Leadership Lessons with Dominick Moxon-Tritsch, Former Head of Public Policy at Uber, Bolt and Getir

Peter Ferguson, Managing Consultant at Hanson Search, spoke with Dominick Moxon-Tritsch, a senior public affairs and policy leader with over two decades of experience managing political and regulatory risk for global tech companies for the past 12 years. Dominick discusses the shift of public affairs from a communications backwater to a strategic business function, the importance of resilience and data literacy and the challenges of an increasingly polarised world.

How do you get into policy and public affairs?

I grew up in a political family. My father had been a member of the Labour Party but became one of the early funders of the SDP after the Gang of Four defected in 1981. As a result, politics was always part of the conversation at home. I went on to study politics at university and joined the Labour Party in the mid-1990s, though I left in 2003 over the Iraq War. I’d always wanted to work in public policy, but a career in  the civil service didn’t appeal and nor did working as an MP’s researcher.

After two years of searching, I landed a graduate traineeship at Hill & Knowlton, which proved to be a brilliant starting point. In those days, we still received hard copies of Hansard every morning and my role was to go through the previous day’s proceedings, pick out the relevant consultations, debates or references for client teams and highlight what was important.

That experience gave me a granular grounding in how UK law is made. It taught me to love the detail and become more of a policy detail animal than a narrative person.

And what do you think are the key qualities needed from leaders in public affairs and politics in 2025?

Resilience is the first and most important quality. Since the dot.com crash and the global financial crisis , we’ve lived through what I’d describe as an ongoing perma-crisis, a period of constant disruption and uncertainty. Public affairs leaders need to bring clarity to that chaos, helping senior management make sense of rapidly shifting geopolitical, regulatory and political landscapes.

The second essential quality is data fluency. The days when you could build influence purely through storytelling are over. Policymaking today is – usually, and ideally – driven by evidence and you need the skills to interpret and use data effectively. Being able to make a clear, quantitative case, whether through economic impact, ROI or market analysis, is now fundamental. Without that, you’re dead in the water.

That shift is partly driven by technology, but also by the period of low interest rates, when businesses had to work much harder to generate yield. It forced a focus on the granular basics:P&L, ROI and every line item of cost, and that analytical discipline has carried over into public affairs work.

If you want to make the case for corporate engagement on a policy issue, you need to be able to read a balance sheet and present a solid business case. You have to speak the language of business and that language is numbers.

What are the key challenges in your role and how are you navigating them?

Since 2011, my work has focused on managing and mitigating political and regulatory risk at a global level. The first major challenge has been accessing talent. In less developed public affairs markets, finding competent practitioners can be very difficult. I spent months trying to find someone solid to cover North Africa as the talent pool was pretty shallow. Unfortunately, many companies are reluctant to involve external experts in hiring which is often short-sighted.

The second challenge is state capability. Across much of the developed world, politicians seem to have access to the levers of power – but the question arises whether they are connected to anything. Passing new laws is easy, but enforcing them is another matter when public authorities  often lack the resources to do. For example, in the UK the Environment Agency doesn’t have the capacity to regulate the water industry properly. The result is policy failure. Legislation that looks good in headlines when announced delivers little in practice.

How important is public affairs at board level?

Before the financial crisis, public affairs was often seen as a corporate backwater. That’s changed dramatically. Today, it’s a core capability, especially in high-risk or heavily regulated industries. When I started, public affairs typically reported to the Head of Communications, who would typically report to the CMO. Now, the Head of Public Policy often reports to, or even sits alongside, the General Counsel. That would have been unimaginable twenty years ago. This shift reflects the fact that political risk touches every aspect of every business. Companies and investors, need detailed visibility into how those risks are being managed, because it can directly impact returns.

Lawyers, particularly corporate lawyers, are trained to minimise legal risk and rightly so. But when that caution goes too far, it can close off opportunities for constructive engagement with regulators and policymakers.

Public affairs is in effect an upstream legal practice, it’s about shaping what the law is  before it’s actually written. Once something’s published in Hansard or gazetted, it becomes the legal team’s territory. The lines between legal and policy are naturally overlapping, so collaboration is key. When the Head of Public Policy and General Counsel work closely together, things run smoothly. When they don’t, you tend to get tension, turf wars and poor outcomes.

How do you see public affairs evolving in the next five years?

We’re at a real turning point. Traditional storytelling approaches may not hold up against the rise of AI. We’re now in a world where opposing viewpoints often exist completely separately, each with its own version of the truth. In this post-fact environment, where even respected institutions can be attacked simply for publishing data someone in power doesn’t like, it’s harder than ever to maintain trust and credibility.

In the US, political polarisation has made genuine cross-party engagement increasingly difficult. Lobbyists often find it difficult to get traction unless they’re seen to be aligned with the party in power. My worry is that Europe could be heading the same way. As the saying goes, when the US catches a cold, Europe tends to catch the flu.

What advice would you have for someone looking to build a career in public affairs?

Enjoy the journey. It’s a great career and truly a backstage pass to everything.

Getting started remains the hardest part. The traditional path of Russell Group degree, a few years working for an MP, then a consultancy role still works. But I’m proud of the profession for widening access. The PRCA’s campaign against unpaid internships was a big win for social mobility, giving people from non-traditional backgrounds a fair shot. I’d love to see more companies follow Vodafone’s lead in earmarking graduate roles for external affairs. And I’d like the industry to reach beyond the politically connected, to attract people who can craft policy and narratives that works across society, not just for the Westminster bubble. Finally, we should emulate the legal profession’s apprenticeship model. Law firms give their trainees structured pathways and recognised qualifications. Public affairs should do the same. It would make our profession more inclusive, more mobile and more respected.

Whether you’re hiring top Public Affairs talent or considering your next career move, our team would be delighted to support you.

Peter Ferguson is Managing Consultant in the Public Affairs Practice. Peter advises and supports some of the world’s most renowned communications consultancies, boutique public affairs agencies and global in-house clients.

Hanson Search is a globally recognised, award-winning talent advisory and headhunting consultancy. Our expertise lies in building successful ventures worldwide through our recruitment, interim and executive search in communications, sustainability, public affairs and policy, digital marketing and sales.