The Walker report is a lowest common denominator response to addressing corporate governance at UK banks. We need a deep overhaul of the financial system: much better regulation, longer-term thinking, and a break up of the investment banking mindsets which led to the financial crisis.
Giving non-executive directors more powers, scrutinising how they are appointed, or increasing regulation alone will make absolutely no difference.  Non-executive directors already have the powers; it’s the culture of investment banking globally which must change.
Non-executive directors must spend more time understanding the bank on whose board they sit.  They have to understand the culture, get to know the key managers in the bank, and spend more time in the bank appreciating the way business is done there.  Banks also need to spend the resources to ensure their non-executives become familiar [...]

People are looking far and wide to identify the causes of the financial crisis. I recently described how a failure of policy design was one of the factors that lead to the financial crisis. Another factor that has been discussed widely is the role of business schools in creating the leaders who ostensibly brought on the crisis. Have these universities not fostered a proper sense of accountability and responsibility, and should they be teaching ethics? [...]

Let’s take a look at the corporate strategy of the large financial institutions that played an instrumental role in bringing on the financial crisis. The chief executives at these companies tended to favor an aggressive leadership style, which for a long time led them to aggressive growth; as they acquired companies, the largest companies became ‘financial supermarkets’ with a whole range of services. These financial institutions grew and grew, but eventually reached a point around 2004 where their growth stopped. The leadership of many of these companies started to be criticized for not integrating their acquisitions well. And so chief executives responded by making their companies more governance-oriented, with new constraints for things being signed off by teams. These new protocols and procedures made the financial institutions stabilize and stop growing, but they didn’t prevent the financial crisis, and the whole sector is now suffering as banks (and [...]

Earlier this month as a reaction to the global collapse of the financial sector, the members of Parliament made BBC Business Editor Robert Peston defend his reporting on Northern Rock last year. Peston outlined that he was acting on his duties as a reporter and was not responsible for creating a panic by highlighting the deficiencies of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. He’s quite right. How can a conscientious investigator cause a panic when in fact the system in which we work has such glaring deficiencies?
It is absolutely right that the press and the media should bring to the surface the social issues that we face, particularly one as worrying as the collapse of the financial system. I can see why MPs would wish to take the line of blaming greedy and selfish bankers and an insensitive press and media. The reason we [...]

The American auto makers are rapidly becoming another casualty of the financial crisis. However, the financial crisis is not the sole reason for their downfall; we need only look to Toyota and other non-American auto makers to see that–while not thriving, these non-American car companies are at least surviving the downturn without any government handouts. [...]

Is the global financial crisis motivating people to seek extramarital affairs? Anecdotal evidence from FT columnist Lucy Kellaway suggests this is the case . In the process of doing research for a novel, she found that the adultery-enabling website Illicit Encounters has seen a 300% increase in registrations from London-based men in the financial sector since September. [...]

Last month the US government’s National Intelligence Council released a new report on the role of the US in the world in 2025 . The report discussed the nature of superpower strife involving the rise of China, the shift of wealth and power from west to east, the increased likely use of nuclear weapons and the reshaping of America. I believe that all these issues are ‘accurate’ and are likely to have a profound impact on the world over the next 20 years. However, one critical factor was overlooked. [...]

Today it was announced that the seven highest ranking executives at Goldman Sachs will not be taking their bonuses this year . It’s an good move and will generate some positive publicity for the firm, especially because they announced their decision before other banks and before bonus season starts in earnest. Likewise, such a move was almost a necessity given the potential for public outcry if multiple executives were receiving bonuses worth over $50 million each after the company was one of the 9 banks that shared a $150 billion cash injection earlier this fall.
This move reminds me of some of that activity that Linda Lee Davies, Nada and I found in our recent book Leading for Success . One of the seven sides of great leaders we identified was ‘finding ways through.’ In the chapter dedicated to that subject, we said: [...]

It is little wonder that banks are reluctant to offer credit to the citizen, to businesses or to each other when bearing in mind the level of debt that currently exists. Official estimates of the American debt currently sit at $10.6 Trillion Dollars. A boutique investment analyst in Moscow considers the US debt to be nearer $11 Trillion dollars. However, two well known US investment banks are far less optimistic and unofficially estimate the debt level to be $26 Trillion Dollars, in effect 250% of US GDP.
In the UK, informed sources place UK debt levels nearer £2.5 trillion pounds. By the way, the UK’s GDP stands at about £1.5 trillion pounds.
What debt are we talking about? – Housing debt, credit card debt and debt ridden financial instruments, such as derivatives, all of which undermine the confidence of the market.
What value is better [...]