Suzan DelBene Quotes

As chief business affairs and legal officer, I am responsible for driving Airbnb's engagement strategy and civic partnership efforts as well as overseeing the company's global public policy, community mobilization, legal, communications, compliance, social initiatives, and philanthropy efforts.

Companies need to be very active in formulating public policy - not as a substitute for government, but as a supplement.

A lot of deals are done or not done because chief executives are not fully aligned to shareholders.

In a literal sense, even a private company, of course, cannot do everything that it wants without some discussion with government. As a good corporate citizen, Severstal discussed the idea of a merger with Arcelor with the Russian government.

There are many highly successful businesses in the United States. There are also many highly paid executives. The policy is not to intermingle the two.

I don't want to be a lobbyist. I want to provide strategic advice to companies. I said both of those things in the course of the interview, and I made clear this is a matter only for after I had become a private citizen and I was no longer a member of parliament.

All company bosses want a policy on corporate social responsibility. The positive effect is hard to quantify, but the negative consequences of a disaster are enormous.

No one doing big business can avoid some contact with government agencies, regulators, and policy makers.

It's the job of a special advisor to be the eyes and ears of a minister and it's the job of a corporate lobbyist to represent the best interests of their organization.

Netscape was able to get the government working on its behalf.

Few relationships are as critical to the business enterprise as the relationship to the government. Managers have responsibility for this relationship as part of their responsibility to the enterprise itself. It is an area of social impact of the business. To a large extent the relationship to government results from what businesses do or fail to do.

The good parts about being a public company are increased discipline, increased execution and increased transparency to make sure that you are really building a company for a hundred years.

I believe in 'business has a force for good.' You know, business has an impact on society. Of course, it creates jobs. It creates prosperity, but on the other hand, we also leave a negative footprint behind.

Companies, to date, have often used the excuse that they are only beholden to their shareholders, but we need shareholders to think of themselves as stakeholders in the well being of society as well.

Shareholders have the right and obligation to set the parameters of corporate behavior within which management pursues profit.

Lobbyists didn't descend from a spaceship. They evolved organically from the way we do business.

I don't do any corporate work.

There is no reason for a lobbyist to give us gifts. They are supposed to give us information.

Corporate executives are not all that conservative….They are not interested in the social issues and the big boys and girls are not interested in fighting regulation because that’s what keeps the little boys and girls from becoming big boys and girls.

Today's public opinion, though it may appear as light as air, may be tomorrow's legislation-for better or for worse.

There is a steady flow between corporate board rooms and government decision making centers.

If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legal limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the unlawful limitations of their rights or of violent interference with their operations.

All businesses that create wealth, pay their taxes and comply with the law are, by definition, good companies.

I taught policy and politics for seven years at a university. I told my students lobbyists are not a bad thing; they're absolutely vital.

The bar for a chief executive of a public corporation to repudiate a United States president is extraordinarily high. Corporate leaders aren't given their power, prestige, responsibility, and nine-figure pay packages to use the corner office as their personal soapbox.