
Of Facebook and Goldman Sachs – Both Too Big To Fail?
Size, we are told, is not a crime. But size may, at least, become noxious by reason of the means through which it was attained or the uses to which it is put. -Louis Brandeis, quoted in Tool Big Too Fail. I just got back from a long nice vacation in India and read the […]

SEC Defines Venture Capital
The SEC fulfilled their obligation under the Frank-Dodd financial reform bill and defined what venture capital is. Represents itself to investors as being a venture capital fund. Only invests in equity securities of private operating companies to provide primarily operating or business expansion capital (not to buy out other investors), U.S. Treasury securities with a […]

Friday Rant: Insider Trading and Procurement
A colleague sent me a link to an article last week about an insider trading scandal involving both a CPO and his/her spouse. The CPO will go unnamed in this context because it’s not relevant to the general issue at hand. Still, the issue of ethics and integrity in procurement, finances, outsourcing and shared services […]

Investors, the EPA and now the SEC are making pollution an increasingly unattractive option
Photo credit Neubie A perfect storm consisting of the EPA, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and investors is pressuring companies to come clean on their environmental risks and performance. I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about FaceBook’s decision to use a primarily coal-burning utility to power its new data center where […]

Is Supplier Management Key to Addressing Recent Ethical Lapses? (Part 1)
The recent allegations that the SEC and FBI have leveled against two former IBM and McKinsey executives have really made me think about the role that supplier management might have in addressing potential ethical lapses with suppliers and whether it’…