From boardroom shocks to Brussels strategy: Flint Partner Daniel Brinkwerth on managing government risk and scaling Flint’s European offer

Q: You’re returning to Flint after time away. What brought you back – and how does it feel?

Frankly, I like the buzz. In times like these, when governments can make or break markets at the stroke of a pen, this is a great place to be. Flint has a mix of sharp, energetic people and genuinely strategic client work, so in many ways it feels like coming home.

But you never step into the same river twice. Since I left, Flint has brought in two private equity investors and grown its capabilities and ambitions significantly. There are many new faces, products and skills we can bring to bear for clients today – and that’s a big part of why I wanted to return.

Q: What did your time outside Flint – including BP’s transformation during geopolitical shocks – change in how you look at clients’ challenges?

Leading European policy, government relations and communications for BP during a big strategic shift was a great experience, and a demanding one. We were leaning into the energy transition, building new businesses in offshore wind, solar, hydrogen and EV charging, often for the first time and at real scale. That meant creating entirely new external affairs capabilities quickly and keeping employees and stakeholders engaged through constant change.

The exit from Russia and the wider geopolitical shocks underlined how exposed balance sheets are to political risk. You see very directly how regulation, public opinion and investor expectations show up in commercial decisions. That perspective is invaluable when I sit down with Flint clients, because I understand the internal pressures as well as the external landscape.

Q: How do you think about managing political risk?

The relationship between governments and companies has changed fundamentally. States define and reshape markets, take equity in projects, act as financiers and as demanding customers. You can’t treat them as just regulators anymore.

Policy assumptions often make or break a business case, but they’re not always discussed with the same rigour as the numbers. You can’t diversify away from politics. But you can treat policy as a core asset risk, with its own analytics, scenarios and hedges. The idea is to convert “government risk” from a binary shock into a set of scenarios, probabilities and influence levers that boards and investors can actually work with.

Q: What will you be focusing on in your work with clients?

My focus is on energy, industrial transformation, project development and political risk – all moving quickly in Europe. Much of my work is about whether a project or asset really has a long-term licence to operate, and how to unblock delivery given a specific policy, political and social context.

That can mean supporting large low-carbon projects through permitting and state-aid questions or helping funds think through exposure to geopolitical shocks in their portfolios. Increasingly, it means working across borders – Brussels, Berlin, Paris and beyond – where EU regulation and national politics intersect.

Q: You’ve built and led advisory teams before. How will you help build capacity at Flint?

Our asset is our people. When colleagues are set up for success and enjoy working together, clients feel that immediately, and it’s the best predictor of satisfaction and future growth.

Like many aspects of our business, building capacity is a team sport. As a leadership team, we’ll be looking for talent and good matches wherever we find them, and I’ll focus particularly on Germany and the wider DACH region. In a fast-moving market, you want to be deliberate about the capabilities you build, but also opportunistic when you meet great people. The idea is to connect those dots across sectors and geographies so Flint can keep scaling while staying true to its culture.