When crisis meets opportunity.

• Author: Sayther, Colleen A.
• Position: President's Page

FEI's El's goals include promoting ethical leadership and restoring investor confidence in our financial markets. Financial executives have a unique role in setting the ethical culture within their organizations. Tone at the top is clearly important. As we witnessed with Enron, which had a robust code of ethics, if the leadership does not embody the code, the culture of the entity as a whole will not embrace it.

While tone at the top is imperative, having systemic checks and balances to ensure appropriate behavior is no less important. FEI has an active Ethics and Eligibility Committee, comprised of volunteer FEI members, which recently worked with the FET staff to update the Code of Ethics that every FEI member is required to sign. The code is now compliant with the new SEC rules, and details principles that members are required to adhere to and embody within their organizations. The new code is repeated here:

All members of FEI will:

* Act with honesty and integrity, avoiding actual or apparent conflicts of interest in personal and professional relationships.

* Provide constituents with information that is accurate, complete, objective, relevant, timely and understandable.

* Comply with applicable rules and regulations of federal, state, provincial, and local governments, and other appropriate private and public regulatory agencies.

* Act in good faith, responsibly, with due care, competence and diligence, without misrepresenting material facts or allowing one's independent judgment to be subordinated.

* Respect the confidentiality of information acquired in the course of one's work except when authorized or otherwise legally obligated to disclose. Confidential information acquired in the course of one's work will not be used for personal advantage.

* Share knowledge and maintain skills important and relevant to constituents' needs.

* Proactively promote ethical behavior as a responsible partner among peers, in the work environment and the community.

* Achieve responsible use of and control over all assets and resources employed or entrusted.

* Report known or suspected violations of this Code in accordance with the FET Rules of Procedure.

* Be accountable for adhering to this Code.

We also have a sample code on our Web site for companies to emulate. I encourage all of you to instill the Code of Ethics into your organizations, whether required to or not.

Most recent accounting scandals stemmed from bad behavior and a lack of appropriate...