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Sarbanes-Oxley News & Developments
A CEO Whose Life Is an Open BookFormer Medtronics chief Bill George has some compelling thoughts about corporate ethics.
> > Efforts to restore investor confidence after Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, and other business scandals is far from over. Widespread chicanery among executives as well as their hired professionals shocked the individual investor struggling to save for retirement, as well as the employee trying to do a good job at work and raise a family.
Reform measures have been taken. The Sarbanes-Oxley Corporate Responsibility Act (SOX) improved financial-disclosure requirements and put pressure on boards of directors to exercise better oversight of management. The SEC has been reinvigorated under the leadership of William Donaldson. The SEC is stepping up severity of sanctions against malfeasance and is campaigning for greater shareholder power to improve corporate governance.
Among the things George scorns are the CEO cult of personality, the 24/7 workday, the gaming of earnings, the excesses of ego, and the breach of trust by far too many corporate leaders in the 1990s. George wants people of integrity, committed to building organizations over the long haul, in leadership positions.
Source: BusinessWeek online / article
Published:2003-08-25
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