Ethics & Accountability at the Top
Business ethics starts at the top, and Southwire’s leadership is committed to maintaining the highest level of financial and business integrity.
Southwire’s Board of Directors has 10 members. According to the company’sgovernance policies, only three of the 10 may be shareholders. One board member comes from top management. That leaves six board members – a majority – who are independent directors. Yes, these outside directors are elected to the board by the company’s shareholders, the family. But they built their careers with major companies and organizations in the public world – BellSouth, Home Depot, Coca Cola, RJR Nabisco, Wachovia, Duke Energy, the American Red Cross and the like.
Financial statements are another mechanism to assure business accountability. Because Southwire is privately owned, its financials are not publicly available. But of course they are available to the board, which scrutinizes them carefully, not just in terms of profitability and strategy, but also with an eye to business ethics. Southwire’s accounting staff takes considerable time and effort to ensure that the company financial statements are accurate, timely and concise. The statements also go to an external auditor, just as the financial statements of publicly owned companies do.
Our goal is to build standards of board independence and financial accountability modeled on those of publicly owned companies. But we want to accomplish this goal while continuing to benefit from the flexibility and confidentiality that come with private ownership.
