Building the Board’s Ethical Backbone

An ethical foundation is vital to a healthy, successful financial institution, and it starts with the board of directors. “Ethics is something that you carry with you every day,” says Samuel Combs III, CEO of the management consulting firm COMSTAR Advisors and the governance committee chair at $2.7 billion First Fidelity Bancorp, based in Oklahoma City. “It begins with the leadership team, of course, [and] boards.” As a guiding principle for the organization, a code of ethics provides a pathway to govern. And the rise of environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives, with their emphasis on customers, employees and communities,...