AmCham emphasized the importance of good governance and solid compliance frameworks for attracting investments and building a trust based society during a dedicated video-conference on Oct 28 hosted by Ziarul Financiar: “Corporate Governance – from a buzzword to a strategic pillar for sustainable growth.”

Violeta Luca, AmCham Board Member and Chair of the Corporate Governance Committee, General Manager Microsoft Romania opened the first panel with a plea for fostering trust, as a foundation for sustainable corporate governance practices: “It is important that we learn to become trustworthy persons, both in the personal and professional life. We need to bring clarity in the organization with regards to conduct expectations, to create a learning environment, where discussions, debates are welcome and generate a trust culture of trust, transparency and performance.”

AmCham President Ionuț Simion: Romania can grow building on three pillars: attracting investments, becoming a hot spot for entrepreneurship and committing to a good governance model.

Prof. Dr. Dragoș Iliescu, University of Bucharest: An ethical behaviour is acquired long before one becomes a business leader. Leaders who are in the position to recruit, to encourage and mentor other leaders need to be very diligent. A series of skills usually associated to leadership performance can be trained, such as public speaking, project planning, humour, while an ethical conduct cannot be trained. The biggest failures in the international business world during the past 10 – 20 years have not been caused by technical issues, but by value derails. These don’t cut the turnover by 5- 10% but completely destroy the business and its credibility before the stakeholders.

Sergiu Neguţ, Co-Founder, FintechOS: We need to treat people as if they are their best version, as this is the only way to take them to become their best version.  Growth is founded on the idea that you trust that something will happen and this trust is reliable.

Simona Gemeneanu, Partner Morphosis Capital: Entrepreneurs need to create a trust and transparent climate from the very start of the company.

Horia Cardoş, CEO & founder, Agroland: To be honest is profitable as entrepreneurs will later on capitalize their partners’ confidence and long term it is much more profitable than trying to use undue advantages.

Radu Hanga, President, Bursa de Valori Bucureşti: The moment you ask for other people’s money you join a team that is part of your business, a team of the shareholders that have invested money in your business, and governance, transparency and communication become critical element

Lăcrămioara Diaconu, Member of the Directorate, Complexul Energetic Oltenia: Investment decisions are no longer founded on good quarterly or yearly results, corporate governance and sustainability indicators also matter.

Andreea Pipernea, CEO al NN Pensii: Romania’s progress in the area of corporate governance is slow, yet positive. Corporate Governance is a set of rules and value that is needed to ultimately ensure trust and predictability.

Victor Alistar, Board Member, Transparency International România: In Romania we have an environment issue concerning the commitment towards a compliant conduct in business, we don’t lack best practices.

>> If you missed the October 28 AmCham- ZF video-conference, you can watch it here.