The Portfolio Project requires you to write a memorandum to a decision maker, such as the president of the United States, a member of Congress, or a governor, on how to reform corporate ethics in American business today. As we have seen, legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley has received considerable media attention but has not prevented such significant catastrophes as the global economic meltdown of 2008. Be prepared to propose policies that might help ameliorate or prevent corporate ethics lapses that might occur in the future. You will have the freedom to select any policy avenues that you think might help strengthen and fortify corporate ethics, and your memo should set forth why your chosen policy pathway is important, articulate your ideas on how to remedy the issue of corporate malfeasance, and proffer some recommendations to the decision maker about how to improve overall corporate governance. Your prescription for change is not nearly as important as your ability to forecast potential challenges to the corporate board room and to predict possible ways the government could intervene to assist not only solid corporate governance but also the interests of individual shareholders.

Be creative, synthesize course materials, and postulate ways to improve the corporate governance landscape from an ethical perspective.