Reference no: EM133238241
Case: Browning Brothers, a publicly traded corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange and based in New York City, is the fifth largest financial firm in the United States. With 9000 employees and offices in 11 financial centers around the world, it engages in a variety of financial businesses, including investment banking and underwriting, stock and bond trading, and asset management. You are members of the Browning Brothers board of directors.
As a result of recent illegal activities of a team of bond traders at Browning Brothers, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Manhattan district attorney have all launched criminal investigations into your firm's dealings.
Last night, the Browning Brothers board of directors held an emergency meeting to decide how to deal with this situation, which now seems to threaten the firm's very existence. It demanded and received the resignation of your current CEO and Chairman and of the head of the firm's bond trading department. It also fired the entire bond trading team that had been violating U.S. Treasury rules. In addition, it appointed a search committee of directors to launch an immediate search for a new CEO.
You have been appointed to the CEO search committee, which is holding its first meeting this afternoon. The first item on the meeting's agenda is to decide what leadership qualities are most important in Browning Brothers' new CEO. The board has requested the search committee to define and specify five of these qualities to be reported at a second meeting to be held this evening.