Jeff Green and Jordyn Holman, Bloomberg, October 17, 2017
Corporate directors should now be on notice: bad behavior isn’t so easily swept under the rug. As a parade of executives has been outed as sexist, racist or both, boards have been called on to set — and enforce — standards of decent behavior.
On Tuesday, veteran investor and ubiquitous pundit Marc Faber agreed to leave the boards of three companies after he published racist commentary in his subscription newsletter. The week before, five Weinstein Co. directors quit in the wake of revelations about Harvey Weinstein and his history of alleged sexual assault and harassment made public by the New York Times and the New Yorker.
At this point, “CEOs and boards have to be the adults in the room,” said Davia Temin, head of the New York-based crisis-management firm Temin & Co. “Boards’ voices are getting strengthened, to some degree, because of the need of a counterpoint.” […read more]