In the current public spat between the activist investor, Voce Capital Management, the Board and Mark Watson, CEO of publicly-listed Bermudan insurer, Argo Group, the spendthrift allegations include the co-mingling of personal and business interests. One in particular was the “vanity sponsorship” of a Formula E racing team, a Volvo ocean race team, and an Americas Cup Team. A mismatch between Argo’s ideal buyers of its’ products and services, those sports, and the “return” for Argo’s stockholders.

Let me reverse this question, name me a corporate sponsorship of a sport or cultural event by a publicly listed firm that didn’t originally commence with a CEO or powerful figure, who had a strong personal or emotional connection?

That doesn’t make wasting stockholders money right but I could list endless sponsorships, past and present, JLT and Aon with Newbury Racecourse, RSA Group with Cricket Ireland, Hilton with McLaren Formula 1, Deutsche Bank with the HK Art Fair. It is a very “grey area”, where the Heads of Sponsorship and Marketing can “dress” up the return on investment to positively impact their key constituents because there are very few people with real skin in the game or accountability.