The Magazine of Corporate Responsibility

Tag Archive for ‘CEO’

Say on Pay: Identifying Investor Concerns

Advisory shareowner votes on executive compensation were the big story of proxy season 2011, the inaugural year for “say on pay” at most U.S. public companies. In the first half of the year, shareholders voted against proposals at some 37 companies. The Council of Institutional Investors, a leading advocate for say on pay, offers its analysis of the “no” votes and what they might say about current executive compensation practices.

Failure, Leadership and Lessons Learned

What’s the difference between someone who becomes a good leader and one who doesn’t? Often it’s the ability to learn from failure. Columnist Gael O’Brien discusses leading thinking on how to analyze what went wrong and how best to reinvent oneself after hitting bottom. For those who get a second act, one expert says, timing can be critical: “You often get your second chance when no one else wants it.”

The Making of a Modern CEO: The New Normal

Ann Charles thinks the next generation of business leaders will require new talents and a different set of skills to successfully grow business over the next decade. A modern CEO, she writes, will focus on creating a business culture that’s expansive, mapping a social purpose to the creation of goods and services.

Opinion: Inglorious CEOs

As each headline about corporate malfeasance is juxtaposed against record profits and bonuses, Americans become more jaded about the ethics of today’s business leadership. Many CEOs seem to lack the emotional awareness to deal with their own image problem.

Sustainability: Business Strategy Trumps Reputation

Sustainability may be a massive and vitally important global movement, says columnist Gael O’Brien, but it often suffers from its own ambiguity. “It isn’t surprising that when you ask people what their company is doing in sustainability,” she reports, “the question back is almost always ‘how are you defining it?’”

Opinion: Choosing Business Leaders with Integrity

A business executive who happens to also be a former Catholic monk has his own unique litmus test for gauging executive credibility and trust. “How can I tell if an executive is trustworthy?” he asks. “What are the signs to look for in promoting leaders in this new era of doubt and suspicion?”

BOOKS: Speaking Up for Values in Business

When companies cross ethical lines, a common assumption is that employees don’t speak up because their moral compass has gone haywire. But it may be more complicated than that. A new book by business professor and consultant Mary C. Gentile argues that most people want to do the right thing. They just don’t know how.

Companies Pressed on Policies to Clawback Executive Pay

When financial results aren’t what they seemed to be – and a company is forced to issue material financial restatements – how does it recoup the incentive pay and bonuses that were awarded to senior managers on the basis of rosier outcomes? It’s not a simple process, as evidenced by reactions to a provision in the newly-enacted Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation.

Verbatim: How Businesses View Sustainability & CSR Reporting

Investment firm Walden Asset Management recently researched and compiled quotes from sustainability and corporate responsibility reports by several dozen companies in a wide range of industries. The exercise showed, says a Walden executive, that attention to such issues has become vitally important for a company’s business, and that transparent reporting is, as one CEO said, one of “the prices of doing business today.”

Study: Financial Fraud Often Results in Bankruptcy

The study found that news of an alleged fraud resulted in an average 16.7 percent abnormal stock price decline in the two days surrounding the announcement. Companies engaged in fraud also often experienced bankruptcy, delisting from a stock exchange, or asset sale, and in nine out of ten cases the SEC named the CEO and/or CFO for alleged involvement, the study found.