-making, and local autonomy. As firms become part of larger international structures, a new tension emerges between standardisation and independence. The question is not only how organisations grow – but whether they can remain distinct while becoming part of something larger.
From Influence to Coherence: The Leadership Challenge Behind Corporate Affairs
Corporate Affairs has spent years securing a seat at the leadership table. The question now is what comes next. As the boundaries between markets, politics, regulation, and societal expectations continue to dissolve, influence alone is no longer enough. Organizations are increasingly judged as coherent entities rather than collections of specialized functions, and reputation, trust and legitimacy are becoming reflections of organizational behavior rather than communication efforts. What’s at stake isn’t visibility. It is the ability to align decisions, commitments, and accountability across competing demands. In that environment, the challenge is no longer coordination between functions. It is coherence across the organization – and the leadership required to sustain it.
When Expertise Stops Practising
Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing the practice of communication. Most discussions focus on productivity, scale, and new capabilities. Less attention is given to a more fundamental question: what happens to professional judgement when the processes through which it is developed become automated? This Perspective explores the tension between efficiency and expertise–and why communication may be at risk of outsourcing the very capability that has always defined its value.
Projects
.webp)
Our services are not a window of prototype products:
We see who you are, your potential and probably also your limitations. We challenge you by connecting wisdom from politics, business and culture.
And then we find what you truly need.
Buzzing
Featured podcasts
Media, Power and Provocation on Q&CO
In conversation with Henrik Qvortrup, Kresten Schultz Jørgensen tackles media responsibility, image ethics, and the price of silence.
Media, Power and Provocation on Q&CO
Leadership Nuances Unpacked
Grateful to Børsen for a thoughtful panel on leadership, from loyalty to personal branding, with insights from top experts Claus Richter and Pernille Steen Pedersen and Kresten from SJ&K.
Leadership Nuances Unpacked
Was it cynical spin when the owning family behind Nordic Waste finally broke their silence?
Was it cynical spin when the owning family behind Nordic Waste finally broke their silence? Kresten comments in this podcast.
Was it cynical spin when the owning family behind Nordic Waste finally broke their silence?
Frankly, we are very few people – and we take pride in keeping it that way. We call it the inverted pyramid.
We know politics, business and culture. We write books and read a lot. You probably know us already.
