*The graphic design is inspired by Kyoorius Designyatra 2018
“The Nomad” is a fortnightly published series where I talk to expat PR and Comms professionals, then delve into the insights which inform and help other people to live or to do business in an intercultural world. If you or someone you know would be happy to share their perspective, please get in touch! I’d love to hear from you.
“We need to start doing more immersions because the theory is one thing but when you experience it for yourself, it’s one thing one person telling you about their lived experience, but walk a day in their shoes. […] When you have that level of empathy in the solutions that you provide, you become a lot more creative because you always get a sense of what the pin points are. We want more immersive experiences, not just the theory, but best to either simulate that reality.”
As part of my series about how we can learn from intercultural insights to embed them into PR and Comms practices and help create positive social impacts, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Saint-Francis Tohlang, Corporate Affairs Director, Nestlé, East and Southern Africa Region. At 32, Tohlang is the youngest member of the Executive Committee of Nestlé East & Southern Africa Region.
He holds an Honours degree from Rhodes University and an MA from the University of Cape Town (with distinction) wHe holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences Honours degree from Rhodes University and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Cape Town. He was the recipient of a number of scholarships, most notably the Andrew Mellon Prestigious Scholarship and a recipient of a ‘Rhodes Top 100 Students’ award.
Overseeing the corporate communications and public affairs strategies and efforts for Nestlé across the vast region which comprises of 23 countries, Saint-Francis shared his knowledge and wisdom on the role of intercultural insights when communicating with various stakeholders. He was expatriated to the Nestlé headquarters in Switzerland as Corporate Communications Manager for Asia, Oceania and Sub-Saharan Africa before returning to South Africa in 2020 to take on his current role.
Working in the leadership team for one of the biggest FMCG companies on the planet, Saint-Francis emphasised the power of authenticity when it comes to ESG efforts. We also discussed the world of lobbying and advocacy which oftentimes are considered to be “negative”.
He also took me on a virtual trip to enjoy the wonderful cuisine of this culturally rich region, which has made me hungry for exploring this amazing culture.
Hi Saint-Francis, how are you doing and what has been keeping you busy recently?
Good morning, Son. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been incredibly busy. It’s that time of the year, we’ll be looking to close off the year. So, you know, we’re really trying to close up all the different projects, initiatives that we have going. I’ve also been doing a bit more travel. As you would appreciate the borders have started to really open in our parts of the world, so I’ve been doing a lot of travel within our region as well. So that’s been keeping me very busy, busy.
The Corporate Affairs remit varies from company to company. Can you help us understand your role at Nestlé?
Sure. We are called Corporate Communication and Public Affairs. In terms of the core areas or scope of that, it’s quite varied and different in [different] Nestle markets depending on the size. For our region, East and South Africa, we have internal communications and I have oversight of that, which I think is a very important function within Corporate Affairs. You know, I believe that employees are dormant ambassadors, and through effective internal communication and engagement strategies, you are able to activate them as active brand ambassadors. I think internal communication plays such an important role in Corporate Affairs.
We then have Media Relations. So of course, we’re in the consumer goods space, and we get a lot of queries about our products, or some of the initiatives that we’re running as an organisation. So Media Relations is another key function within Corporate Affairs, and I have oversight of that as well.
We then have Public Affairs, which is essentially managing and overseeing the relationships that we have with external stakeholders. We’ve got many different stakeholders, and it’s important that we have very clear ways in which we engage with those stakeholders from a strategy and management perspective as well.
Then we have Creating Shared Values. Other companies would call this CSI – Corporate Social Investment, or CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility. From a Nestlé perspective it means that we believe in creating shared value, through different initiatives that have a positive impact to the community, shareholders and stakeholders.
And then, of course, PR and corporate digital content. This is really concerned with the external positioning of the company. PR, I think, is quite self-explanatory, but corporate digital content is focused on our own assets, media assets, from a Nestlé perspective and positioning the company through these channels. All of this is the scope for Corporate Affairs – We’re known within the Nestle world as Corporate Communication and Public Affairs, and my scope extends throughout East and South Africa.
Your work focuses on the East and Southern Africa region which comprises of 22 countries. It’s a vast region with rich diversity. You mentioned in a podcast about being authentic when communicating to various stakeholders — Can you elaborate on that please? What are your preferred communications strategies to navigate the complex and competing priorities of different stakeholders?
Yeah, I think it’s a fascinating question, Son. I don’t think it’s an easy thing to achieve. So absolutely, I think relevance and resonance is so important in communication. I mean, that’s really how you ascertain the effectiveness of communication. In many ways, you have to be mindful of the local nuances. Now, as you rightly mentioned at times it’s a very complex landscape. The diversity within this region is quite vast. There has to be a balance of what remains consistent from an organisational perspective. And that’s our purpose and values. It is the overall narrative of Nestle within the markets. So that doesn’t change. But again, it’s about how do you translate the local nuances in your approach.
I think we’re going to touch on intercultural insights as well, following on in the conversation, so I’ll park that for now. That’s so crucial in how you craft your communication so it has local relevance and it resonates. When you achieve that, you’ll find that through authenticity I believe. So, being authentic to the brand, being authentic to the landscape you operate in, be it within the region, be it within the country, and sometimes even within different geospatial differences within a country as well. Being mindful of all of that is so important. It’s not an easy balance to find, but I think with the right amount of understanding, with the right amount of curiosity and with the right amount of insight mining – and again, always cross referencing and referring back to the base, which is your purpose, values and narrative – that’s how we were able to find that sweet spot.
What is the role of intercultural insights when developing those communication strategies?
Oh my goodness! I can’t begin to expand my view on intercultural insights. I think it’s almost criminal not to rely on intercultural insights, especially when you’re operating in a region that’s not a monolith. It’s not one singular culture that is really pervasive across the different countries that you’re operating. So, it is so key. I’ll give you a bit of an example.
I mentioned that I’ve been doing a lot of travel. It’s really important that I do this travel for two things: One is to connect with the countries that you’re part of or you operate in and two, it’s, for me, to constantly have a feel and a touch of the reality on the ground – There’s a certain energy that you can only experience when you’re physically in a particular city or country; and that, for me, is part of my intercultural insights mining. I was recently in Zimbabwe and I think one of the things that we completely – not to say we weren’t aware but probably – fall off on our radar was just how incredibly proud the Zimbabwean nation is. It’s a very patriotic country. But more importantly, there’s such a strong core or an expectation for companies to contribute to the Zimbabwean economy for many different reasons. When you take that insight into how you communicate, then you know, it was a rich opportunity for us to go “We are already contributing to the Zimbabwean economy; we already have proudly manufactured in Zimbabwean products”, which means that in Zimbabwe, we probably would want to talk a little bit more about the contribution that we’re making to the Zimbabwean economy. That’s just a perfect example of intercultural insight for our teams on the ground. It’s one thing to say, but you have to experience it, you have to breathe the air, you have to feel the energy, and not only feel that energy, but also see it in action, go to the marketplace.
I think intercultural insights are so important, not just in complex markets. I think across the world because we’re becoming much more global or still heavily influenced by globalisation, but within that, we almost take what we need and still infuse the local aspects of where we live and where we operate. So that, in itself, is a necessary insight that we need to start appreciating more.
You used to work in Switzerland; coming from South Africa, did you face any challenges when you first came to the country?
It’s an interesting question. Nestlé is a multinational organisation – the work environment is slightly different, of course, to the markets – you have the comfort of knowing that there are many other expats like you, and so you do create a sense of network, a sense of community within a very different country. I think my biggest challenge in Switzerland was language. Within the confines of Nestlé, of course, English is the medium of interactions in the organisation, so there was no problem there, but everything is in French, and I don’t speak any French at all and I think I certainly improved my French during my time in Switzerland – I call it survival French at the very best. I think it’s really around, what are some of the barriers that further prevent you from integrating quicker into a society or into a culture. Language plays a very important part in that. So in the Vaud region of Switzerland, where Nestlé is headquartered in Vevey, that area is French-speaking and so everyone speaks French. So that was probably my biggest challenge. But again, people are very kind, and they’re very polite, maybe a bit insular but certainly I didn’t really feel unwelcomed in their country; more than anything, I felt very welcomed. It was just a struggle of communicating and sharing my experience with them and vice versa.
How do you see the future of intercultural training and competence?
I think we’re really starting to see a more pronounced focus on intercultural training and competency building, diversity and inclusion being one of the key focused areas for organisations and it’s not an optional “nice to have”. We’re living in a localised or you know, global environment and cultures cross-pollinate. We’re seeing a lot more of cross-pollination between cultures, we’re seeing a lot more interactions with different cultures. When I think about the future of intercultural training and competence, there are two things for me that would come to mind or let me rather put it this way, what I would like to see. I think the training that we get is fantastic. Don’t get me wrong, the theory behind the importance of diversity or how companies with a lot more diversity outperform companies without diversity, so the business case is there.
I’ll use the example of my trip to Zimbabwe, which is very recent, and I’ve been to Zimbabwe many a time. We need to start doing more immersions because the theory is one thing but when you experience it for yourself, it’s one thing one person telling you about their lived experience, but walk a day in their shoes. That, for me, is what I call empathetic creativity. You empathise with them a bit more. When you have that level of empathy in the solutions that you provide, you become a lot more creative because you always get a sense of what the pinpoints are. We want more immersive experiences, not just the theory, but best to either simulate that reality. It’s trips, it’s exchanges between colleagues in different parts of the world. That, in itself, is an intercultural experience.
Environmental, social and governance investing is making a big splash in the world of indexing. ESG is treated as one of the biggest growth opportunities. How can companies like Nestle make the most of ESG without losing their credibility, to truly create positive impacts?
Yeah, an interesting question as well. From a Nestlé perspective, I spoke about creating shared value being our approach to what others would call CSI, or CSR. It so strongly correlates to our purpose. As it relates to ESG, we’ve been in that space for a very, very long time. Again, it is authentic, and it is true to our organisational culture. It’s not just because the importance of ESG has been in recent times become more and more important, or the expectation for companies to be ethical to showcase what they’re doing. We have been for a very long time in that space, in fact, I don’t know if you’re familiar with FTSE4Good index [The index measures the performance of companies demonstrating strong Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices] where Nestlé out of five scores 4.9 in terms of the index. So already from an ESG perspective, we’ve been part of that index since 2011. It’s been a few years, but that philosophy of creating shared value has been in existence for a number of years from the Nestle perspective.
Taking away the framing of creating shared value, we’ve been doing that since, I guess, the very beginning of the organisation. To your point, I think we would lose credibility when you suddenly start accelerating all of this because everyone’s talking about ESG or SDGs, etc. If your company has a proven track record over the years of consistently being and contributing and looking to make an impact in that space, your credibility will be harmed in any way. We continue with good commitments, and around sustainability, around many different areas and also the transparency in our reporting.
Nestlé is a huge multinational company, who works with governments, NGOs, media or other activist groups. When people talk about the relationship between big corporations and governments, some people might think immediately about “lobbying” and sometimes it’s not positive, and I believe it’s not a dirty word. What’s your take on that?
I think it’s a really interesting one – this debate between lobbying and advocacy. So let me start with the first part of your question. I think relationships with governments are important. Private and public sector collaboration is so important to achieve and make the impact that needs to be realised across the world. We’re starting to see that it is so important for the public sector and the private sector to collaborate in what I call ecosystems. Within an ecosystem, you have different stakeholders and different partners that bring different things to the table. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship – it has to be in order for the relationship to be successful. When we frame relationships with governments, it’s actually not, in my experience anyway, centered around lobbying efforts at all. So I just want to demystify the framing and context of government, you know, relationships not being positive, or even NGOs or even media, because there’s some sort of collusion happening. I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think that’s reflective of the realities on the ground in many parts of the world.
The second part of your question, which is the one that I think is really interesting, lobbying, advocacy, “is lobbying a bad word”. I think lobbying has, in recent times, become almost a bit of this way negative connotation. I’m not sure where that comes from. Truth be told, lobbying is if you would like to – and I’m choosing my words carefully – influence the direction of policy, and probably in many ways, it’s a much more of a forceful approach, and the main force was not the right word. I mean, I’m struggling with words. [laugh] But I think lobbying is exactly that. You know, it’s really about how you want to push a policy direction. Let’s leave it at that.
Advocacy for me is using the merits of educating, bringing your stakeholders on board and sharing particular concerns or challenges. With advocacy, there’s a respect that regulators or policymakers have a responsibility to make policy so that in many ways through advocacy, you have been able to have a voice at the table. In that way, it’s not “We want you to change x legislation”, but it is, “If the legislation goes in a particular way, these have some of the challenges from our friends who could be the voice of industry – it could be you as an organisation, it could be you representing your community”. Now, some would argue that’s essentially the same thing. So is lobbying advocacy, or is advocacy, just a spin on lobbying? I do think that is slightly nuanced. So is lobbying a bad word? I don’t think so. I just prefer an advocacy approach, if I could put it that way.
What should be the rules and regulations for lobbying? Do we need a framework agreed by countries, governments and professional bodies around the world?
Interesting! I think we need to almost create an ethical standard to how we lobby in an ethical way, in a way that best would achieve the results of still maintaining good relationships and engaging in the right spirit. Ethical standards across the world are principles in which we should adopt with a solid a framework. I don’t ever see something that is very prescriptive, being necessarily effective, given just how diverse the regions across the world are, but yes, ethical standards or some sorts of principles in which we should adopt in how we engage with direct lobbying or advocacy.
What would be the cuisine from the region you want to introduce to the world?
There’s so many! We have a very popular tart called peppermint crisp tart, which by the way, the key ingredient is Nestle peppermint – and it’s not the reason why I like I; I’d love the tarts even before I worked for Nestle. So that’s one of my favourites. In South Africa, there are so many different ethnic groups with 11 official languages, so there are way too many interesting dishes there. Across the region, you go to Kenya, there’s something called Nyama Choma, so I always have Nyama Choma when I travel to Kenya. In fact, I was on holiday in Kenya about a month ago which is really fantastic, so I had Nyama Choma – that’s barbecued meat by the way. Then you move to Mauritius – there’s a really interesting Indian influence, Malaysian influence in the cuisine. There’s boulette which is dim sum, it’s almost the Mauritian dim sum, which is delicious and tasty and very unique. I think it’s something that you might enjoy being Vietnamese with all that Asian richness that’s influenced by Asian cuisines.
Then you go to Mozambique, which is on the coast, and they have the most delicious seafood with Portuguese influence. I could go on and on and on, but those are just a few of my picks from our region. Whenever I go to those countries, I have to have Nyama Choma in Kenya, boulette in Mauritius and some divine seafood in Mozambique, and I could go on and on and on.
