If there is one clear take away for me as a participant, speaker and sponsor of the extraordinary Third Latin American Ethics Summit hosted by Ethisphere in Rio de Janeiro last week it’s that there is a clear movement toward greater corporate (and maybe governmental) transparency, integrity and reputational protection in Latin America than ever before. In the 28 years I have been doing business in the region, I have never seen a more clearcut, consistent and strong embrace by local professionals, NGOs, business people and even government actors (yes, you read that right, government officials too) of the concept of creating greater transparency and accountability not only in business but, even more so, in government. Why? Clearly the Petrobras scandal (which continues to unfold and increase in importance exponentially every day), and the FIFA scandal (which seems to be doing the same on a global scale and has special implications in Brazil and other local markets at the heels of last year’s World Soccer championships) are having twin major impacts on local professionals, communities and others who are fed up with the embarassment, personal and economic damage and outright ruin that these scandals are causing. But Petrobras and FIFA are only accelerants of a movement that was already underway and which includes the following trends (and more):

• Multinational Corporations. The impact of global multinationals doing business locally in Latin American markets, bringing their ethics, compliance and corporate responsibility programs to their local operations and influencing their local and regional competitors, third parties and supply chains.
• Local & Regional Enterprise. The emergence of indigeous varieties of corporate responsibility, ethics and compliance programs borne out of either necessity (a scandal or crisis) or leadership (enllightened leaders) at the local, national and regional levels.
• Ethics & Compliance Programs. The spread of ethics and compliance programs and certifications like the one’s offered by the Ethics & Compliance Intitiative (ECI) in association with the IAE Business School of the Universidad Austral of Buenos Aires of which I have served as co-faculty since 2014.
• Corporate Responsibility. The spread of local corporate responsibility causes and movements organized around specific projects or scandals or more broadly to serve the needs of those adversely impacted by pervasive corruption and abuse. There is much more to this story — it is just beginning to unfold more publicly.

Watch this space and future pieces I am planning to write on this topic which I will post here and elsewhere (including for Ethical Corporation Magazine (http://bit.ly/1H61CjX) and the GEC Risk2Value Blog (http://bit.ly/1ybWh5R)) through my continuing involvement in Latin America through client work, teaching and other thought leadership initiatives. In the meantime, you can check out a number of articles on these and related topics as follows: “Construyendo una Cultura de Integridad Sostenible en el ADN Corporativo” Andrea Bonime-Blanc for Cinco Dias Executive Excellence, Spain, February 2015: http://bit.ly/1DFvdhW “Las Siete Virtudes de la Responsabilidad Corporativa Inteligente” Andrea Bonime-Blanc and Murray Grainger for Expansion (Spain), May 2015: http://bit.ly/1IroJ3q “La Triple R Corporativa” Andrea Bonime-Blanc and Jose Antonio Herce for El Pais, April 2014: http://bit.ly/1iWt69K “Acerca del Management Reputacional” Andrea Bonime-Blanc for El Cronista, Argentina, April 2014: http://bit.ly/1foSaMl Andrea Bonime-Blanc & Jorge Cachinero for Llorente & Cuenca & GEC Risk Advisory White Paper, September 2014, in English, Spanish and Portuguese:

• “Reputation Risk in the Age of Hyper-Transparency: What Leaders Need to Know” http://bit.ly/1IW37yM “El Riesgo Reputacional en la Era de la Hiper-Transparencia: Lo Que Los Lideres Deben Saber” http://bit.ly/1LaSMkM “O Risco Reputacional na Era da Hiper Transparencia: O que os Lideres Precisam Saber” http://bit.ly/1BuHdTm

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