Background

Company directors, as key decision-makers at the top, play a strategic role in the business development and governance of a company. With escalating public concern of corporate governance in recent years, company directors are expected not only to cultivate an ethical corporate culture by practising integrity management but also to embrace high ethical standards themselves.

However, a recent wave of local and overseas corporate failures shows signs of increasing malpractice in the top echelon of the companies. In Hong Kong, an average of 66% of the people prosecuted by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in completed private sector cases in the recent five years were senior executives including chairmen and directors as well as high-level professionals. Many of these cases indeed boil down to one main cause of corporate failure – the lack of personal governance of corporate leaders especially at times of evolving ethical challenges. As such, the need to promote corporate leaders' personal governance and their role in entrenching an ethical corporate culture seems imminent.

Existing regulatory and professional bodies have been sparing no efforts to enhance corporate governance and technical competencies of company directors. Nevertheless, a systematic long-term training programme focusing on sustaining directors' ethical governance and leadership by integrating the expertise of relevant organisations is still lacking in the market.

Against this background, the Hong Kong Ethics Development Centre took the lead to consult various related institutional stakeholders including regulators, professional bodies and major chambers of commerce on the need to provide continuous ethics training for directors. All recognised its importance and pledged their support as co-organisers to this cause. An organising committee comprising representatives from all co-organisers was subsequently formed to spearhead this “Ethics – The Core Value of Leadership” Training Programme for Directors. The co-organisers are:

Regulatory Bodies:

	Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited
	Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC)
	The Securities and Futures Commission

Professional Bodies:

	Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants
	The Hong Kong Institute of Chartered Secretaries
	The Hong Kong Institute of Directors
	The Law Society of Hong Kong

Chambers of Commerce :

	The American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong
	The Chinese General Chamber of Commerce
	The Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong
	Federation of Hong Kong Industries
	The Hong Kong Chinese Enterprises Association
	The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce

Coordinating organisation:

Hong Kong Ethics Development Centre, ICAC

The following also serves as supporting organisation for the Programme:

Corporate Governance Development Foundation