“I started my career in financial services… totally wrong,” says Dan Mann. The correction came quickly. Moving into politics as a campaign manager in Norwich, he found what he describes as “the best possible political education,” learning on the job in a constituency setting. From there, public affairs followed naturally — “I’ve loved it ever since and never looked back.” That grounding in frontline politics continues to shape how he sees the profession: practical, immediate and tied closely to real-world outcomes rather than theory. Today, he operates in one of the UK’s most foundational — and exposed — industries. Cemex is a global building materials company producing cement, aggregates and concrete, supplying infrastructure and construction projects across the UK and beyond. It is, as Mann puts it, part of an industry that has “literally built Britain,” but one now facing significant structural pressures as decarbonisation, energy costs and regulation reshape its future. That tensio...