Groupon: The Price of Hubris
When three-year-old Groupon filed to go public in June, market commentators dialed the outrage meter up to 10. Flashpoints: an aggressive business model, creative accounting, and a track record of cashing out early investors–to the tune of $1 billion. Further irritants: public puffery from the Chairman and the CEO during the so-called quiet period and August and September resignations of two [...]
Taking Responsible Investing Seriously
Responsible investing continues to grow up, go mainstream. In September, three events–the publication of two reports and the launch of a new investment product–highlighted the diverse ways in which it’s doing so. Early in the month the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) published its Annual Report on Progress. As this is the fifth year [...]
Truth, Reconciliation and Financial Markets
In April Bradley Fried, former CEO of the UK arm of South African Investment Bank Investec, wrote an OpEd for the Financial Times entitled Mandela’s Lessons in Truth for City High Fliers. The article came to mind this past Sunday morning, when I received an event invitation via email, tagged by the subject line Will the [...]
Tension of Either-Or
Back in July Seth Godin published a blog post entitled No Such Thing as Business Ethics. I’ve never read a book by Godin. I’m not a regular reader of his blog. So, I didn’t happen to see the post until mid-August. It’s stayed with me since. Around the same time that I read Godin’s piece [...]
Five Books Every CEO Should Read
This is a list to embolden. Earlier this summer, I dipped my toe into the waters of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in an article entitled Love is the Single Bottom Line. As I wrote then, I’ve been following the evolution of the conversation about CSR for a number of years. Over time I have come [...]
Love is the Single Bottom Line
Over the past several years I’ve followed the evolution of the conversation about Corporate Social Responsibility with great interest. The notion first hit my radar screen when I was an investment banker working with retail companies and apparel manufacturers and Nike was challenged to address working conditions at its factories in Asia. On a trip [...]
