Man Group plc - Corporate Responsibility Report 2007

Until now, I have adopted an essentially ‘governance’ role regarding corporate responsibility, by which I mean helping ensure an effective oversight and policy architecture to enable the delivery of clearly defined and appropriate objectives, derived from a clear strategic framework, with robust and rigorous reporting.

As such, I have been both pleased and encouraged at the progress achieved, particularly in identifying and quantifying our key non-financial risks in the areas of people, ‘customers’ and the environment.

As I move into my new role as Chief Executive, I find my perspective shifting slightly, asking myself how we can better align this essential discipline with our businesses, particularly as we move to and through the Initial Public Offering of MF Global.

Whilst, as a Group, we are highly regulated, we operate in a relatively unregulated sector of the financial services industry, making reputation all the more crucial. I firmly believe corporate responsibility to be central in evidencing to our stakeholders globally our entitlement to their continuing trust and loyalty. We have in a relatively short time made significant and encouraging progress on our corporate responsibility journey. We are fully committed to this journey, and will continue to work on embedding corporate responsibility into our business in tangible ways which demonstrably add value to our interactions with stakeholders in our geographically and culturally diverse markets.

This will, among other things, involve better communication of our initiatives and programmes, particularly as they directly impact on those areas of key business risks and opportunities – in, for example, further refining our ‘employer of choice’ strategies and our climate-related product development and marketing, and more visibly aligning all facets of our business with our core ethical principles.

I very much look forward to leading this initiative.

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