Fellows

Mathilde Mesnard, deputy director for financial and enterprise affairs at the OECD, reflects on the necessity of trust

“If you don’t have trust from your customers, you won’t have business. If you don’t have trust from your employees, you will lose them, or you won’t be able to attract them. If you don’t have trust from your investors, you won’t have capital, etc.,” says Mathilde Mesnard, the deputy director for financial and enterprise affairs of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The issue of trust is fresh in Mesnard’s mind, having just taken part in the OECD’s first Trust in Business Forum. She moderated a Q&A on “Trust in Business: The future of business” and delivered the Forum’s concluding remarks.

Mesnard says, “We bring various people to discuss relevant issues, timely issues, and we do think that trust in business is an important issue because you had kind of a collapse of trust in business since the bigger financial crisis in 2008 and 2009.”

Mesnard spoke while attending the latest installment of the Salzburg Global Corporate Governance Forum: Friend or Foe – How Should Directors Face Disruptive Risk.

She joined other leaders from around the world to share insights and expertise in Salzburg Global’s own conditions of trust and openness. Mesnard and others reflected on corporate duty, climate risk, board composition, managing risk, and assessing who the new shareholders are.

Trust is necessary for business, indicates Mesnard, and it’s fundamental. Mesnard explains trust becomes a system of checks and balances for a corporation, keeping the board and the company in check. If a company loses the trust of its customers, they can lose confidence from investors and the public at large.

“The big message is that trust is what has to be beyond compliance. And that’s really the issue to us so far, that companies feel it’s enough to be compliant with the rules,” says Mesnard.

It comes down to how a business anticipates broad trends when faced with disruptive risk, advises Mesnard, as well as the long-term strategic vision for the board of directors.

Mesnard says, “So, as a board member, you should really ask yourself, do we have an issue of trust, and what do we need to do to avoid any crisis?”

To avoid a trust crisis, Mesnard clarifies, it is better to be proactive and not reactive. Trust, according to her, is, in reality, an essential element of growth in a company at the macro level. She says, “If businesses don't trust that you will have growth or that you have customers, they don't invest.

This is the second program of the Salzburg Global Corporate Governance Forum Mesnard has attended, having previously been a participant at Brave New World: How Can Corporate Governance Adapt? in 2018. She spoke with Salzburg Global then about gender equality and “pushing for more diversity in general.”

Reflecting on this year’s program, Mesnard says, “[The OECD] are at the public policy level, and we discuss whether we should change a regulatory framework, etc. But we are not necessarily that close to what's happening [on] the board. So for me, that's what I take from [this year’s program]. It's really a reality check on the current discussions.”

The Salzburg Global Seminar Program, Friend or Foe – How Should Directors Face Disruptive Risk, is part of the Salzburg Global Corporate Governance Forum annual program. The program is held in partnership with the CLP Group and supported by Barclays, BNY Mellon, and Elliott.