The CPA’s Responsibility in Creating Good Governance

By Sean Stein Smith

Scandals that have rocked public and regulatory confidence in the business community are not difficult to name: AIG, Lehman Brothers, the “London Whale.”

Good governance, the argument goes, can be the difference between mediocre performance and outstanding performance. It can even be the difference between staying in business and going under.

Boards of directors are usually the teams that are charged with creating an effective corporate governance structure, and they are the ones that are held accountable when things do not go as planned. Another group that has grown particularly aggressive in pursuing firms and boards that are perceived to be executing governance poorly are activist investors. With all these external forces, as well as competitive pressures, coming to bear on businesses, it is imperative that firms have solid leadership frameworks with which they can tackle business problems.

What do organizations need to make quality decisions regarding strategy and governance? High-quality quantitative and financial information.

It is next to impossible to establish guidelines for effective corporate leadership and governance, much less to construct a framework for moving forward, without high-quality and timely information. The demands placed on boards are continuing to increase, and in order to be effective stewards of corporate growth and sustainable profits, this top level of management needs to have the right information. Through the CFO, or other high-level financial management, the accounting and finance functions can work to develop specific, yet high-level reports that contain the data necessary for the board to function as it should.

Corporate governance is essential to running an effective and profitable organization, and to establish effective governance, the board needs quantitative information that summarizes the business performance of the firm. By receiving input from the management team, accountants and other financial professionals who can develop, test and implement reports, templates and summarizations that can be the deciding factor in the decision-making process, the board has the information it needs, the organization performs better and another layer of value-additive activity is attributed to the financial professionals.

A win-win, made possible by listening, taking feedback and generating information and reports that meet the specific business and governance needs of the end users.