List: Movies About Corporate Governance

Posted on April 19, 2009 at 8:39 am

The New York Times interviewed me for its “Corner Office” section and asked me for a list of my favorite movies about corporate governance.

“Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” (2005). Must viewing for an almost operatic rise-and-fall story of greed and hubris.

“The Solid Gold Cadillac” (1956). Add a couple of zeros to the numbers and this classic comedy about a small shareholder who takes on a big conglomerate could have been filmed this year. Ripe for a remake!

“The Hudsucker Proxy” (1994). The Coen Brothers’ take on corporations is both spoof and satire, making some shrewd points about success and corruption.

“Roger & Me” (1989). Must viewing in the era of the bailout. Watch for the many indicators of poor business judgment, including a “Me and My Buddy” exhibit with a mechanized worker singing to the machine that put him out of a job.

“Startup.com” (2001). The go-go madness of the dot-com era amplifies the challenge of finding that fine line between vision and hubris. Unforgettable characters.

“Boiler Room” (2000). Set in an illegal pump-and-dump brokerage, this movie perfectly captures the adrenaline rush of money-making.

“Executive Suite” (1954). A rare movie that focuses on the boardroom with a post-World War II C.E.O. succession struggle between the green-eyeshade C.F.O. Fredric March and the stakeholder proponent William Holden. See also the terrific animated movie “Robots” (2005) for a similar struggle.

“Owning Mahowny” (2003). This fact-based film stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a Canadian bank executive who embezzled millions of dollars and lost every penny in gambling casinos. What is fascinating is the way that every single person in the film, from the bank loan officers to the auditors and investigators and casino managers to the embezzler himself, are constantly assessing risk.

“The Corporation” (2003). A provocative documentary that measures corporate behavior against the standard diagnostics for human behavior and concludes that it fits the profile of a sociopath.

“How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (1967). This outrageous musical comedy about a mail clerk’s rise to the top of a corporation is less of an exaggeration than it appears.

“Office Space” (1999). A cult classic about a Dilbert-ized world of workers oppressed by an endless series of management fads.

“Tucker: The Man and His Dream” (1988). A fact-based cautionary tale about corporations subverting the market. See also the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” (2006) for an updated version.

“Sabrina” (1954). This elegant confection of a love triangle, with Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, also includes one of the most stirring defenses of the public corporation as a force for opportunity and creativity that has ever been put on film.

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Corporate Governance: My Thoughts on AIG and Wall St. vs. Washington

Posted on March 22, 2009 at 1:23 pm

From a debate last week in NY about whether Wall Street or Washington is more responsible for the current meltdown:

My commentary on the AIG situation — time to get rid of the members of the board of directors who signed off on the bonuses.

And look for me on Good Morning America tomorrow, about yet another corporate boondoggle.

Now, back to the movies!

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Media Appearances

More on CEO Pay and Boards of Directors

Posted on February 23, 2009 at 2:00 pm

My other job is in the news:
Interview in Business Week with Maria Bartiromo:

With regard to the subprime mess, compensation was structured so that people were paid based on the number of transactions rather than the quality of transaction. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that that is going to lead to disaster.

Washington Post article on the failure of boards of directors:

“Corporate governance is about managing risk. It’s about incentive compensation. It’s about corporate strategy and sustainability. And all of those things are what the boards failed to do,” said Nell Minow, a co-founder of the Corporate Library and an advocate of reforming corporate boards.

And in Bloomberg about the new pay restrictions:

“There’s a political climate here to support tarring and feathering, said Nell Minow, an expert on corporate governance who founded and edits the Corporate Library. Officials may describe any changes in rules as a strengthening of the restrictions, Minow said.

A nice interview on AOL’s Daily Finance site, which says “As the co-founder of The Corporate Library, Nell Minow has done more to raise awareness about shareholder rights than just about anyone in history.”
Zac Bissonnette: You’ve been crusading against corporate governance problems for a long time. How much of the current financial debacle can be blamed on bad corporate governance?
Nell Minow: It takes a village to create a disaster as broad and deep as this one and there is plenty of blame to go around. But poor corporate governance is at the heart of it. Boards are supposed to manage risk, tie pay to performance, and make sure that the corporate strategy is directed at sustainable growth. They failed on all counts. Indeed, they agreed to pay packages with incentives that all but guaranteed this result and to corporate influence in Washington that short-circuited oversight from regulators and from the market itself.

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Media Appearances

More About Wall Street Bonuses

Posted on February 5, 2009 at 7:00 pm

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