The new book, Citizens DisUnited: Passive Investors, Drone CEOs and the Corporate Capture of the American Dream, is coming out this month.  It's been in the works for the last year, and is really the culmination of thirty years of work in corporate governance, activism and government.  It was prompted by frustrations and failures, in many ways.  But it was through those frustrations that I gained clarity on the problems facing our nation.  Not just problems in the boardroom but the larger issues of power that tie corporations to the power structure in Washington and how it affects our society. 

The specific thoughts that led to this book began almost two years ago with a speech I gave at ICGN in Paris.  I thought I'd repost this now so you have some background before you read the book.  The Paris speech was a call for institutions to act; the book is a call to trustees to enliven their institutions. 

I'll post more about the book tomorrow so stayed tuned…

Stay tuned for more information soon…

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…

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…

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…

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…

GMI is trying to define the characteristics of a corporation and how management make decisions that affect shareholders. October 11, 2012.

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. …

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…

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…

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…

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…

Did you see 60 Minutes last night? About SEC failure to do anything about Lehman Brothers. Watch.

Seems Say on Pay (and CEO pay, in general) is on everyone’s mind. Thought I’d share a couple of things from the news of the last 24 hours. GMI’s Paul Hodgson has an op-ed in the Washington Post (The Original Sin of Executive Pay) and says, “Not all CEOs…

My thanks to the folks at Responsible Investor for this very nice interview. RI is one of my trusted resources for corporate governance news so I’m happy to have had the chance to talk with them…