"We choose to do [these] things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills."
—President John F. Kennedy, 1962
President Kennedy was speaking of going to the moon—a goal only slightly more ambitious, in the view of many corporate executives, than complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Hugh Taylor, corporate iconoclast par excellence, turns the prevailing view upside down as he illustrates how achieving full compliance with the spirit as well as the letter of SOX actually has the power to strengthen American business. As a catalyst for positive change, SOX challenges us to tighten operational control while maintaining strategic flexibility—not an easy task, but one that, once achieved, can bring out the best in corporate America.
In this refreshingly readable book, Taylor presents a powerful case for compliance, not because it's the law but because it creates an environment that ensures a well-run business with financial information that CEOs as well as investors can rely on. It demands a new level of management effectiveness that, by its very nature, benefits the bottom line.
SOX has the potential to help us do what we do better.
About the Author
Hugh Taylor is Vice President of Marketing at SOA Software, the leading provider of management and security solutions for enterprise service-oriented architecture. He is the co-author, with Eric Pulier, of Understanding Enterprise SOA (Manning, 2005). The author of more than a dozen articles and papers on the subject of web services and service-oriented architecture, Taylor is an authority on business process management, SOA, and compliance issues. Taylor received his B.A. degree, Magna Cum Laude from Harvard College in 1988 and his M.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School in 1992. He lives in Los Angeles.
