Together with the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) hosts an event on corporate diplomacy. Tim Hughes, the keynote speaker, is a former researcher and manager and founder of the SAIIA Parliamentary Office. He administrated several important areas within the organisation, including the investment advisory, research and the provision of government relation services to corporate members like MTN and Woolworths. Furthermore, he has served as the BBC’s Nelson Mandela Researcher. He has published two books and has edited another 24.

Digging into various research topics during his academic career he has gathered profound knowledge on diverse fields. Speaking of corporate diplomacy, he refers to the phenomenon that huge corporations exercise a tremendous influence on each individual’s everyday life. Thus, they are often regarded as a special kind of threat that has the potential to subvert the state monopoly of power. However, in the face of today’s far advanced globalization, multi-national enterprises are confronted with the multiple challenges of cross-border and -cultural kind that remain to be explored.