Ethics is the foundation of every human society. It guides our choices and behaviour as we navigate through life, and it is through ethical and professional behaviour that we build and maintain our reputation.
As prominent investor and philanthropist investor Warren Buffett famously said “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
In Deloitte Southeast Asia, our reputation is important. Our reputation is built on trust, respect and integrity – values that we have cultivated and safeguarded for many years. We must uphold and protect our organisation’s reputation so as to sustain public trust and maintain stakeholder confidence.
We believe that ethics directly affects our reputation. The SEA Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct is our guide and compass to ensure that we behave ethically and lawfully whenever we come across situations that run against our ethics and principles. It establishes a uniform set of behaviours among Deloitte partners and professionals around the world and provides guidelines to help us apply our best judgement and make the right choices and decisions, for the right reasons, in the course of work.
It is our commitment to serve our clients with distinction and it is crucial that we continue to do what is right even if it is difficult and unpopular – and especially when no one is watching. Our words and actions demonstrate leadership and our strength of character, so please remember that we must conduct ourselves honestly and at the highest possible ethical standards in all that we say and do.
It is an expectation that after reading the SEA Code, you will have a greater appreciation of how you should conduct yourself as a professional of our firm. If you have any questions or are unsure of what to do, seek guidance from your country Conduct Leaders or the SEA Conduct Leader.
Let us continue to build on our long history of ethics and integrity that has earned us the trust and confidence of our people, our clients, the communities that we live in, and all our other stakeholders.