Business experts to visit Olin School of Business for conference on corporate governance

Nov. 2, 2004 -- Business experts from all over the world will come to the Olin School of Business at Washington University to participate in a three-day conference on corporate governance Nov. 11 to 13.

"Key Issues in Corporate Governance," co-sponsored by the Olin School, the Center for Research in Economics and Strategy (CRES), and the Journal of Financial Intermediation, will be held at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education Center.

The conference will feature two days of academic presentations and a third day devoted to panel discussions among senior corporate executives, policymakers and academics.

Participants of the Nov. 13 panel discussions include Arnoud Boot of the University of Amsterdam; Eric Marquardt, a principal of Towers Perrin; Ray Ball of the University of Chicago; and B.A. Bridgewater, former chairman and CEO of Brown Shoe Co. Olin School Dean Stuart I. Greenbaum, School of Law Dean Joel Seligman and Murray Weidenbaum, honorary chairman of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy, will be among the panelists. Anjan Thakor, John E. Simon Professor of Finance at Olin School, will give the closing remarks.

The topics include financial markets and corporate governance regulation in the United States; the potentially contrasting issues in the European Union; the role of directors in a post-Sarbanes-Oxley environment; the future trends in executive compensation and their role in corporate governance; and the role of financial market participants and their external constituents in the corporate governance process.

Each session will take approximately 75 minutes, with roughly half that time devoted to discussions between panel members and the audience. Charles F. Knight, chairman emeritus of Emerson, will be the featured lunch speaker.

He will discuss the past, present and future of corporate governance.