Until the turn of the 19th into the 20th century, corporate secretaries had held a traditional but important role in the administration of corporations. As every corporation was a legal creation, it was important that there should be an officer whose function it was to ensure that all the relevant requirements are fulfilled in the maintenance of corporate existence and that the powers allotted to the various actors have been properly exercised. That officer was the corporate secretary. This traditional function remains to this day and it is just as important as it was in the 18th century when the corporate form began to assume importance in the first blossoming of international commerce under the banner of mercantilism. As the industrial revolution developed, it became clear that private capital from individuals or families, great though they may have been in the past such as with the bankers of Florence, would not be sufficient to build the canals, the railroads and the great corporations that were about to emerge. That these creations of the modern era did emerge was due to the development of capital markets, where owners became many and the managers became few and specialised. Some have called the age of the capital markets the 'age of capitalism’. The age of capitalism is still with us today, with its power for good and its power for evil.

The power for good of capital markets is clear. Capital markets enable great projects to be implemented and great corporations to be created and maintained. The railways of Britain, Europe and the Americas could not have been built but for funds raised in the capital markets. Companies over 100 years old, to name a few include Dutch Shell, ThyssenKrupp AG, British Petroleum, GlaxoSmithKline, Citibank, IBM, China Merchants Bank and Bank of China. They are all household names and have brought profits to their shareholders and marvelous innovations or indispensible services to the world. The power for evil of capital markets is equally clear. They concentrate power into the hands of the few. While the few can create good, they can also create evil. The tragic accident in Bhopal in India in the 1980s, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico three years ago, and the current corruption scandal in China of GlaxoSmithKline are but a few examples of callous conduct on the part of corporate managers. Corporate frauds, such as that of Enron, Worldcom, Parmalat have impoverished their shareholders. Also, the financial crisis of 2008 and the Libor scandal in London have each shown how greed can pervade the practitioner community in the financial services industry. Investors, many of whom had saved for a lifetime working as salaried persons, saw a substantial part of their life savings evaporate before their eyes, powerless, as they watched the evening news on television.