Looking back at the 2008 global economic crisis and the recent corporate failures, Steinhoff in particular, one may be tempted to ask: “Why didn’t boards and their advisory committees (audit committees in particular) not see what was coming?”
There has, undoubtedly, been a significant loss of confidence and trust in top management. Some of this is, of course, to do with competence but in reality it has mostly focused on the quality of top management and a crucial component is ethics and integrity and an appropriate degree of scepticism on the part of non-executive directors.
Governance is not a static theory; it is an ever-evolving process...
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