The inaugural Indian Newslink Sir Anand Satyanand Lecture, scheduled to be held in Auckland on July 4, 2011 at Stamford Plaza Hotel will hopefully herald a new era of Corporate Governance, embellished by Transparency, Accountability, and Integrity. The Lecture is an honest attempt to encourage our small, medium and large corporate entities to introspect and seek orderliness in their affairs.
This would in turn lead to a generation of stakeholders, managers and employees that can be truly responsible and reflect the national good character.
Although conceived almost five years ago, the Indian Newslink Sir Anand Satyanand Lecture is just becoming a reality, because we wanted it that way; a tribute to one of the greatest sons of the New Zealand soil at the conclusion of his resplendent tenure at the highest office of the country.
Throughout his career that spans more than 40 years, Sir Anand has distinguished himself as a brilliant son, a great husband, a benevolent father, and as a successful Lawyer, Judge, Ombudsman and Governor General.
Transparency is a quintessential factor to every corporate entity, irrespective of its size or location, generating precepts of Accountability and Integrity in an open environment, with no skeletons or shady deals.
The term ‘Corporate Transparency’ has become rather fashionable, repeated by politicians, managers, consultants and even radical-chic activists. The belief that transparency results in responsibility and ethics seems to be a new axiom for our time. Trendy descriptions such as extreme transparency, dynamic transparency, crystalline transparency are bandied whenever discussion turns to anything corporate.
Are naked organisations the new frontier of corporate governance? Will transparency prove to be the cure for our corrupt society?
Transparency, it seems, is simply the latest attempt to make an old concept, namely truthfulness, trendy. Our parents told us that lying is a bad thing; what we now call transparency is merely the embodiment of that advice. But just sharing even more information will not save society from business malpractice and corporate psychopaths.
Crystalline organisations are a mirage, not a model to be followed.
We hope that our Lecture series will evolve into a healthy debate and debrief sessions within corporations, encouraging managers to pursue good Governance.
