Corporate Governance

Bob Monks and Nell Minow are respectively Founder and President of Institutional Shareholder Services, Washington DC, Bob Monks, in particular, is one of the best known figures in corporate governance in the USA, having made his name through attacking the 'corporate establishment'. he has been director of a number of major US companies and in 1984 was selected by Ronald Reagan to head up the Labour Department's pensions and welfare benefits office. He and Nell Minow are also head of the Lens Fund which is designed to be 'a vehicle for collective action'. Its aim is to invest in large companies that have a defensive corporate culture of 'management incompetence' - so far the Lens has targeted companies such as Sears, Chrysler, Chase Manhattan and American Express. Monks and Minow have also collaborated on two other books - Power and Accountability (1991) and Watching the Watchers (Blackwell Business, 1996).