🎙️ Episode 37: When Policy Becomes Risk—Building Government Affairs That Protect Business

Industrial Risk: Beyond The Blueprint

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🎙️ Episode 37: When Policy Becomes Risk—Building Government Affairs That Protect Business

In heavy industry, a new regulation can shut down operations. How to transform government affairs into a strategic business function that identifies "invisible" risks before they are signed into law?

Jowanza Joseph

Apr 06, 2026

In this episode, Taras "Terry" Szmagala Jr., recently retired Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer at Eaton , shares how cross-functional integration of legal, compliance, and communications is the key to navigating global industrial risk.

About the Guest

Taras ("Terry") Szmagala Jr. is the founder of TGS Advisory, where he helps organizations build critical government affairs capabilities. From 2022 to 2025, he served as the Chief Legal Officer at Eaton, a global intelligent power management company. Prior to that, he led Eaton’s global corporate communications and government affairs, representing the company at federal, state, and local levels worldwide. Terry’s unique perspective is shaped by decades of corporate leadership and early-career experience working in Ukraine during its massive political transition in the 1990s.

Key Takeaways:

🏛️ Policy as Strategy

Companies must move away from reactive crisis management and treat government affairs as a strategic function essential to long-term operations.

🤝 The Danger of Silos

Separating legal, compliance, and communications into different departments is dangerous; combining them allows leaders to spot emerging risks much faster.

🚩 Ethical Red Flags

Organizations can pass their audits while their culture is becoming fragile. Terry highlights the subtle warning signs that ethical governance is at risk.

🚩 Red Flags in Audits

“Low rates” can be a dangerous metric for success if the underlying classification codes or audit data are incorrect.

📊 The ESG Implementation Gap

While boards often make ambitious ESG promises, government affairs expertise is required to bridge the gap between high-level intentions and measurable outcomes.

🔍 Prioritizing Threats

For companies operating across multiple international jurisdictions, the challenge is filtering through political noise to identify the specific policy shifts that could actually halt operations.