The Finlay Centre for Corporate & Public Governance and J. Richard Finlay have been working with the media for more than 40 years. We’ve helped to raise awareness about the importance of sound governance, robust ethics and sanity in CEO pay. We’ve worked with authors, journalists and investigative reporters in breaking headline stories that have altered the course, and sometimes the fate, of entire organizations.
Our offices are located in Toronto. Our work and interests are global in reach. Our interviews have appeared in several languages in publications from London, New York, Toronto, Germany and Brazil. We’ve been frequently cited in best selling books, leading newspapers, law reviews and academic journals. The Finlay Centre for Corporate & Public Governance offers one of the world’s most consistently cited — and clearest — voices on the governance of major boardrooms and public institutions and the ethics of trusted leadership. We pioneered ESG concepts decades ago and coined the term stakeholder capitalism.
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Illuminating the evolution of private enterprise and public trust over four decades. The Finlay Centre for Corporate & Public Governance is the first and longest running think tank of its kind capturing the promise of the well-governed organization and the ethical practices that shape it.
“For every major corporate policy, decision or public explanation, more and more people are asking: Is it right? Is it fair? And most perplexing of all for the board of directors: is it in the public interest?
It now seems clear that the profitability and economic performance of a corporation will increasingly cease to be the sole criteria by which it is judged. A new set of legitimizers of public consent is coming to the fore, accelerated and strengthened by the harsh realization of the fragile interdependence that links our economy, our society and our environment.” ~J. Richard Finlay, Business Quarterly, 1979.
J. Richard Finlay, Business Quarterly, 1979.
(Presaging the arrival of ESG by more than 40 years)
“Sound governance is not some abstract ideal or utopian pipe dream. Nor does it occur by accident or through sudden outbreaks of altruism. It happens when leaders lead with integrity, when directors actually direct and when stakeholders demand the highest level of ethics and accountability.”
J.Richard Finlay — Addressing the Standing Committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy, The Senate of Canada, 1994, one of a number of apperances before the committees of the Parliament of Canada.
J. Richard Finlay was the first witness ever to be designated an expert in corporate governance by the Senate Banking committee.
The Financial Times, August 2023
The New York Times, August 10, 2023