CEOs need to set high ethics code: N Murthy

NEW DELHI: NR Narayana Murthy, chairman and chief mentor, Infosys, was at it again. On Friday, barely 24 hours after he delivered the fifth JRD Tata Memorial Lecture here, the Infosys chief delivered the inaugural Raman Munjal Lecture on "Creating an Ethical Organisation." Murthy exhorted corporate head honchos to lead by example towards achieving that goal.
If on Thursday he emphasised accountability and transparency in the public governance system, on Friday, he said that corporate CEOs would have walk the talk, setting a high standard of ethics for employees to follow."We need a good value system, wherein leaders would lead by example. Lectures on ethics will have little impact in creating ethical corporate governance." Stressing the need for openness in financial and ethical standards in corporate affairs, Murthy referred to the recent resignation of Phaneesh Murthy as head of its US operations. "We have always been open about our disclosures. The recent incident is unfortunate. We are looking into it. As soon as we have all the facts together, we’ll talk about it. But that is exactly the point I wanted to make. Openness and fair justice are key to good corporate ethical standards." While he agreed that more opportunities were an incentive for a good value system, he was, however, clear that there was no correlation between wealth and ethics. "A good night’s sleep was worth much more than a million dollars."
"We need good corporate strategies and action, build more confidence and trust and ensure fairness and transparency within corporates. There should be performance indicators so that meritocracy could be recognised and given incentives," he said.