The obligations of an investor-owned company's board of directors in the strategy-making, strategy-executing process include A) taking the lead in developing the company's business model and strategic vision.   B) coming up with compelling strategy proposals to debate against those put forward by top management.   C) taking the lead in formulating the company's strategic plan but then delegating the task of implementing and executing the strategic plan to the company's CEO and other senior executives.   D) overseeing the company's financial accounting and financial reporting practices and setting CEO compensation . E) approving the company's operating strategies, functional-area strategies, business strategy, and overall corporate strategy.

Place yourself in the position of a CEO who is contemplating a reorganization of your company and has received conflicting opinions from two of your trusted reports. Presently you are a wholesaler with 45 regional warehouses who acquires products from manufacturers and distributes them to retailers and service establishments. You have over 100,000 SKUs (stock-keeping units) ranging from ACE bandages to Ziploc bags. You have 825 field-based sales representatives who represent all the products within a geographic area. One of the ideas that have been brought up by the vice president of marketing is to specialize the salesforce into three groups, fashion retail, general retail, and services. Basically, individual sales representatives would be able to specialize with greater expertise and product knowledge to better serve customers. The vice president of sales fears that many of her salespeople will leave due to the expanded geography that this change would require. What process would you…

Evaluate potential solutions Show thoughtful and complete consideration of each proposed solution’s pros and cons.

The following information assumes that the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards are applicable.   Maria has recently joined the LLT group. Today a client approaches Maria for some investment advices on how to accumulate his personal wealth. Lenora, who is Maria’s supervisor, just walks past and overhears their conversation. Lenora asks Maria to convince the client to invest in a private equity fund. Maria has a different thought and believes the private equity fund could be too risky for the client. However, she wants to receive a good evaluation from the supervisor and hence she recommends the client to invest in the private equity fund for a good return. You are required to establish what is unethical and which Standard is most likely violated.