Abstract:

How are boards of directors of major companies coping in 2021 with the increasing expectations of so many stakeholders?  How can directors help companies manage their way through myriad changes in the competitive environment, advances in technology, and new mandates from government and regulators? And how are boards able to oversee critical non-financial issues like corporate culture, ethics, cybersecurity and ESG? In this episode of the Principled Podcast, David Greenberg—LRN’s former CEO and now special advisor—continues the conversation about board engagement with Jonathan Day, CEO of Tapestry Networks. Listen in as David and Jonathan discuss the current issues facing boards of directors and how they impact board oversight of corporate culture, ethics, and compliance.

 

Featured guest:

Jonathan Day is an advisor and coach to chairs, CEOs, and heads of major government agencies. He has worked extensively with groups of senior leaders (boards, top executive teams, etc.) tackling difficult and potentially divisive questions, developing a global reputation for expertise in organization and governance, strategic problem solving, and complex team interventions. He has deep academic experience, including collaborations with top research professors, and is an expert at translating leading-edge theory into practical action programs that build institutions. “I have been exposed to a lot of different academic disciplines: psychology (clinical and cognitive), sociology/anthropology, theology and philosophy, economics and finance, engineering. The broad range has given me an eclectic set of mental tools.”

Before Tapestry, Jonathan was a practice managing partner, EMEA, at Heidrick & Struggles, where he worked in leadership consulting and executive search in the CEO/Board and higher education practices. Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, he spent nearly two decades in leading management consulting firms, first as principal at McKinsey & Company from 1990 to 2004 and then as managing director at Monitor Group from 2004 to 2008. “I think the consulting process is much more like a therapeutic process than it is a science or engineering. It means someone is helping the clients, individuals, or groups confront the outside world.” 

Jonathan has a MA in divinity from the University of Chicago, a BA and MA in psychology from Johns Hopkins University, and did PhD studies in cognitive psychology from Stanford University.

Jonathan is married with three children. He speaks, reads, and writes French and enjoys chamber music, sailing, cookery, writing, and travel.

 

Featured Host: 

David Greenberg serves as Chair of the Governance and Risk Assessment Committee and a member of the Audit Committee of International Seaways (NYSE: INSW), one of the largest global crude oil and petroleum tanker companies.  Mr. Greenberg’s previous board experience (2006 to 2016) was as the independent director – and member of both the Audit and Compensation Committees --of APCO Worldwide, a private communications and government affairs consultancy and as a director (2013 to 2016) of Clean Tech Group, which creates opportunities for industrial companies to invest in innovative, clean technology.  He also served for 5 years as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Keystone Center, a Colorado non-profit that brings together oil, chemical and pharmaceutical companies with leading NGOs to find solutions to complex public policy challenges at the federal and state levels.

Greenberg is currently Managing Director of Cortina Partners LLC, a private equity firm that owns companies in the air medical, addiction treatment, bedding, textile and outdoor recreation industries and is CEO of Acqua Recovery, a residential drug and alcohol addiction center.  He also advises boards and executive teams on strategy, compliance, leadership and culture as a Special Advisor for LRN Corporation, and from 2008 through the end of 2016 was a member of LRN’s Executive Comm

Listen in as LRN‘s Senior E&C Advisor Jim Walton and Kellogg‘s Senior Corporate Counsel Mary Fair-Matthews talk about how Kellogg reinvented their code to further deepen their commitment to ethical conduct through a combination of reimagining code structure, developing a mobile app, and administering training.

Listen in as Emily and Che explore how different parts of the world execute on ESG, what factors are at play when implementing ESG strategies, and how “green crime” threatens the environment, business, and security.

Listen in as Damien and Alexis discuss building accountability into E&C programs and the voices needed to be part of that effort.

Listen in as Marsha and David discuss their experience at the summit which followed on the heels of the joint report from Tapestry Networks and LRN, Activating Culture and Ethics from the Boardroom.

Listen in as Dr. Marsha Ershaghi Hames, Partner at Tapestry Networks, and David Greenberg, Special Advisor at LRN and Board Member of International Seaways discuss the genesis of their joint survey of board members from major corporations and the key themes that emerged from these candid conversations with corporate directors.

Trust has been a leading concern throughout institutions, globally. In this episode, Dr. David M. Bersoff, PhD, Head of Global Thought Leadership Research for Edelman Data & Intelligence joins us to talk about the overarching trends around trust, what institutions can do to gain back trust, how the trust barometer can help identify the differences in trust between nations, and how build and regain trust once it’s been lost.

“ 7-10 people fear the weaponization of misinformation, but what's changed in the last year or so is assumptions of who we think the weaponizers of fake news and misinformation largely are.”

- Dr. David M. Bersoff

David oversees Edelman’s global Thought Leadership research including the annual Trust Barometer and Brand Trust studies. In this capacity, he is responsible for questionnaire development, leading all data analysis and insight gleaning activities, and developing new frameworks for understanding trust, credibility, and consumer-brand relationships.

Prior to joining Edelman Intelligence, Dr. Bersoff spent 18 years as a consumer insights and marketing strategy consultant at The Futures Company. In his last 5 years with the organization, he served as its Chief Insights Officer and was a member of its global board of directors.

Prior to entering the consulting world, David spent 12 years engaged in social science research at various Ivy League institutions, including 4 years as an assistant professor of social psychology and research methodology at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Transcription:

Intro: Welcome to the Principled Podcast brought to you by LRN. The Principled Podcast brings together the collective wisdom on ethics, business and compliance, transformative stories of leadership and inspiring workplace culture. Listen in to discover valuable strategies from our community of business leaders and workplace change makers.

Ben DiPietro: Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of LRNs Principled Podcast. My name is Ben DiPietro. I'm the editor of LRNs E&C Pulse Newsletter. You can find that on our website lrn.com. Click the resources tab and click newsletter, please subscribe, we'd love to have you. With me today is Dr. David M. Bersoff. He's the Head of Global Thought Leadership Research at Edelman Data and Intelligence, and you would know them better as the people who put out the trust barometer for the last 20 years, and they have a new, a very interesting one out in 2021. And so we welcome David. And how are you, David? Thanks for taking time with us today.

Dr. David M. Bersoff: Pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

Ben DiPietro: In 2021 Edelman found business to be the most trusted institution globally. Why is that? And have the other institutions faltered leaving business standing alone, or has business simply outpaced media, NGOs, and government and building trust among people?

Dr. David Bersoff: All four institutions that you just mentioned actually are more trusted now than they were when we first started tracking trust among the general population back in 2012, but two things have conspired to put business in the number one position. The first is that it's actually experienced some good double digit growth in trust over the past 10 years or so, unlike media and NGOs, which have gone up but gone up relatively little and while the government has also gone up, which is surprising to some, started from the much lower position. So at the end of the day here, we find business is number one, and you can really understand what that looks like and why that is when you divide trust into its two constituent parts. So there is perceptions of ability or competence and there's perceptions of ethics or fairness. And what we see is that despite the fact that as I said, all the institutions have enjoyed some trust gains since 2012, government and media are generally seen as not terribly competent and not terribly ethical. NGOs are seen as ethical, but not terribly competent

Cheryl Curbeam, chief risk and compliance officer at Corteva Agriscience, talks about her journey from engineer to compliance officer; how the pandemic has prompted changes to how her program operates; and how to find and grow a diverse group of talent for careers in the ethics and compliance profession.

“No longer can you just have a conversation with someone that sits next to you, or in the hallway. People have to be more intentional about it, so we have had to step up our messaging about the hotline.”

- Cheryl Curbeam

Cheryl Curbeam is the chief ethics and compliance officer for Corteva Agriscience, a global agriculture company that launched as a publicly traded company in June 2019. Cheryl leads a global team to implement a new ethics and compliance program that inclkudes the creation of its first Corteva Code of Conduct, an Ethics and Compliance Hotline, employee training and certification, compliance policies, and mobile app. Full disclosure: Corteva is an LRN partner, and we worked with Cheryl and her team in helping them create their code.

Prior to her career at Corteva, Cheryl had progressive leadership roles at DuPont including assignments in operations, sales and marketing, and compliance. She holds a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from University of Tennessee. She is also a certified Corporate Compliance and Ethics Professional and Six Sigma Master Black Belt.

 

What You’ll Learn on This Episode:

[1:29] How has Curbeam’s career path led her to her current position at Corteva?

[3:23] How is Corteva’s E & C program structured and who does Curbeam report to?

[4:35] What are Corteva’s core values and how are they implemented in the structure of their E & C program?

[6:19] How has Covid changed the way that Corteva trains and communicates with their employees?

[9:28] What does Curbeam anticipate the lasting impact of Covid will be in the business world?

[10:37] How has Corteva conducted employee onboarding during the pandemic?

[11:34] What is Curbeam’s perspective on the call for racial justice during the summer of 2020?

[13:46] What can the E & C community do to promote more diversity?

 

Find this episode of Principled on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Sound Cloud, Podyssey, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

 

Transcription:

Intro: Welcome to the Principled Podcast brought to you by LRN. The Principled Podcast brings together the collective wisdom on ethics, business and compliance, transformative stories of leadership, and inspiring workplace culture. Listen in to discover valuable strategies from our community of business leaders and workplace changemakers.

Ben DiPietro: Hello, everybody and welcome to another episode of season five of LRN's Principled Podcast. My name is Ben DiPietro. I'm the editor of LRN's E&C Pulse Newsletter. You can find that on our website, lrn.com, click the resources tab, and then click on the newsletter tab. And please sign up. We'd love to have you as a subscriber.

With me today is Cheryl Curbeam, the Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer for Corteva Agriscience, a global agriculture company that launched as a publicly traded company in June of 2019. Cheryl leads a global team to implement an ethics and compliance program that includes the creation of the company's first ever code of conduct, an ethics and compliance hotline, employee training and certifications, and a mobile app. Let's welcome, Cheryl. How are you today? And thank you for taking time.

Cheryl Curbeam: I am well. Thank you, Ben, for the opportunity to speak with you today.

Ben DiPietro: It's good to have you here. So tell us a bit about your journey in the world of ethics and compliance. How did you become interested in this? And tell us a little bit about the career path you've taken to get where you are now at Corteva.

Cheryl Curbeam: I would like to say that Corteva sells... People

Eric Flesch, CEO of Colombia-based oil and gas company Promigas, talks with LRN’s Ben DiPietro about being an ethics and compliance leader in Latin America, and why it is so important he leads by example when it comes to asking employees to adopt and live the company’s seven core values.

Compliance executive and board and executive advisor Tiffany Archer of Panasonic Avionics shares how her study of psychology underpins her approach to ethics and compliance; what the differences are between diversity, equity, and inclusion, and why those distinctions matter; and how a company needs to look “below the iceberg” to find its true culture.