TheCRO Blog

OK, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer must resign for his involvement with a hooker, and he may already have marched off into the sunset by the time I hit the next return key on this keyboard. Update: OK, he has resigned.

10:15 a.m. The hearing opens and Chairman Henry Waxman sets the stage for the grilling of Charles Prince, former chairman and CEO of Citigroup; Stanley O’Neal, former chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch; and Angelo Mozilo, founder and CEO of Countrywide Financial, on executive compensation in the subprime mortgage industry.

Since CRO deals so often with GRC (governance, risk and compliance) issues, it's interesting to see the risk management component so out there, front and center, in the Societe Generale trading scandal. Published reports claim that Societe Generale received several risk alerts about Jerome Kerviel's now-suspect trading, which ultimately led to a whopping $7.2 billion in losses, but took no actions after interviewing the trader and receiving reassurances.

Starbucks’ 2006 Corporate Social Responsibility report promises a "great work environment" and notes that it expects its suppliers to respect "the rights of individuals" and to adhere to international standards regarding worker treatment, but the Seattle-based caffeine retailer reportedly fell a little short in its stance toward some of its U.S. employees who may have been exercising their lawful rights to support unionization efforts at some Starbucks locations.

Two "change" candidates, Mike Huckabee for the GOP and Barack Obama for the Dems, emerged on top in the Iowa caucuses, but there was scant coverage in last night’s vote analysis on TV about climate change issues.

 They talk about it in crisis communications all the time--come clean and take decisive action to fix the problem and protect your brand. Well, someone obviously forgot to relay that message to Jim Dolan, the CEO, director, chairman and titan of Madison Square Garden and the hapless New York Knicks.

Corporate responsibility officers often have to ponder major tradeoffs and have huge decisions to make. Should we do business with China, with its huge market despite its environmental policies and human rights record? Should we continue to invest in coal utilities even if pulling out for environmental purposes would negatively impact the bottom line?

Some pharmaceutical companies can talk all they want about corporate responsibility, but their recent actions regarding children’s cold medicines make their words seem hollow.

OK, here’s the download -- I mean, the low-down -- about Apple, the iPhone and Greenpeace.

Al Gore, the joke goes, was the guy who used to be the next president. What the U.S. missed from Gore’s inability to sway a few more electoral college voters and the majority of the Supreme Court back in 2000, it gained in a fuller understanding of Sustainability...that’s with a capital S. But what's less known is the story of the guy who wrote the check that made Gore’s Nobel Prize possible, an act that forever cemented the concepts Climate Change and Sustainability in the minds of global leaders.