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Failures of high-profile companies such as Enron and WorldCom led to Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002. The law encouraged directors to do a better job fulfilling their fiduciary duties, especially in the area of financial reporting. Abuses by Wall Street and mortgage bankers and poorly designed incentives for credit rating agencies, among other reasons, led to the credit crisis of 2008 to which the government responded with the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. Dodd-Frank encouraged shareholders to be more active and hold directors more accountable.

The federal government over the past 50 years, has also failed to exercise its fiduciary responsibilities to its shareholders (today’s and tomorrow’s citizens). In particular, the last two CEOs have increased the direct federal debt from 5 trillion to over 20 trillion. Some of the country’s directors (congressmen) have been replaced and given a mandate by some shareholders (Tea Party and other activists) to exercise better governance.

As a result of these many failures, the United States of America finds itself with a fiscal mess, monetary policy, which operates in uncharted waters and debts and deficits which are, to say the least, unsustainable. Corporate America is ever more resilient but too many corporations seem to believe that the primary source of capital is political. In a nation where the revolving door of corporate executives and political appointees is ever-turning, there is a growing sense that trust in our basic institutions is perhaps irreparably eroded. It is within this context that IECG finds itself in the roles of assisting board members to understand and perform their fiduciary duties and provide direction to their companies, but also in encouraging business leaders to assure that government leaders do the same.