Conference Board Creates Commission for Corporate Change

NEW YORK -- The Conference Board -- whose members include a roster of well-known names in American business -- announced Thursday morning that it is creating a Blue-Ribbon Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprise to examine ethical practices and governance issues facing corporate America today and issue a series of best-practices guidelines.

Peter G. Peterson, chairman of the Blackstone Group and chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and John W. Snow, chairman of the CSX Corporation, will be co-chairmen of the commission.

"The American corporation is in crisis today and some of the toughest issues of corporate practice like executive and director compensation and the balance of risks among management, shareholders, workers, and creditors have yet to be fully addressed," said Peterson and Snow in a Conference Board press release.

Other members of the new commission include:

• John H. Biggs, Chairman, President and CEO, TIAA-CREF
  
• John Bogle, Founder and former Chairman, Vanguard Group, Inc.
  
• Charles A. Bowsher, former Comptroller General
  
• Andrew S. Grove, Chairman of Intel Corporation
  
• Arthur Levitt, former SEC Chairman and former Chairman of the American Business Conference
  
• Ralph Larsen, former Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, former Chairman of The Business Council
  
• Professor Lynn Paine, Harvard Business School
  
• Former Sen. Warren Rudman, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
  
• Paul A.Volcker, former Chairman of the Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System

Peterson said the group would address a wide range of issues, including executive compensation and stock options, auditing and accounting standards, and the relationships among a wide array of professional entities that work for companies, including accounting firms, investment and commercial banks, compensation consultants and law and insurance firms, The New York Times reported.

-- NYSSCPA.org News Staff

Posted on 6/20/02

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