THE FIA STRUCTURE

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FIA has three Clusters: Health, Nutrition & Innovation; Regulation, Trade & Safe Food; and Sustainability & Resilience.
 
Clusters are designed to craft and maintain an inspiring vision over a 3-, 5- or even 10-year time horizon. They help reframe the difficult challenges we face as potential opportunities for new ways of seeing and learning, and should experiment relentlessly and elevate what works. By generating an exciting array of strategic options, we strive to be nimble enough to seize emerging opportunities in a fast-changing policy and regulatory landscape.
 
The objective of the longer-term approach to the Clusters is not to eliminate risk but to increase the odds of success by embracing new methods and ways of working, so that we seek new opportunities for members to reduce red tape/costs while supporting growth opportunities.

In addition, the Clusters will be responsible for initiating and directing multi-stakeholder platforms and major collaborations with identified partners. Examples include evolve, Circular Materials Lab and ASEAN Food and Beverage Alliance (AFBA)

FIA has 12 Squads and two sub-squads. 

Squads are small, autonomous and agile groups that work on the day-to-day issues and crisis that inhibit business operations and add significant cost. Unlike the Clusters, Squads are focused on the now and the immediate needs of members. Each Squad will have KPIs and plans ideally for the next one to two years to navigate the immediate regulatory, public affairs and policy challenges.

While autonomous, Squads will coalesce around specific Clusters but do not formally report to them. We want to create symbiotic relationships in order to share best practices and challenges and how we may mutually benefit from collective solutions to the huge challenges the industry faces.

  • Joint Cluster Squad Meeting (JCS): As the implementation of the new structure proceeds in 2021, a special JCS will be held each quarter to highlight key issues, projects and the results of the restructuring process. The JCS will involve all members from Clusters and Squads.  

  • Joint Cluster Meeting: Will involve two or all clusters. Meetings will be recommended by the FIA Secretariat with no fixed frequency.

  • Cluster Meeting: Will involve an individual cluster. Co-leads of relevant squads will be invited to join the meeting.

  • Joint Squad Meeting: Will involve two or more squads. Meetings will be held on the recommendation by members/FIA Secretariat due to the link in nature of issues.

  • Squad Meeting: Will involve an individual squad.
  • Co-leads:

Demonstrate leadership by helping to lead meetings and support with driving aligned agendas. For Clusters co-leads, they will be involved in the Joint Cluster meetings where the Secretariat will facilitate meetings. For Squads co-leads, they will be involved in discussions at the Cluster level. 

  • FIA Secretariat:

Support with strategy development, goal setting, tactical deployment in Clusters and Squads; Propose workstreams and identify issues to be prioritised and crises to be dealt with. Coordinate and manage preparation, roll-out, implementation and review of working plans and activities (meetings, stakeholder engagement) in Clusters and Squads. Support coordination among different Clusters and Squads in maximising working efficiency and to avoid duplicative efforts. 

  • Members:

Contribute inputs for discussions and into working plans of Clusters and Squads. Support the roll out of work regionally/in-country. Involved in Joint Cluster Squad meetings. 

  • Observers: 

Potential FIA member companies interested in joining. The Secretariat shall inform co-leads of the particular Cluster/Squad if observers could be considered to join a specific meeting/s to demonstrate how FIA operates. Observers are there in the capacity to listen.

  • Guests: 
Based on the purpose of the meeting, the Secretariat may invite appropriate experts or speakers (could be member, non-member, or other stakeholders) to the meetings to provide insights and advice. Similar to the observers initiation, co-leads will be given notice.

Cluster: 

  • Up to three co-leads per cluster
  • A member company can only be a co-lead of no more than one cluster*
  • Co-lead will serve for two years**
  • Nomination within a Cluster will be facilitated by the Secretariat 

Squad: 

  • Up to two co-leads per squad
  • A member company can only be a co-lead of no more than two squads (this excludes sub-squads)*
  • Co-lead will serve for two years**
  • Nomination within a Squad will be facilitated by the Secretariat 

*Exception will be given when no other companies have choose to be a co-lead but an existing company already in the Cluster/Squad has signaled interest. 

**The term of office will depend on company basis rather than individual basis.

Cluster: 

  • Up to two representatives from each member company under Premium and Full Paying membership tiers
  • Co-leads of Squads attached to the Cluster* (even if co-lead is not a full-paying member) 

*Exception: South Asia and China Squads co-leads are able to join any Cluster 

Squad: 

  • No limit on the number of participants in a Squad 
  • Any individual from any membership tier** can join a Squad 
  • Sign up via this form

**Excludes: Member companies with a different arrangement; please contact the Secretariat if you are unsure of your organisation's membership tier. 

The working plan will be defined, evaluated, and revised by the Cluster/Squad (annually, once every two years) depending on the decision made by the members within the Cluster/Squad. The Secretariat will organise planning sessions in collaboration with co-leads. 

For ad-hoc/urgent/crisis issues which require immediate attention, the Secretariat will take the initiative to organise an emergency meeting. Any member can raise an urgent issue to the Secretariat via email or a phone call. The details of the Secretariat in charge can be found on the individual Cluster and Squad pages of the Members Hub. 

This document provides an overview of which squads will be working together on specific issues. Squads listed as no. (1) will be leading the issue, while squads listed as no. (2) will receive updates on issues and support the agenda as needed. 

Information on each Cluster and Squad (meeting details, key contacts, working plans, resources) can be found on the individual Cluster and Squad pages of the Members Hub.