 To understand how politics affect the business environment and be able to add that to your business strategy is a key skill these days. Politics is always controversial. You may hate it or you may love it. But the truth is, if you want to get to a very senior position in a company nowadays, you need to understand it. Dr. Renato, how are you? I'm great. Great to talk to you, Sabri. It's always nice to see you. Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do for ICLIF at ASB. Sure. So my name, full name is Renato Lima de Oliveira. I'm an assistant professor of business and society at ASB. And for ICLIF, I also teach a course called Navigating Political Dynamics International Business. By the name, you might realize that I'm not from Malaysia, although my heart is very Malaysia and having been here for three years, I now miss spicy food, but I'm actually originally from Brazil. I have worked before as a business journalist, and then after working for some years, I went to the US, did my master's in PhD there, and then I came to Malaysia. You mentioned something about teaching a program called Navigating Political Dynamics International Business for ICLIF at ASB. Could you tell us a little bit what that program is about? Sure. As you know, Sabri, politics and business are more and more together. We trade and invest more across different countries. So there's a high likelihood that you're either going to work for a foreign company or you're going to have clients or suppliers from different countries. Right. And that is great for economic efficiencies. Like you can get things that are cheaper, you can learn from different companies and so on. However, it exposes you to a different set of risks. There are the operational risks, but there are also the political risks. For example, think about the election of Trump and how things change in the US and how Chinese firms are facing challenges when operating in the United States or think about Brexit and the breakdown of this integration between the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. Or let's think about one example from here, from Malaysia. The change of governments and how it led to change of the top of the GLCs. So to understand how politics affect the business environment and be able to add that to your business strategy is a key skill these days. You obviously have spent a lot of time researching on this subject matter and you look very inspired when you're talking about it. I'm inspired too. What could you tell us? Why is this area so important to you? It is. Just think about it. The big questions of our time, be it issues of climate change and how business are going to become more sustainable, which kind of taxes, carbon taxes or regulations will be adopted? Or how can we upscale our workforce and be able to create good jobs in a world that is moving towards automation and AI? All of these big questions, they will have political answers and those answers will affect the business operations. So yes, that's a fantastic area to study and also to teach, to try to understand and together with participants in these different courses understand how politics are affecting their operations and how even can business participate in that? So what specific business or organizational issues do you hope to resolve when people attend this program? And who should be attending this program? Sure. So some key issues is one, is to understand what are the main policy issues that may affect your industry? How different industries are exposed to different levels of political risks? And how can you take that into account when formulating business strategies? So one is about mapping the risks and also trying to take that and create opportunities. So who should participate attending a course like that? I tend to say that I teach for CEOs or future CEOs because when you get to that position of allocating investment, deciding where to invest, in which part of the world and also when to invest, should you invest now or should you wait for two years down the line? When you get to make these strategic decisions, you have to consider politics. You have to think about how politics can affect your operations. So if you want to be a CEO, you should take this course. Maybe I should. Maybe I should. What impact do you think this program can have on the participants? It can definitely make the participants more aware of how to incorporate political insights into their business strategy. So they are more able to want to map risks and second, to think about how to react, how to build coalitions, how to map stakeholders and how that can affect their operations and take that and really create opportunities. For people who are thinking about actually signing up for this program, Dr. Renato, what final words do you have for them? Sure. Well, politics is always controversial. You may hate it or you may love it. But the truth is, if you want to get to a very senior position in a company nowadays, you need to understand it. And there's no better way to understand it if actually you go to a course like this where you are going to view theory, but also case studies, and then you can reflect about how it is going to affect your own operations. So that's a course that really can shape one's career. Sounds like a very interesting course. Thank you. You're welcome, Sabri.