Turning strategy into execution.

This is the sequence I follow on every policy, from first scoping through publication to enforcement:

1. Define the scope with your team. Keep it simple, to the point, and aimed at the most important outcome you're trying to achieve.
2. Test the scope informally with your counterparts. Get a sense of which policy elements they like and which they don't — inspection and monitoring, for example, might be far more difficult than you assumed.
3. Brainstorm solutions together. Work through the sticking points with your counterparts and your team before anything gets formalized.
4. Update the policy and the implementation plan.
5. Seek formal alignment at the senior level — Minister or Chairman, Undersecretary, Director General. Senior leadership is usually aligned on the mission, but prepare anyway: understand their objectives and pain points, and address questions and concerns in the meeting itself. It significantly increases your chances of buy-in.
6. Set up multi-stakeholder working teams, and be their facilitator. That means both logistics (setting up the meetings) and content (making sure every policy and implementation element gets defined and agreed). In person is much, much better — it creates the human element. Have empathy: these policies are extra work for counterparts who may already be at 100% capacity. If you can take a pain point off their plate, do it — they will really appreciate it.
7. Provide updates and raise escalations on an ongoing basis, especially when decisions or formal agreements are stalling. Keep escalations informal — most get resolved through a quick phone call. This is constant. You will get stuck on the most minute level of detail, so seek help and escalate gently, without raising alarms or creating animosity.
8. Consult the broader group — residents, the private sector, media. Once the draft is near final, seek more feedback before publication; industry consultation is often critical for buy-in. Not all feedback needs to be implemented — much of it will conflict — but people know they were heard, and you can prepare accordingly.
9. When the policy is published, recognize everyone involved. Publicly credit the different stakeholders. Privately recognize the working team to their leaders for the work they put in to make it succeed.
10. Start enforcement with monitoring, not fines. Keep the inspection simple and embed it into processes that already exist — the food safety inspection that already happens in retail stores can now also check nutritional values. Make it easy for the inspectors to actually do. Track the results and test whether the policy is working; if 40% of stores are failing the same requirement, the requirement is probably badly written, not the stores badly behaved. Update the requirements and the inspection process, and consult the stakeholders before issuing a single formal fine. Once the updates are in place and the trial period is done, move to fines and the more litigious approach — advise first, then warn, then fine.
11. Assess the impact. Is the policy driving the changes you intended? Run a comprehensive baseline assessment before the policy takes effect and a follow-up after, and compare the two — you cannot reconstruct "before" once "after" has started. Keep compliance and outcomes separate: every store can be compliant tomorrow while health outcomes take years to move. If the numbers say the policy isn't working, revise it — that takes you back to step one, and that's fine.

In my first six months, I was going at 200% and expecting my counterparts to do the same. We are a delivery unit, so I was just expecting everyone to "deliver". Only after hitting continuous roadblocks did I start to realize that my approach was not right. "Delivery" to me means something very different to others. I needed to understand my counterparts much better — and adapt my approach to each person, each stakeholder, each entity.

I found the policy scope and design easy. Implementation is much tougher, because every stakeholder has different needs. And that has very little to do with policy — it's about culture and organizational setup. Every entity is different and run differently, so forcing my approach onto them was never going to lead to success. What worked with one group will not work with another. Different circumstances, different capabilities, different resources.

So put yourself in the shoes of every stakeholder involved in designing and implementing the policy — especially the ones who have to live with it afterwards. Ask basic questions, and actually go find the answers:

1. Do they understand the intent? Don't assume the briefing landed. Ask them to play it back in their own words — if what comes back is "another circular from the Department," start over and explain the why, not just the what.
2. Is this aligned with their existing responsibilities? Read their actual mandate. If they already inspect retail stores, you're adding a checklist to a visit that already happens. If they don't, you're asking them to build a function from scratch — a completely different conversation and a completely different timeline.
3. Do they have the capacity? Ask the working level — not the leadership, who will always say yes — what else the same team is carrying right now. Many counterparts are at 100% before you show up. If the answer is no, don't push harder: shrink the ask, embed it into a process that already exists, phase the timeline, or take a pain point off their plate yourself.
4. Do they have the competence and technical ability? Can the people doing the work actually do it — can an inspector assess nutritional values? If not, build the training and the simple tools into your plan from day one, instead of discovering the gap after launch.
5. How is their organization set up? What decision-making power do they actually have? Find out early whether your counterpart can say yes or can only relay. If every decision goes up to their Director General, get senior alignment first — otherwise you'll spend weeks negotiating with someone who can't commit.
6. Who do they answer to, and what are they measured on? Behavior follows the scorecard. If your initiative doesn't touch what their leadership gets asked about in quarterly reviews, no amount of alignment meetings will make it a priority. Get it reflected in their targets, or attach it to something that already is.
7. What is the culture in their organization, and how do I navigate it? Some entities decide in the meeting; others decide before it, in the corridor, and the meeting just confirms. Some need formal letters; some run on a phone call. Match how they work — and never mistake process for resistance.
8. Is this beneficial for them — or just added work? Be honest with yourself. If it's just added work, find something to offer back: public credit, data they need, or shaping the initiative so it moves a target they're already accountable for.
9. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? Answering this helps you figure out how to distribute the work. Some people are amazing executors if they have direction — but they need someone to provide it. Some people are amazing at logistics, facilitation, and getting a variety of different stakeholders in a room. Play to what each person does best.
10. What are their career goals? Entities don't deliver policies — people do. You usually find out what a win looks like for them over lunch, not in a meeting. If succeeding on this makes your counterpart look good to their leaders, they'll push it internally. Make sure their name is on the wins.

You won't know all the answers in the beginning. Have a hypothesis for each one, and fill them in as you build the relationships.

Implementing multi-stakeholder policies and initiatives takes work from many different people and entities — none of it happens alone. So make sure you recognize each individual and each group, and do it in different settings, because a thank-you in a corridor and a thank-you in front of their Director General are not the same thing.

Always take a step back and look at how much of it was a team effort. The mistake people make constantly is reporting a win as their own and forgetting to give the appropriate credit. It seems small, but it creates politics, it pisses people off, and the next time you need those same people, they remember.

Some examples of what recognition looks like in practice:

1. Recognize individuals to their bosses. When someone hits a major milestone or goes above and beyond, tell their leadership — an email for the milestones, or a direct word when you're meeting their senior leaders. Praise to someone's face is nice; praise to their boss is what shows up in their appraisal.
2. Recognize the working level, not just the leadership. The analyst who cleaned the data, the inspector who piloted the checklist, the coordinator who got twelve entities into one room — leaders get thanked by default; the working level almost never does, and they're the ones who decide whether your next request goes to the top of the pile or the bottom.
3. Recognize partners publicly. Every public announcement should be presented as a joint government effort — and go further than the group photo. Individually highlight what each organization contributed, by name.
4. Let your partners announce it first. You don't always need to be the face of the win. Sometimes the strongest recognition is handing another entity the podium — their announcement, their logo first, their quote at the top — while you play the supporting role. They'll remember who made them look good.
5. Recognize the private sector — even when compliance was mandatory. Publicly showcase how they implemented the policies. Highlight the specific players who went above and beyond, who showed leadership, who changed their own strategic objectives to match yours. They didn't have to do it well; when they do, say so.
6. Recognize effort during the setbacks, not just at the wins. Anyone can hand out credit on launch day. When a workstream stalls for three months through no fault of the team, a note to their leadership saying "they're doing everything right, the delay isn't on them" matters most — it protects the people who are protecting your initiative.
7. Don't forget your own team. Recognize your people to your own leadership, and let them present their own work upward instead of presenting it for them.

Two watch-outs. Recognition that's uneven creates the exact politics you're trying to avoid — praise one entity more warmly than another in the same announcement and you've manufactured resentment among the rest. Keep a running list of who contributed what, and check every public statement against it before it goes out. And as a regulator, naming a specific company reads as an endorsement — every competitor will ask why they weren't named. Praise by objective, published criteria: first to comply, measurable reformulation, verifiable results.

Recognition costs nothing and takes minutes. But it decides how people show up when you come back with the next policy — and there is always a next policy.

You need to build your credibility — and your team's — across the entire ecosystem. That means within your own organization, with the public, with other government entities, with the media, and with the private sector.

Credibility is built in many different ways. Mostly through results: real milestones, real impact. But it's also built in how you prepare.

For every leadership meeting with any stakeholder, our team preps tremendously. We do deep research on the entity and on its leader. That context lets us tailor our message and our agenda to that particular individual and that particular entity. This doesn't mean spending weeks preparing. It means spending 24–48 hours finding the right level of information to create a win-win for both parties.

Some examples:

1. A private sector company. If an F&B company is under financial pressure from the market, their CEO is not interested in discussing more policies and initiatives that will hurt their financial condition. So we tailor the agenda to show how our initiatives, policies, and collaborations improve their financial situation — consumers want these products — while driving our health agenda at the same time.
2. A government entity. If an entity has a new Minister or Chairman, understanding their priorities and vision is critical. What is the new strategic direction, and how does it align with our agenda? Does the new Minister or Chairman have a background in health? A personal interest in it? Answering these questions before the meeting completely changes the conversation.
3. Your own leadership. Meetings with your own Chairman or Undersecretary deserve the same preparation. Know what's on their desk that week, what they're being asked about from above and from their peers…and which of your updates connects to it. This will help you optimize your preparation to the most important and relevant topics for them.
4. An international delegation. Before meeting a foreign delegation, research their health system and their flagship programs — their sugar tax, their labelling scheme, their school programs. Opening by referencing their work, specifically and accurately, changes the meeting from a courtesy visit into a real exchange. And it travels: international counterparts talk to each other.
5. Working-level meetings too. Showing up to a technical working session having read your counterpart's last submission — instead of asking them to re-present it — tells the working level you take their time seriously. Have a strong view on your topic and how it connects to their areas of work.

The preparation itself sends a message. When you walk in already knowing their world — their pressures, their priorities, their language — the other side notices immediately. You stop being another government entity asking for something, and you become a counterpart worth working with. That reputation compounds: the second meeting is easier than the first, and the fifth one gets accepted without a pitch.