2009′s 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics

The following list of 100 individuals represents those that had significant impact in the realm of business ethics over the course of the year.

Although many listed here are deserving of a lifetime achievement award, this list recognizes those that have made a significant impact specifically during 2009.

These individuals represent eight distinct categories; Government and Regulatory; Business Leadership; Non-Government Organization (NGO); Design and Sustainability; Media and Whistleblowers; Thought Leadership; Corporate Culture; and Investment and Research.

Some are world famous and some are unknown, but from designing sustainable packaging to uncovering billion dollar fraud schemes, the following 100 individuals have impacted the world of business ethics in ways that will continue to resonate for many years.

The winners are broken down into the following eight core categories:

Government and Regulatory
Did the individual impact government rules or enforcement trends?
Business Leadership
Did the individual substantially transform a specific business’ operational practices consistent with profitable ethical leadership, forcing competitors to follow suit or fall behind?
Non-Government Organization (NGO) Did the individual impact a company’s (or industry’s) practices through external, non-regulatory leadership either through positive collaboration or negative publicity for a positive end?
Design and Sustainability
Did the individual substantially contribute to or lead a product or service redesign, which resulted in less natural resource use, or increased consumer acceptance of sustainability without diminishing the quality of the original product or service?
Media and Whistleblowers
Did the individual raise awareness on a critical issue or expose corruption?
Thought Leadership
Did the individual conceive of new approaches or otherwise materially contribute to the field of business ethics theory in a way that could be easily applied by corporate leaders?
Corporate Culture
Did the individual show success to transforming the ethical culture and behavior of a corporation or institution, particularly if such corporation or institution previously had a less than ethical culture and values system?
Investment and Research
Did the individual impact corporate behavior through influencing investor decisions and the deployment of investment capital due to research or institutional fund management practices?

The List:

 

1. John Kopchinski
2. Peter Solmssen
3. Mary Schapiro
4. Keith Jubah
5. Neelie Kroes
6. Mike Duke
7. Carter Roberts
8. Sir David Walker
9. Huguette Labelle
10. Dame Deirdre Hutton
11. Andrew Cuomo
12. Lanny Breuer
13. Beth Holzman
14. Jon Leibowitz
15. Sharon Allen
16. Charles Grassley
17. Jeff Immelt
18. Bibit Samad Riyanto
19. Herbert Fisk Johnson III
20. Sergey Magnitskiy
21. Ernst Ligteringen
22. Delos M. Cosgrove, M.D.
23. Jay S. Golden
24. Jon Johnson
25. Christine Varney
26. William Ballhaus
27. Mitch Jackson
28. Bob Stoffel
29. Thomas Donaldson
30. Alexandra Wrage
31. Michael Ranneberger
32. Timothy J. Carey
33. Barack Obama
34. Robert Khuzami
35. Ed Lonergan
36. Michael Hershman
37. Graeme Ashley-Fenn
38. Bill Gates
39. Martyn Hocking
40. Alexei Dymovsky
41. Jon Iwata
42. R. Edward Freeman
43. Arthur B. Weissman
44. Hector Sants
45. Margaret Cole
46. Ben W. Heineman, Jr.
47. Benedict XVI
48. Abol Jalilvand
49. John Castellani
50. Dan Gorsky
51. Paul Dickinson
52. Shan Rambaruth
53. Michael Schlein
54. Joel Makower
55. David Michaels
56. M Siddiqi
57. Jacqueline Brevard
58. Marc Gunther
59. Dean Krehmeyer
60. Tom Cantor
61. Chris MacDonald
62. Kathleen Edmond
63. Ed Breen
64. Thomas P. O’Brien
65. Jack Welch
66. Maggie Fox
67. Bennett Freeman
68. Nicholas Kristof
69. Newsweek Greenrankings Team
70. Brady Long
71. Marjorie Doyle
72. Mark Lee
73. Jay Whitehead
74. Carlos Minc
75. Antoine Mach
76. Timothy J. Mayopoulos
77. Christine Legarde
78. Karen Kaiser
79. Turney Stevens
80. Mindy Lubber
81. Mark Chandler
82. Linda Chatman Thomsen
83. Eduardo Perez Motta
84. Brian Martin
85. James Farrar
86. Pat Quinn
87. Wilfried Vanhonacker
88. Olivia Zaleski
89. Georgina Verdugo
90. Alina Dizik
91. Rich Blumenthal
92. Claire McCaskill
93. Michael Passoff
94. Aron Cramer
95. Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf
96. Pascal Bourdin
97. Mahinda Rajapaksa
98. Farida Mzamber Waziri
99. Peter Eigen
100. Joachín Almunia

1. John Kopchinski- Former Sales Representative, Pfizer

Category: Media and Whistleblower

Kopchinski blew the whistle on Pfizer’s marketing activity and received $51.1 million of the penalty that Pfizer paid for illegally marketing some of its drugs. Four other whistleblowers received some of the award as well, but Kopchinski earned the largest piece of the pie for his role. Officially turned whistleblowing into big business.

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2. Peter Solmssen- General Counsel, Siemens

Category: Corporate Culture

Solmssen was called in to clean up Siemens and revamp its culture. Many eyes around the world (regulators, companies considering disclosing FCPA violations, shareholders, and many more) will be watching Solmssen’s actions as a live case study as to how a company as large as Siemens can recover from such a large legal issue. One example is Siemen’s new $100 million anti-corruption initiative that will fund global anti-corruption programs.

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3. Mary Schapiro- Chairman, SEC

Category: Government and Regulatory

Schapiro leads the SEC and in 2009 clearly created a new tone compared to that set by her predecessor. Schapiro also announced that the SEC would hold its first Chief Compliance Officer National Seminar.

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4. Keith Jubah- Head of Public Procurement and Concessions Commission, Liberia

Category: Government and Regulatory

Jubah was killed in Liberia for doing his job. Unfortunately, that job involved fighting corruption in a country widely perceived to be among the most corrupt in the world. Jubah was shot to death near Liberia’s capital.

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5. Neelie Kroes- Commissioner for Competition, EU

Category: Government and Regulatory

She’s still got it, but this may be the last year that Kroes makes this list (a former #1 heavyweight from two years ago), as her term has ended and she is being replaced by Joachín Almunia. In her last year in this post, EU remained a leader in the antitrust and cartel-busting world, going after a few industries, including the “special glass sector.”

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6. Mike Duke- CEO, Wal-Mart

Category: Business Leadership

Duke played a key role in shaping the heightened expectations that his company has set for suppliers worldwide via Wal-Mart’s Sustainability Index, leveraging the retail giant’s clout to make thousands of companies around the globe more sustainable.

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7. Carter Roberts- CEO, World Wildlife Fund

Category: NGO

WWF isn’t just the group that successfully wrangled its acronym from the World Wrestling Federation, it’s become a (if not “the”) leading NGO protecting wildlife and the environment. Roberts makes this list for heading up the group. This year, WWF has been extremely busy, not only working to improve public policy but also advising companies such as Kroger and Diversey.

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8. Sir David Walker- Senior Adviser, Morgan Stanley International

Category: Corporate Culture

This year, Walker continues to lead an important independent review of corporate governance in the UK banking industry which will provide a foundation for governance changes for many years to come.

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9. Huguette Labelle- Chair, Transparency International

Category: Non-Government Organization

TI continues its relevance and recently published its 2009 corruption perceptions index report. While many individuals in TI are doing great work, Labelle earns the spot on this list for leading the organization.

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10. Dame Deirdre Hutton- Chair, Food Standards Agency, UK

Category: Government and Regulatory

In 2008 FSA encouraged companies to voluntarily ban additives that lead to hyperactivity in children. In 2009 several companies stepped up and took the pledge to do so.

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11. Andrew Cuomo- Attorney General, New York

Category: Government and Regulatory

Cuomo spent 2009 working to unravel governance issues in companies. His name gained particular notoriety in stories dealing with governance issues at AIG, Bank of America, and other major TARP recipients. Less publicized (outside of New York, that is), he also spent 2009 going after smaller, albeit just as important, fraudulent organizations. One example is the allegedly fraudulent charity, United Homeless Organization.

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12. Lanny Breuer- Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice

Category: Government and Regulatory

Breuer has moved from defending high profile clients such as President Bill Clinton and Roger Clemmens to find himself in a position that oversees all U.S. attorneys general. Since taking up his new job in January of this year, he is responsible for the thousands of federal white collar prosecutions (and many, many more prosecutions that don’t deal with white collar issues) that took place in the U.S. this year

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13. Beth Holzman- CSR Strategy & Reporting Manager, Timberland

Category: Business Leadership

Beyond just an annual sustainability report, Timberland publishes key CSR performance indicators on a quarterly basis. This year the company has reduced travel emissions, increased use of renewable energy and partnered with leading environmental NGOs, (as well as other initiatives), in order to become carbon neutral by 2010. Very aggressive goal.

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14. Jon Leibowitz- Chairman, Federal Trade Commission

Category: Government and Regulatory

The FTC has noticeably stepped up enforcement throughout 2009 (as Ethisphere predicted in its cover story for its Q4, 2008 magazine — but that’s beside the point). One example? The comission has recently enacted legislation that requires advertisers to disclose payments made to blogs for positive coverage.

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15. Sharon Allen- Chairman, Deloitte

Category: Corporate Culture

Allen leads the environment at Deloitte, an environment that is increasingly known for using business ethics as a competitive advantage to secure clients and retain top employees. Allen travelled quite a bit during 2009, often to speak on the advantages of using business ethics to further a company’s operational goals.

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16. Charles Grassley- Senator, Iowa

Category: Government and Regulatory

Grassley’s is a leading voice in the Senate speaking out against corruption and financial fraud. Even before the financial crisis of last year, Grassley’s name always seemed to come up in financial fraud stories. He is aware of what’s going on and is aggressively going after those that commit fraud.

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17. Jeff Immelt- CEO, General Electric

Category: Business Leadership

GE wasn’t without controversy in 2009, but for such a large company it is doing a lot of things very well. This year, under Immelt’s leadership, GE has implemented initiatives such as new investments in renewable energy and partnering with leading business schools such as Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business to engage students in case studies around business ethics.

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18. Bibit Samad Riyanto- Deputy Chief, Indonesia Anti-Corruption Task Force

Category: Government and Regulatory

Bibit, along with colleague Chandra Hamzah, was a senior official with Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and was arrested for being too successful at going after corruption cases. He was arrested by the National Police on the very controversial charges of “abuse of power.” Many in Indonesia accuse the National Police of orchestrating the arrest in order to damage the influence of the KPK.

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19. Herbert Fisk Johnson, III- Chairman & CEO, SC Johnson

Category: Design and Sustainability

On top of initiatives such as reducing carbon emissions, SC Johnson decided to publicly list all ingredients for every product the company makes at www.whatsinsidescjohnson.com.

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20. Sergey Magnitskiy- Attorney, Firestone Duncan

Category: Media and Whistleblower

Magnitsky was arrested in Russia in 2008 after testifying against alleged financial fraud committed by Russian officials. He spent 11 months in jail and died this year in prison from heart failure, according to a spokesperson for the Russian Interior Ministry. According to Magnitskiy’s attorneys, his appeals for health care while in prison were continuously ignored.

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21. Ernst Ligteringen- CEO, Global Reporting Initiative

Category: Non-Government Organization

Through the tireless efforts of its staff, Board, secretariat, etc, GRI has become the leading expert on sustainability reporting guidelines. More and more companies around the world turned to GRI in 2009 to help provide insight into creating best in class CSR reports.

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22. Delos M. Cosgrove, M.D.- Chief Executive Officer, Cleveland Clinic

Category: Corporate Culture

Dr. Cosgrove made this list after the Cleveland Clinic required all of its physicians and researchers to publicly disclose industry relationships as part of the Clinic’s transparency initiatives involving the conflict of interest and managing innovations processes.

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23. Jay S. Golden- Co-Director Sustainability Consortium

Category: Non-Government Organization

Heard about the Wal-Mart sustainability index? While Wal-Mart is championing the initiative, a group called the Sustainability Consortium is managing its day-to-day activities. Golden is a co-director of that group.

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23. Jon Johnson- Co-Director, Sustainability Consortium

Category: Non-Government Organization

Along with Golden (see above), Johnson is co-director at Sustainability Consortium. The group made a big impact in partnership with Wal-Mart when they created the company’s much advertised sustainability index.

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25. Christine Varney- Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice

Category: Government and Regulatory

Since taking her current post this year as chief antitrust enforcer in the U.S., Varney was responsible for the cases concerning Google and Microsoft, among other multinational companies.

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26. William Ballhaus- CEO, DynCorp

Category: Corporate Culture

Ballhaus fired the general counsel of DynCorp after it was discovered DynCorp subcontractors may have violated U.S. anti-bribery laws. Usually people in a senior position such as the GC spot are presented the opportunity to “resign” or “move on to other opportunities.” Not in this case. This action will set a precedent for many other in-house legal counsel, and certainly impacted the tone from the top coming from DynCorp’s executive suite.

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27. Mitch Jackson- Staff Director, FedEx Corp Environmental Affairs & Sustainability, FedEx

Category: Business Leadership

In case you haven’t heard about any of FedEx’s new corporate social responsibility initiatives (including commitments to cut emissions in its fleet), you can go to the company’s corporate social responsibility blog to find out more. Some new sustainability initiatives include cutting emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and improving fuel economy of its vehicles by 20 percent by the same time.

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27. Bob Stoffel- SVP Engineering, Strategy, Supply Chain Distribution, Sustainability, UPS

Category: Business Leadership

Like its archrival FedEx, UPS was busy in 2009 improving its sustainability performance and announcing new initiatives. Initiatives include allowing customers to purchase carbon offsets for packages and committing to a 20 percent carbon emission reduction by 2020.

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29. Thomas Donaldson- Mark O. Winkelman Professor, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Category: Thought Leadership

Donaldson is a sought after advisor by boards and executive teams. In 2009 he also became host of the new PBS program on business ethics, In Search of the Good Corporate Citizen, where he leads discussions among a panel of business leaders on the pressing ethics issues of the day. This year he also received the Aspen Institute Beyond Gray Pinstripes Lifetime Achievement Award and he is as a trustee of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and an Academic Advisor for the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics.

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30. Alexandra Wrage- President, TRACE International

Category: Non-Government Organization

Wrage heads up one of the leading global NGOs dealing with anti-corruption issues. This year TRACE International launched the TRACE Compendium on anti-corruption issues, an online compilation of anti-bribery enforcement actions around the world.

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31. Michael Ranneberger- U.S. Ambassador to Kenya

Category: Government and Regulatory

In November, Ranneberger publicly announced on his twitter page that he had denied a U.S. visa to Kenya’s attorney general, Amos Wako. The significance of this is that it’s very rare that denial of a visa to a foreign official is made public. The reason Ranneberger denied Wako is because Wako is “obstructive in the fight against corruption.”

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32. Timothy J. Carey- Director of Sustainability, PepsiCo

Category: Design and Sustainability

Carey earns a spot on this list for Pepsi’s new “Eco-Fina” bottle. The new bottle, less harmful to the environment than traditional plastic bottles, received glowing reviews from some of the most ardent anti-plastic bottle groups out there.

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33. Barack Obama- President, United States of America

Category: Government and Regulatory

President Obama accomplished a few things this year relating to business ethics, but the one that earned him a spot on this list was for signing the Ledbetter Fair Trade Act, a bill that had been swirling around Congress for a few years. The Act, named after Lilly Ledbetter, extends the amount of time that pay discrimination complaints can be filed. Obama also signed the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009 (FERA), an expansive fraud-busting bill.

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34. Robert Khuzami- Director of SEC’s Division of Enforcement, SEC

Category: Government and Regulatory

New rules by the SEC allow Khuzami and the SEC’s Division of Enforcement to directly penalize CEOs over company fraud scandals, regardless of if the CEOs were actually involved in the fraud. This is a controversial new precedent to be sure, but it is also a carrot to encourage CEOs to conduct their due diligence.

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35. Ed Lonergan- CEO, Diversey

Category: Business Leadership

After meeting his company’s goal of reducing emissions by 8 percent by 2013 within a year after announcing the plan, Lonergan decided to up the bar and reduce total emissions by 25 percent by 2013. Lonergan claims his company gets $2.15 back for every $1 invested in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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36. Michael Hershman- President and CEO, The Fairfax Group

Category: Thought Leadership

This year Hershman went to Congo at the behest of the U.S. State Department to help work on anti-corruption initiatives. He also makes this list for his leadership role this year in founding and developing the Vienna-based International Anti-Corruption Academy.

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37. Graeme Ashley-Fenn- Director, Permissions, Decisions and Reporting, Financial Services Authority

Category: Government and Regulatory

This summer, the FSA placed new responsibility on UK financial institutions to encourage “senior and well-paid” traders to conduct due diligence in their organizations. If they don’t, they can now be fined directly by the FSA and Ashley-Fenn.

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38. Bill Gates- Founder, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Category: Non-Government Organization

The Gates Foundation not only makes enormouus contributions to world health and education, the organization continued this year to bring useful business tools into the non-profit world which will improve the accuracy of effectiveness assessments.

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39. Martyn Hocking- Editor, Which? Magazine

Category: Media and Whistleblower

This fall, Hocking and his Which? Magazine undertook a study relating to kids’ health and discovered a number of companies that make unhealthy kids’ snack products, yet market the products as healthy. The results were published in Which? and made international headlines.

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40. Alexei Dymovsky- Former Police Officer, Russia

Category: Media and Whistleblower

Dymovsky, a former police officer in Russia, was dismissed from the force after he published a seven minute video on YouTube addressed to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that accused several high level Russian officials of corruption. With all the media attention that the video obtained, the Russian Interior Minister, Rashid Nurgaliyev, promised an investigation. Two hours later the probe was officially complete, and Dymovsky was quickly fired for “libel and actions that tarnish the honor” of the police.

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41. Jon Iwata- Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, IBM

Category: Corporate Culture

Iwata and his team are responsible for instilling IBM Values into the company’s practices and operations, and for coordinating IBM’s corporate affairs initiatives. This year Iwata led efforts to advocate IBMers responsible engagement of business and social issues via online communications tools fostering relationships, learning and collaboration.

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42. R. Edward Freeman- Elis and Signe Olsson Professor, University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business

Category: Thought Leadership

Jack Welch’s statement that “shareholder value” was “the dumbest idea in the world” was equivalent to saying “R. Edward Freeman is right.” Freeman’s stakeholder model, spurred by his most recent book Stakeholder Theory: The State of the Art, is a potent influence to business leaders who embrace their social role. He is a sought after speaker by executives and academics from around the globe with engagements in Asia, Europe and Australia.

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43. Arthur B. Weissman- President and CEO, GreenSeal

Category: Non-Government Organization

GreenSeal, under Weissman, expanded its certification line in 2009 to certify companies for sustainability programs, not just the individual products those companies make.

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44. Hector Sants- Chief Executive, Financial Services Authority

Category: Government and Regulatory

Sants made this list after the UK’s FSA introduced new tests to ensure that candidates for top UK finance position have proper ethical training for their jobs. If the candidates fail the test, they are unable to obtain a senior position.

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45. Margaret Cole- Director of Enforcement, Financial Services Authority

Category: Government and Regulatory

In January of 2009, Cole and the FSA brought the first changes ever levied against an individual for insider trading by the FSA. This action set a new precedent for 2009 and the years to come.

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46. Ben W. Heineman, Jr.- Senior Fellow, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government

Category: Thought Leadership

On top of teaching a course at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Heineman remained an influential voice in international board rooms this year. When he’s not writing influential books on business ethics, he’s contributing to periodicals such as The Atlantic on issues including the role of shareholders in the financial crisis.

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47. Benedict XVI- Pope, Catholic Church

Category: Thought Leadership

Benedict XVI makes this list for his Encyclical Letter, “Charity in Truth,” published in June of this year. The letter clearly draws the line between authentic and bogus CSR, it lays down the requirements for true business ethics, it spells out the proper role of profits in business, it articulates the conditions for “decent work”, it puts the concern for the environment in its proper perspective of integral human development, it posits the challenge of putting the forces of globalization at the service of human beings, and it encourages the development of civil society (with its logic of communion and gratuitousness) as the solution to the dialectic between the market and the state.

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48. Abol Jalilvand- Dean, Loyola Business School

Category: Thought Leadership

A number of leading business schools have really ramped up their focus on business ethics in light of the financial crisis that began last year. Under Jalilvand’s leadership, Loyola’s business school was ranked #1 in 2009 by BusinessWeek as the b-school with the strongest ethics curriculum.

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49. John Castellani– President, Business Roundtable

Category: Business Leadership

Castellani helped form the Divided We Fail Coalition with the SEIU and AARP to promote health care reform that meets the mutual interests of business, employees and the American public. This year, Castellani spoke out on behalf of member chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with more than $5 trillion in annual revenues and more than 12 million employees.

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50. Dan Gorsky– Senior Vice President, Supply Chain Management, McDonald’s

Category: Business Leadership

McDonald’s took a proactive approach towards its supply chain in 2009 and announced it will survey its U.S. potato suppliers and publish a list of best practices that will help reduce pesticide use by the company’s suppliers. The results of the survey will be released in the company’s annual CSR report.

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51. Paul Dickinson– CEO, Carbon Disclosure Project

Category: Non-Government Organization

Dickinson and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) have been busy this year as each year more companies sign onto the sustainability wave and agree to cut emissions (among other programs). One unique initiative CDP launched this year was its Water Disclosure Initiative which developed a mechanism for companies to report water use throughout their operations.

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52. Shan Rambaruth– Competition Commissioner

Category: Government and Regulatory

Rambaruth and the South African Competition Commission may not receive as much international attention as the U.S. and EU, but they certainly are just as busy attacking cartels. This year Rambaruth went after 30 South African companies accused of operating a cartel relating to production and supply of food in the country.

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53. Michael Schlein– President and CEO, ACCION International

Category: Non-Government Organization

ACCION International, provides loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries — sometimes the loan is as small as $100. ACCION has become the leading microlending organization in the United States. Schlein took the reigns of the company this year after the previous President and CEO, María Otero, accepted an appointment by President Obama to be Under Secretary of Global Affairs at the Department of State.

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54. Joel Makower– Editor, GreenBiz

Category: Media and Whistleblower

On top of attending, sponsoring or hosting a number of conferences on sustainability issues, GreenBiz, under Makower’s leadership, continues to be a great source of news for environmental issues and other CSR initiatives implemented by leading companies.

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55. David Michaels– Assistant Secretary of Labor, OSHA

Category: Government and Regulatory

Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, must seem a bit more intimidating to Board Rooms than his predecessors as it was recently ruled that private companies that perform work for public companies will be liable under Sarbanes-Oxley regulations. This expands the authority of SOX which also expands the powers of OSHA, the regulatory body that oversees SOX.

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56. M Siddiqi– CEO, Vedanta Aluminum, Ltd.

Category: Business Leadership

Vedanta, under Siddiqi’s leadership, publicly committed this year to spending 5 percent of the company’s profit on CSR activities.

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57. Jacqueline Brevard– Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer, Merck

Category: Corporate Culture

Brevard is the longest standing chief ethics and compliance officer of a major company. In 2009 she was active in a number of compliance and ethics initiatives and membership organizations and continued to set a strong leadership example within the compliance and ethics field.

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58. Marc Gunther– Author, MarcGunther.com

Category: Media and Whistleblower

Gunther’s nearly daily blog postings (sometimes more than that) covering corporate sustainability, combined with freelance reporting, combined with frequent travel, equals one very busy CSR expert.

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59. Dean Krehmeyer– Executive Director, Business Roundtable Institute for Ethics

Category: Thought Leadership

Krehmeyer heads the Business Roundtable Institute for Ethics, a leading think tank on business ethics. This year Krehmeyer launched a free online global video series covering business ethics.

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60. Tom Cantor– CEO, Scantibodies Laboratory

Category: Media and Whistleblower

He may not have made as big a splash as John Kopchinski, but he did earn “Whistleblower of the Year” award from the Taxpayers against Fraud organization after he filed a qui tam whistleblower suit against Quest Diagnostics and the Nichols Institute. The two organzations allegedly sold diagnostic tests that gave faulty results. Oh, and after the companies settled the suit, Cantor also received a reported $40 million for his efforts.

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61. Chris MacDonald– Editor, Business Ethics Blog

Category: Thought Leadership

MacDonald doesn’t seem to ever tire of writing about business ethics (or companies’ lack thereof). His blog, The Business Ethics Blog, continued to stay relevant throughout the year, publishing intelligent commentary on everything from business students to medical devices.

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62. Kathleen Edmond– Chief Ethics Officer, Best Buy

Category: Business Leadership

Edmond made the list for her Best Buy’s Chief Ethics Officer Blog. As the author of that blog, she discusses actual case studies of recent events within the company such as when a manager was terminated for inappropriate photos on the manager’s computer, or when another manager was accused of accepting kickbacks. More often than not, companies will try to avoid embarassing issues like these. Edmond and Best Buy take an opposite approach and use them as teaching lessons for employees.

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63. Ed Breen– Chairman and CEO, Tyco

Category: Corporate Culture

When he first accepted the CEO position of embattled Tyco earlier this decade, Breen very quickly fired 290 of the 300 top executives working there. Soon after he fired the board (the same board that voted to give him the job). Those kinds of changes set the foundation for the company to beat earnings expectations in 2009, earnings that were influenced in no small way by an improved ethical culture.

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64. Thomas P. O’Brien– U.S. Attorney, DOJ

Category: Government and Regulatory

O’Brien took “aggressive” to a new level when he went after stock option backdating at KB Home. He charged CEO of KB Home, Bruce Karatz, with 15 different charges that add up to 415 years of prison if found guilty on all counts. This occurred after Karatz already paid over $7 million to settle stock option backdating charges with the SEC in 2008.

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65. Jack Welch– Former CEO, General Electric

Category: Business Leadership

Welch makes the list for admitting in an interview with Financial Times that his focus on “shareholder value” was “the dumbest idea in the world.” After immense push back from the financial word and criticisms of ideas around CSR, largely based on Welch’s idea of shareholder value, Welch finally came around to the other side.

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66. Maggie Fox– President and CEO, Alliance for Climate Protection

Category: Non-Government Organization

Alliance for Climate Protection (ACP) just continued to pick up steam in 2009. ACP boasts being the parent organization of such notable groups as “Repower America” and “Reality” (if you haven’t seen an advertisement — print, online or television — for any of these groups recently then you have been living under a rock). The ACP is leading the dialogue of the renewable energy movement.

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67. Bennett Freeman– Senior Vice President, Sustainability Research and Policy, Calvert Group

Category: Investment and Research

Calvert remained a leading SRI firm this year, managing over $14 billion in assets. Freeman actively promoted the idea and benefits of socially responsible around the world.

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68. Nicholas Kristof– Columnist, New York Times

Category: Media and Whistleblowers

Kristof has feverously written on life in developing countries, having spent a lot of time living there himself. In January of this year he wrote a provocative column on the benefits of sweat shops in these regions. He continues to push forward the dialogue when it comes to quality of life in developing countries.

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69. Newsweek Greenrankings Team– Newsweet

Category: Investment and Research

Three individuals collectively earned this spot. They are: Peter Kinder, President of KLD Research & Analytics; Simon Thomas, Chief Executive of Trucost; and Paul Scott, Managing Director of CorporateRegister.com. On top of heading up leading an SRI investment company, environmental data collection company and CSR information provider, respectively, Kinder, Thomas and Scott also put together and launched Newsweek’s first annual Green Rankings.

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70. Brady Long– Chief Compliance Officer, Pride International, Inc.

Category: Business Leadership

Long has created a top of the line compliance program at Pride International during his tenure there, and this year was as active as any compliance officer espousing the ideals of ethics and compliance as part of a company’s long term business strategy, particularly when it comes to FCPA issues.

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71. Marjorie Doyle– President, Marjorie Doyle & Associates, LLC

Category: Business Leadership

Doyle, former chief ethics and compliance officer at DuPont and one of the folks responsible for that company’s great ethics and compliance program, began her own ethics and compliance consultancy this year. On top of consulting leading organizations, she spent 2009 extensively speaking on compliance and business ethics issues.

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72. Mark Lee– CEO, SustainAbility

Category: Non-Government Organization

We have no idea how SustainAbility was able to nab the url for www.sustainability.com in this environmentally focused time, but they did (although that has nothing to do with why Lee made the list). Lee made the list this year for his work consulting top multinational companies as to how they can improve their CSR programs.

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73. Jay Whitehead– President & Publisher, Corporate Responsibility Officer

Category: Media and Whistleblower

Whitehead is the publisher of Corporate Responsibility Officer (CRO), a leading publication covering business ethics and compliance issues. In 2009 CRO produced a number of leading conferences around the United States and Whitehead remained a leading voice in global CSR discussions.

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74. Carlos Minc– Environment Minister, Brazil

Category: Government and Regulatory

Minc won an internal battle with his policy advisers and political rivals to get Brazil to commit to reducing 36 percent of its carbon emissions by 2020. A large part of the reductions will be obtained by dramatically reducing deforestation.

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75. Antoine Mach– Director and Co-Founder, Covalence

Category: Investment and Research

Covalence, under Mach’s leadership, provides companies with an EthicalQuote, or a score of a company’s ethical reputation. Covalence also has a public version of EthicalQuote online, a daily updated database that measures the ethical reputation of multinational companies.

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76. Timothy J. Mayopoulos– Former General Counsel, Bank of America

Category: Media and Whistleblowers

Mayopoulos disclosed to Bank of America’s board the issues with Merrill’s mounting losses and was then terminated at B of A. But, he also upheld B of A’s privilege when questioned by Cuomo — and did so until B of A waived it.

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77. Christine Lagarde– Finance Minister, France

Category: Government and Regulatory

Lagarde spent a significant amount of time in the latter part of this year encouraging European Financial Stability Board Chairman Mario Draghi to investigate whether consolidation of large financial institutions in the aftermath of the financial crisis is hurting competition. In the rush to stem the bleeding, this question was rarely, if ever, publicly asked.

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78. Karen Kaiser– Former wife of David Kilkha

Category: Media and Whistleblower

First, Kaiser filed for divorce from Kilkha. In the divorce proceeding, Zilkha’s former psychologist was called to testify. Turns out Zilkha told his psychologist that he was fired after he stopped providing his company with confidential information about a rival. The psychologist presented that information and the divorce proceeding, and then testified at a trial against the company.

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79. Turney Stevens- Dean, College of Business, Lipscomb University

Category: Thought Leadership

This year Dean Stevens helped to create the new Dean Institute for Corporate Governance and Integrity at Lipscomb University. The Institute’s mission will explore the idea of implementing integrity in business operations, even if that comes at the expense of “undesirable” short term consequences.

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80. Mindy Lubber– President, Ceres

Category: Investment and Research

Ceres is another leading SRI firm that grew its influence in 2009 (in fact, the financial crisis generally acted as a great sales pitch for socially responsible investing). This year Ceres was a leading voice in activist shareholder resolutions, which includes conducting a study on the success of these types of resolutions over the year.

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81. Mark Chandler– General Counsel, Cisco

Category: Business Leadership

Chandler spent 2009 with a strong commitment to improving anti-corruption best practices and reinventing corporate legal practices and services. He was also a founder of the social networking site for attorneys, Legal Onramp, which continued to gain steam this year as well.

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82. Linda Chatman Thomsen– Director, SEC Division of Enforcement

Category: Government and Regulatory

As of this year, the SEC leads its own investigations relating to FCPA instead of tagging along behind the DOJ. Thomsen heads up those efforts.

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83. Eduardo Perez Motta– Chairman, Mexican Federal Competition Commission (Cofeco)

Category: Government and Regulatory

Cofeco, under Motta’s guidance, opened an investigation into potential monopoly practices in Mexico’s soft drink market — a market that drinks more coca-cola products per capita than any other country in the world, according to Reuters. Antitrust investigations are largely reported on in the U.S. and EU. It’s refreshing to hear of one occuring outside those two regions.

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84. Brian Martin– SVP and General Counsel, KLA-Tencor

Category: Corporate Culture

Martin, SVP and GC for KLA-Tencor, spent 2009 helping to bring a strong ethics and compliance program to his company, and remained very active in the ethics community, including writing a column for InsideCounsel Magazine, teaching a course on ethics, presenting in over 15 CLE programs on ethics, developing…well, you get the idea.

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85. James Farrar– Vice President of CSR, SAP

Category: Thought Leadership

On top of advising companies on how to develop and implement CSR initiatives, SAP also has a pretty good international program itself, led by Farrar, including SAP’s Africa Drive Project and partnerships with NGOs such as the HOPE Foundation in India.

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86. Pat Quinn– Governor of Illinois

Category: Government and Regulatory

Records show that not only did Quinn not abuse travel privileges as lieutenant governor; he actually paid for a good bit of his travel himself. This deserves particular mention in a year that had its first half plagued with headlines of either taxpayer or shareholder abuse for personal privilege.

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87. Wilfried Vanhonacker– Dean, Moscow School of Management in Skolkovo

Category: Thought Leadership

Vanhonacker leads the Moscow School of Management in Skolkovo, Russia. The school recently announced that it will focus on anti-corruption, a welcome change to the high profile reports of alleged corruption that came from Russia this year (see above).

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88. Olivia Zaleski– Journalist, Huffington Post

Category: Media and Whistleblower

Zaleski is a leading voice in the green movement, having covered environmental issues for online sites Treehugger, TheDailyGreen, Eco-Chick and Huffington Post and profiled by Fast Company in August. This year she also created regular video segments for CNNMoney.com called “Home Work” and “The Business of Green.”

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89. Georgina Verdugo– Director, Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights

Category: Government and Regulatory

After some big privacy violations in 2008 and 2009, the maximum fine for HIPAA privacy violations jumped to $1.5 million per provision, compared to the prior rate of $25,000. As Director of the Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, Verdugo now has a bigger weapon to use against those that violate privacy laws.

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90. Alina Dizik – Journalist, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek and others

Category: Media and Whistleblower

Throughout 2009, Dizik wrote a series of articles covering CSR and business ethics initiatives for the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek, including stories covering b-schools’ ethics, CSR networking and how to use CSR to improve a corporate culture.

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91. Rich Blumenthal– Attorney General, Connecticut

Category: Government and Regulatory

Blumenthal was one of the leading Attorneys General this year when it came to protecting consumers against leading issues. Example: When the swine flu became a major story, he investigated some of the largest pharmacies (CVS, RiteAid and Wallgreens) for allegedly inflating prices of Tamiflu after that drug was promoted as a leading anti-flu medication.

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92. Claire McCaskill– U.S. Senator

Category: Government and Regulatory

McCaskill added whistleblower protections to the stimulus bill that passed earlier this year. This provision protects as a whistleblower those who report discrepancies or illegal activity in regards to the use of stimulus money.

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93. Michael Passoff- Associate Director, Corporate Social Responsibility Program, As You Sow

Category: Design and Sustainability

Activist shareholder resolutions are a dime a dozen, particularly in regard to environmental initiatives. This year marked a milestone — the first of those resolutions to ever pass. Passoff, Associate Director of As You Sow, helped to organize the resolution and the investor vote, which requires Idaho utility company IdaCorp to set greenhouse gas reduction goals.

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94. Aron Cramer- President and CEO, Business for Social Responsibility

Category: Thought Leadership

Helming his company Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), Cramer was a leading consultant in 2009 for companies looking to implement new CSR initiatives.

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95. Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf- Head of FDJP, Switzerland

Category: Government and Regulatory

Under Widmer-Schlumpf’s leadership, the Swiss Department of Justice (FDJP) received thousands of names of individuals who had more than $1 million in UBS bank accounts, and will hand that information over to U.S. authorities. Tax evaders everywhere have since “lawyered-up.”

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96. Pascal Bourdin- SVP, and GM of European Chocolate Business, Kraft

Category: Business Leadership

Bourdin and Kraft agreed in 2009 to increase the amount of Rainforest Alliance Certified cocoa beans ten-fold that the company uses within four years. This will increase the amount of beans used to a total of 30,000 tons by the end of 2012.

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97. Mahinda Rajapaksa– President, Sri Lanka

Category: Government and Regulatory

Rajapaksa admitted that bribery and corruption have ruined his country and that it needs to change. Although he is low on the list this time around, he could quickly work his way up the ranks next year depending on his actions follow up his statements.

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98. Farida Mzamber Waziri- Executive Chairman, Nigeria’s Antigraft Agency

Category: Government and Regulatory

Have you been lucky enough to receive an email from a wealthy Nigerian looking to transfer wealth to someone just like you? Well, Waziri is working to shut down those notorious scam websites, known as 419 Scams. While the effort is laudible, our inbox tells us that he has a lot of work ahead of him…

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99. Peter Eigen- Chairman, Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

Category: Thought Leadership

Eigen heads up the influential Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a coalition that promotes ethics within the extractive industry. This year the organization held its biennial global conference in Doha, Qatar, and continued to push for global transparency within its field.

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100. Joachín Almunia- Competition Commissioner, EU

Category: Government and Regulatory

Almunia just took this job and must be aware of the large shoes that he has to fill. All signs say he is going to be very proactive and aggressive, just like his predecessor, Neelie Kroes. Who knows, if he lives up to expectations, maybe he will move all the way up to the #1 spot next year.

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Learning from Others’ Mistakes: 2009’s Top 10 People We Won’t Miss

Influence isn’t only brought about by positive actions, sometimes unintended improvement comes from ethical missteps. Here are the top ten individuals that have influenced business ethics through professional flubs.

  1. Juan Dominguez – Dominquez represented thousands of South American banana plantation workers in ongoing suit against Dole, accused of using fake witnesses and creating false evidence.
  2. Antasari Azhar – Azhar was the former anti-corruption chief of Indonesia. It’s not good to be an anti-corruption chief and be accused of murdering your lover’s lover.
  3. Ngo Quang Truong – Truong, director of Vietnamese real estate investment company Hoang Hai Ltd, was accused this year of hiring people to kill the whistleblower accusing him of corruption.
  4. Scott Murray – A jury decided that Murray, the HR director at Nutrition Management, had insufficient knowledge of FMLA when he fired a pregnant employee. This insufficient knowledge caused the fine against his company to double.
  5. Steven Cauley – Cauley, a partner at Cauley, Bowman, Carney & Williams, allegedly diverted escrow funds from a $65.8 million class action settlement in order to fund his failing car wash business and other ventures.
  6. Charles Conaway – Conaway, former CEO of K-Mart, was found guilty earlier this year of lying to investors about the status of K-Mart’s financial health.
  7. Anonymous Hacker – This anonymous hacker hacked into the Virginia Department of Health and stole 8.3 million patients’ personal information in Virginia. He/she would only return the data for a $10 million ransom.
  8. Tom Petters – Petters, who was accused last year of orchestrating a multi-billion dollar ponzi scheme, was found guilty in early December 2009 on 20 counts of wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. Petters faces up to 30 years in prison for the scheme.
  9. Gunther Than – Than and his company View Systems were caught this year for promoting contracts with Verizon Wireless that didn’t exist.
  10. Hartmut Mehdron – Deutsche Bahn was wrapped up in a massive employee spying scandal while Mehdron was at the helm. The scandal certainly involves more than just Mehdron, but the buck has to stop somewhere. Mehdron stepped down early this year after the news made international headlines.


Ethisphere would like to thank the following individuals for their help in creating this list:

• Marianne Jennings, Professor of Management, Arizona State University
• Joseph Holt, Director for Executive Ethics, Notre Dame University
• Charles Elson, Director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, University of Delaware
• Brian Moriarty, Associate Director of Communications, Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics
• Alejo José G. Sison, Senior Fellow at the Center for Business and Society, IESE

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