Corporate Leaders Pushing Values
Posted by karimbeers on July 23rd, 2008
A recent workshop reported by CAUX-Initiatives for Change brought together “eight business leaders from Europe, India and Japan, as part of a conference on ‘Trust and Integrity in the Global Economy’… They included Dr Jamshed Irani, board member of Tata Sons Ltd in India, Toru Hashimoto, Chairman of Deutsche Securities in Japan, and [EBBF-member] Dr Jean-Pierre Méan, Group Legal Counsel and chief compliance officer of SGS Ltd, Geneva, the world’s leading inspection, testing and certification company.
Their joint report highlighted “how trust in business and the global economy can be restored. Trust, say the business leaders, ‘requires trustworthiness and a commitment to be truthful; this includes full transparency in accounting and compliance with accounting standards; it also implies honesty in business transactions and the refusal of any corruption.’”
Presenting their report, Dr Méan said that ‘we have to restore human rights as an absolute and intangible value for the whole of humanity’. He deplored investors’ demand for quarterly results which made managers too focused on share prices and short term results. ‘This has contributed a lot to the current financial crisis,’ he said. The business leaders call for long-term thinking. This also required CEOs to remain in office for longer terms than the current three to five year cycle, prevalent in some countries, Dr Méan said.
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