ABOUT VANGUARD
To that end, we leverage cutting-edge expertise to generate in-depth policy insights and to effect high-impact change. We specialize in distilling nuanced policy and political intelligence, creating powerful long-term narratives, galvanizing mission-driven coalitions for effective advocacy, and building projects with strategic added value.
OUR STRENGTHS
DEEP POLICY EXPERTISE
We don’t just understand policy; we’ve built it. Multiple times. Our team has drafted and negotiated, from lead positions, dossiers with a global impact such as the Artificial Intelligence Act. We know what’s behind the rules, how they were made, and what comes next.
UNPARALLELED REACH
Our network is built and curated over more than a decade. It includes partners, top political contacts, supporters, journalists, and collaborators in the Brussels establishment and in major EU capitals, in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, and Latin America
EXCEPTIONAL CONVENING POWER
We have an extensive and nuanced understanding of the EU political and policy ecosystem. Our team has regularly engaged with and hosted top decision-makers, from heads of state and commissioners to C-level industry executives and investors. We know the right people and they know us, because we know how to add value in our engagements.
EXQUISITE DELIVERY
Our team has delivered decision-stage products for heads of state, governments, and top EU decision-makers. We are accustomed to treat everything we deliver as high-end final products with potential societal-wide impact, and we take pride in leveraging this training in everything that we do for our clients and partners.
LONG-TERM LOYALTY
We understand value is generated not only from bilateral engagements, but also from an expanding and engaged network. We go to extended lengths to leverage network opportunities for our collaborators, and we are continuously on the look out for potential synergies we could cultivate in support of their mission.
STELLAR REPUTATION
We’ve spent decades building long-term partnerships. Our team is known for its reliability, professionalism, and ability to deliver. We prioritize trust-based relationships above all else, and we go to extended lengths to maintain and nurture them.
WHAT WE DO
Our team has played a central role in drafting, negotiating, and adopting the EU AI Act, among other key digital files. We are intimately familiar with the decisions, interests, positions, ambitions (and even blunders) that led to the adoption of the final text. We know its strengths, its weaknesses, and the intention behind every paragraph. We know and maintain excellent relationships with the people involved in its elaboration and with the entire EU AI ecosystem, from decision-makers to industry players, innovators, academics, compliance specialists, and activists. Some examples of what we can do together:
REGULATORY COMPLIANCE AND ETHICS CONSULTING
We assist you in understanding compliance requirements, necessary steps you need to take, tools at your disposal, and legal provisions that might be favorable to your unique situation. We facilitate your collaboration with certified compliance entities, and we leverage our regulator perspective and legislative understanding to monitor your compliance journey from start to end and to advise you at every step
POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE AND ADVOCACY SUPPORT
We track political and policy developments and study the dynamics of policy-making on every file of interest. We follow positions, statements, interests, political dynamics, advocacy efforts, and negotiations, tracking interconnected and longitudinal evolutions. We distill this intelligence into actionable advocacy advice, both dynamically and as part of a long-term approach
POLICY ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
We help you and your team navigate the nuances of regulation and advise on aligning your strategy to anticipate regulatory developments and implementation through comprehensive research and reports, group trainings, and one-on-one briefings. To support your advocacy, we assist you in drafting high-impact legal texts and amendment suggestions, alongside powerful, convincing arguments.
AI AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Through our work on drafting and negotiating the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, we are highly specialized in AI regulation, AI governance, AI ethics, and AI compliance. We work with you to deploy this expertise in your AI adoption, advising you on AI solutions, market trends, hype pitfalls, and AI capabilities and shortcomings, so that you leverage AI with a maximum impact on your business and on your bottom line. When this involves large-scale structural changes within your company, we turn to our network to secure the best expertise available on AI and digital transformation, and we accompany you throughout the journey.
CLIENT ACQUISITION
We take a holistic view of the ecosystem in which we operate, and we keep an economist’s eye out for wherever supply meets demand. We work with you to identify potential clients, we scout interest and work to understand their needs, and we report back to you with actionable recommendations for next steps. We leverage our ecosystem-building activities to bring potential clients into our network, to cultivate our relationship with them, and to facilitate mutually-beneficial conversations, either in direct business meetings or through serendipitous conversations. We do this for every one of our collaborators, injecting value into our relationships and into the ecosystem.
PUBLIC PROCUREMENT
In areas where our public sector network is strong, such as AI, emerging technologies, law enforcement, and security and defense, we help you understand public sector needs and how your business could fill them. We monitor evolutions in funding and procurement, both at the European level and at Member States level, and advise you on potential partnership or business opportunities. And, where appropriate for both sides, we facilitate meetings with decision-makers who could be interested in your solutions.
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
We identify key players relevant to your objectives and study their positions, priorities, evolution, and thinking, giving you cutting-edge intelligence on who you should meet, why you should meet them, and how you can bring value to your engagement with them. When within our reach, we also facilitate those conversations for you and get you a seat at the table to make your voice heard.
ECOSYSTEM MAPPING
We work with you to identify who are the relevant decision-makers, supporters, opponents, and potential coalition partners, not just in your direct area of interest, but also in complementary or separate ecosystems with overlapping objectives. We do this not just through detailed research, but also by gathering political intelligence from our constant engagement with decision-makers and vectors of influence.
COALITION BUILDING
We help you bring together relevant stakeholders in a variety of formats, from ad-hoc briefings for decision-makers and technical staff, industry meetings to disseminate your advocacy priorities, and meetings for stakeholder consultations and engagement, to long-term, structured, and organized coalitions for sustained objective-driven advocacy.
INDIRECT ADVOCACY
Advocacy is not linear. Ideas circulate freely across interest groups and industries, making their way into the decision-making space through various (and at times unexpected) entry points. We study overlaps, intersection points, and synergies between different layers of decision-making and help you build unlikely coalitions that make your priorities stand out in the predictable Brussels chatter. We find and bring to your side allies and supporters you never knew you had
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND CURATION
Sometimes all you need is exceptional research. We systematically follow all developments related to our fields of subject-matter expertise: Artificial Intelligence, emerging technologies, security and defense, the transatlantic partnership, and Ukraine. We scan reputable global publications, we engage with world-class think tanks, we participate in working groups in international organizations, and we stay up to date with regulatory developments around the world. We provide exquisite reports and intelligence, accompanied by crisp analysis and concrete recommendations, in support of your advocacy efforts.
ADVOCACY STRATEGY AND TRAINING
We work with you to build and refine your advocacy strategy, leveraging our understanding of policy-making, politics, and lobbying for a comprehensive, multi-dimensional, long-term advocacy strategy in Brussels or Member State capitals. We support your advocacy team with training and advice on the strategy, strategic objectives, and implementation, and, more importantly, on the most relevant advocacy tools for delivering tangible results in their day to day job.
HIGH-END EVENTS
We plan, organize, and run high-impact, high-profile events in support of your mission. We stand out in an oversaturated events market through our exceptional convening power, derived from a simple but effective approach: for every event we plan, be it a private roundtable or a three-day conference, we dedicate considerable resources to mapping relevant stakeholders, making sure that every participant derives value from attending and brings value to other attendees. This rarely happens in open-format events, so we favor invitation-based formats where we are in personal contact with every single attendee.
COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGNS AND MEDIA RELATIONS
The policy landscape ebbs and flows based on dominant and secondary narratives that vary across geographies and time. Nuances in these narratives vary alike. We identify and analyze relevant narratives and the political motivations behind them, and we work with you to position your company so that narrative alignment acts as a multiplier on your business strategy and advocacy efforts. In support of your communications strategy, we leverage our media contacts and we craft crisp and effective communications materials such as press releases, op-eds, and social media campaigns.
IMPACT MEASUREMENT AND REPUTATION MONITORING
We track the effectiveness of your campaigns and messaging using both quantitative and qualitative methods. We follow what “the establishment” thinks of your company, of your advocacy, and of your influence, and we offer concrete and actionable suggestions for leveraging those insights to your favor or, in crisis situations, for adopting effective corrective measures. We watch your back, and we keep you updated on any potential or concrete challenges.
HEADHUNTING AND TALENT ACQUISITION
In nurturing and growing our network, we meet many exceptional individuals who are open to growth opportunities, we get to learn where the work gets done and where ideas originate from, and we develop a nuanced assessment of the level of influence, reputation, and talent of various players operating in our spheres of activity. When you are looking for the right hire or are seeking to build a new team, we can help by scouting the market and providing a list of exceptional (and vetted) targets, by marketing your opportunities to our highly-curated network, and by providing in-depth qualitative assessments on potential candidates.
SOFT LANDING AND REPRESENTATION
If you’re looking to establish a presence in Brussels, London, or a major European capital, we work with you at every step of the process, from walking you through the basics of policy-making and advocacy in the European capital, to establishing your legal presence, setting up your office, recruiting and training your team, building your network and political contacts, and making sure you are on the right radars and in the right communities. And if you need a bridgehead but are not looking to expand just yet, we are happy to be your eyes, ears, and discreet advisors in the EU capital.
*In accordance with our mission, Vanguard does not collaborate with entities owned or controlled by authoritarian regimes or linked with extremist ideologies.
LEADERSHIP TRAINING
In our work, we have found that personalized training, tailored to an organization profile, objectives, and market position, is the lowest-hanging fruit for successful advocacy. We provide tailor-made training for decision-level executives on policy-making, specific policy, the EU establishment, and the politics of it all, opening the way for higher-impact, more sophisticated, advocacy projects. In parallel, we offer political training, media training, and advocacy training for mid-level and junior staff, increasing the value they derive from our collaboration and the impact of their own work.
ECOSYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
We build curated high-level events aligned with and in support of our mission. We are happy to partner for these events, giving our partners visibility benefits and, where appropriate, a seat on stage or at the table to present their positions. For Vanguard-branded events, we run our partnerships through an ethics review, ensuring that our events maintain their independence, objectivity, and alignment with our mission and values.
POLITICAL AND POLICY INPUT
We independently seek to influence the policy landscape in a direction most favorable to our mission. To that end, we engage with think tanks, academia, and senior-level experts to produce high-impact policy recommendations on issues of relevance for the geopolitical standing of the European Union, and we conduct our own advocacy campaigns to promote them with decision-makers. For these initiatives, we welcome partnerships and collaborations supporting our work or indicating relevant research agendas, insofar as they are not conditioned on influencing the substance and outcomes of our research.
POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT
In support of our mission, we identify promising up-and-coming political figures, political parties, and social movements that embody our values and are naturally aligned with our mission. We work to empower them and we give them the tools they need to succeed through leadership and media training, advocacy tools, and political consulting services. For these efforts, we welcome partners who can contribute resources or know-how to our toolset, for example by providing specialized training in their area of expertise, by providing pro-bono services, or by supporting our team in dedicating more time and resources to such ongoing engagements.
