Thursday, September 16, 2010

Focus, shareholders. FOCUS.

Yesterday's New York Times story on directors who presided over corporate failures being snapped up as directors by other companies (see here) did exactly what the authors (Susanne Craig and Peter Lattman) intended.  It frustrated the heck out of me. 

Yes, we should kick out C-level officers who plunder companies.  That's a no-brainer.  But we should also hold directors accountable when they should have known that something was going dreadfully wrong on their watch.   (Remember Andy Fastow's personal profit on deals with--well, against--Enron?  That was board-approved.)

Shareholders need to pay attention to who's running their company and who's monitoring those who are running their company.  And if the directors aren't doing what they should to watch over the CEOs, CFOs, and the like, shareholders should replace them.

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