Boards should consider how well prepared the enterprise is for the impact of a transactional political environment on shareholders’ interests

A year ago, the 2024 election elevated President Donald Trump to a second nonconsecutive term and established Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

During its first nine months, the Trump administration moved aggressively on multiple fronts to reshape government, reassert a muscular industrial policy, establish new norms in global trade, redefine American foreign policy and apply significant political and government pressure to institutions perceived as frustrating his agenda — academia, media, law firms, elected officials and “woke” corporations.

In that time, we’ve learned more about how this administration operates. Board members should apply those learnings to assess and handicap political risk (and opportunity) in new ways. They should be asking new questions of management and pressure testing how well prepared the enterprise is for the impact of a transactional political environment on shareholders’ interests.

The board checklist should include:

• A reexamination of board composition to assess and address new political risks. Board chairs — especially in heavily regulated industries — should be asking if their board representation is calibrated against the political risks and opportunities present in this administration, and its sphere of influence, or is more reflective of administrations and personnel of prior eras that may be closing in on political obsolescence.
• A strategy to show how the corporate enterprise serves the public interest. Today, “flying below the radar” is no longer a viable strategy for Washington engagement, if it ever was. Every company should be prepared to ramp up its corporate content engine and show how its business serves the public interest and how that message is conveyed to policymakers and influencers in Washington, and in the media they consume.
• A political plan for M&A. While U.S. M&A activity is rebounding, today, obtaining transaction approval from Washington requires a political strategy, in addition to the traditional legal and regulatory approach, to navigate the Trump administration’s political and policy agenda. Great HHI scores aren’t enough. Today, transaction approval includes considerations regarding DEI, ESG, foreign ownership and investment, and political giving. Boards and management should expect that their advisors are reviewing and adequately pressure testing these factors when considering the viability of a potential transaction and when building an announcement strategy. For some, this may require an additional cadre of advisors fluent in the thinking of this administration and congress.
• A plan for a new era-ish of government investigations. Ten months into the new administration, agencies are staffed up and U.S. attorneys are getting their sea legs and making judgment calls about where they focus and who gets a subpoena or a grand jury summons. We have seen the pace of many investigations slow in the intervening months. The pace is once again picking up as administration priorities manifest across government agencies.
• A Washington plan for your CEO. President Trump prefers meeting in person with CEOs. Every company’s political plan for Washington should include a plan for the CEO, and a thorough review of his or her political giving and past statements, before that first meeting in the White House.

Many companies and boards of directors are also doing tabletop exercises to assess political risk — an exercise once exclusively the realm of crisis communications professionals — and how their political issue or business deal might carom around a new media, policy and political environment.

Boards and management also need to be careful not to over-index; the political pendulum often swings back, or in new directions. The 2026 midterms are but a year away.

Read the article as originally published by FT’s Agenda on December 8th, 2025, using this link: https://bit.ly/CorpBoardsChecklist

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