As I write the new book, I’ve been thinking about shame in the context first suggested to me by my college roommate, Donald Munro, who is a retired professor at Michigan. My college roommates periodically meet and at one recent occasion Don was talking about Chinese history, in which…
Themes from the new book: Corporate Competitiveness
I’m writing a new book that I expect to come out in early 2013. It focuses on corporate power — not only in business and finance, but power in our government and even over the public dialog about what is best for our country. My expertise is in governance…
Great & the Good Must Step Up
By Hugh Wheelan (interview with Bob Monks in Responsible Investor). It’s testament to Bob Monks’ passion for corporate governance that as he approaches 79 years of age he’s still ready to challenge received wisdom, and with what he calls a renewed ‘sense of freedom’ now that he no longer…
To my surprise!
Years ago I was interviewed for a documentary called The Corporation. A new documentary has been made using some of that old footage and I thought I’d share it with you. See what you think and look for me at about 12:35.
Serendipitous Week and a Renewed Hope for Stewardship
Since the financial crisis, I’ve made repeated calls for the Great and the Good to step become active and responsible owners (see this piece on the GMIRatings site). Actually, I started on this track before the crisis when I wrote a letter to Harvard – my alma mater –…
Scourge of corpocracy
I’ve been called a lot of things but “scourge of corpocracy” may be the best. I was lucky enough to get lots of good press during my October trip to the UK and Europe. Many interesting conversations going on there and my visit helped to fuel my work on…
Corporate Character
GMI is trying to define the characteristics of a corporation and how management make decisions that affect shareholders. October 11, 2012.
In the Boardroom: US lags behind UK on reform – Bob Monks
I had the chance to talk with Lucy Marcus of Reuters today about the difficulty of getting corporate boards to listen to shareholders, and the differences in shareholder activism in the U.S. and U.K. It was a very good discussion with a very good interviewer. Have a listen. …
No more carrot. We need the stick
I’m having some very good conversations during my time here in London. For some time, I’ve been sounding a call for large shareholders and fund managers to step up and take their fiduciary duty seriously. The Financial Times has given me some good opportunity to talk about this over…
Is Shareholder Spring a Myth?
We’ve heard a lot about “Shareholder Spring” this year – the idea that this proxy season shareholders were actively standing up and forcing changes in the boardroom. Some of this is attributed to Dodd-Frank and a mandatory say-on-pay vote (one that is nonbinding, but more about that later). Actually, it seems…
New Book: Emerging Ownership
It’s hard to find good news in recent economic reports – or really any since the financial crisis. Some are beginning to look at new forms of ownership for possible answers. It’s a fascinating issue and a new book on the topic offers wisdom and insight. Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership…
Dual Class Ownership
A couple of years ago I posted a video proposing multiple-class stock as a way to empower owners and hold management to account. Now seems like a good time to discuss the downside of dual-class or multiple-class stock because there have been some recent high profile offerings that bring…
Neutered Securities
Now that the clamor over Facebook’s public offerings has abated somewhat – both the purchasing scrum and the disappointment over the results – let’s look at this type of “ownership.” Facebook isn’t the first to offer what I call “neutered securities.” Carlisle is another high-profile offering. While different from Facebook in that…
Must Read: How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform
The most recent Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone expounds in dreadful, painful, nauseating detail the power of the lobbies and the ability of, in this case, the financial interests utterly, utterly, utterly to dominate and capture the government’s capacity to regulate them. This is a piece that’s well…
SEC – Where is the public good?
Jesse Eisinger posted a very good piece on the SEC and ratings agencies today (SEC keeps the Ratings Game Rigged). He writes about the Egan-Jones case, “This is your S.E.C., folks. It courageously assails tiny firms, and at the pace of a three-toed sloth. And when it goes after…
