Chocolate, Reindeer and Hiroshima

My earliest memories of corporate life are from when I was age 4 and attended Bournville primary school opposite the Cadbury’s chocolate factory in Birmingham, England. I remember that the Cadbury lorries were dark brown, like their chocolate. My mother was sure that too many sweets would destroy our teeth. I can remember from this early age how the Bournville Village was built especially for the people who worked in the cocoa-smelling factory as a community with shops, libraries and doctors, but with no bars or pubs. It had trees, swings and grass to play on. The Bournville Village Trust, established in 1900, is still in existence. It was established to provide workers with ‘affordable housing and other necessities of life’. In its first building phase it even provided what was then called ‘solar housing’ – built with large south-facing windows. For me the words Cadbury, Bournville and Quakerism were synonymous with warmth, comfort, smells and chocolate brown. I was not to know that later my life was to revolve round issues of corporate governance and that responsible enterprises were to provide the content for research, teaching and consultancy for many years. Also, many years later I was to meet Sir Adrian Cadbury, author of many texts on corporate governance, and come face to face with an example of the embodiment of corporate responsibility.