Fortune April/May 2021

WHEN I REACH professor Jill Atkins by Zoom in late March, she is still working from home in the mountains of Wales, some 160 miles from Sheffield University School of Management, where she holds a department chair. Behind her, on a narrow bookcase, are all five editions of the seminal textbook she coauthored, Corporate Governance and Accountability—the first of which grew out of her lecture notes in 2001 and the most recent of which was published in October. There, on that cramped bookshelf, is a timeline of sorts, revealing how the mandate of business accountability has changed over the past two decades. “The biggest difference,” says Atkins, “is that a corporation’s social responsibility, and indeed its ethics, are no longer considered a separate realm from traditional corporate governance functions.” As far…

THIS EDITED Q&A HAS BEEN CONDENSED FOR SPACE AND CLARITY. “Dependency is not necessarily a weakness. The strength of the EU is that member states depend on one another.” EUROPE VS. SILICON VALLEY In the past there has been a perception that you and the European Commission have been too strict in holding American companies in particular to account around issues of antitrust and privacy. Do you think the world’s attitude about the responsibility of tech giants is coming round to your way of thinking? VESTAGER: I think very much so. It’s a nuanced and complex debate that has taken hold over the last two to three years with academic reports, research, policy reports, think tanks, political parties. That is a reflection of the fact that the digital marketplace is unregulated compared to all…

Last June, as the nation convulsed with protests against racial inequality and the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many others, Nike was in the same predicament as much of corporate America—pledging to help rectify society’s mistreatment and exclusion of Black people, while simultaneously being called out for its own failings on that front. Even as the sports-gear maker promised to prioritize racial inclusion, some of its own workers took to social media to decry racism at the company, citing microaggressions, lesser advancement opportunities for Black employees, and instances of Black shoppers being profiled at Nike stores. Nike encouraged workers to keep speaking out, and CEO John Donahoe admitted in a staff memo that “our most important priority is to get our own house in order.” Nine months later,…

DOUG ATKIN and Bernie Madoff were engaged in a screaming match as two senior officials looked on in wonder at the Washington, D.C., office of the SEC. On this day in 1991, Ponzi schemer Madoff was there to defend a new practice he had pioneered. It was called “payment for order flow,” known on Wall Street as PFOF. Atkin, CEO of trailblazing electronic trading platform Instinet, believed that PFOF worked in direct conflict with his mission of getting the best possible prices for folks buying stocks. “Payment for order flow isn’t right! It should be outlawed!” Atkin yelled. Madoff shot back that PFOF added lots of liquidity to the markets. “I should be able to do whatever I want to get business!” Madoff barked. Three decades later PFOF is having another turn…

WHEN I REACH professor Jill Atkins by Zoom in late March, she is still working from home in the mountains of Wales, some 160 miles from Sheffield University School of Management, where she holds a department chair. Behind her, on a narrow bookcase, are all five editions of the seminal textbook she coauthored, Corporate Governance and Accountability—the first of which grew out of her lecture notes in 2001 and the most recent of which was published in October. There, on that cramped bookshelf, is a timeline of sorts, revealing how the mandate of business accountability has changed over the past two decades. “The biggest difference,” says Atkins, “is that a corporation’s social responsibility, and indeed its ethics, are no longer considered a separate realm from traditional corporate governance functions.” As…

“IT CHANGED MY LIFE,” Warren Buffett told Fortune recently of Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor. “If I hadn’t read the book, I’d probably still be delivering papers.” But even Buffett is surprised by the tome’s staying power: Over 70 years on, Graham’s book was No. 89 on Amazon’s 2020 bestseller list and frequently ranks No. 1 in the economics and finance categories. “If you look up any investing book that was written six months or a year ago, it’s usually No. 24,000 at best,” Buffett says. “Ben Graham wrote a book that nobody has been able to come even remotely close to.” “Anytime Buffett mentions it, we usually get a nice little [sales] bump,” says Harper Business publisher Hollis Heimbouch, who notes the book has sold millions of copies in 36 languages. It…