After years of scandals and setbacks, corporate America is finally coming out of its shell. Fortune' Geoff Colvin tells the story of an amazing comeback.
No CEO dares say it, yet it must be said: The shaming is over. The 5 1/2-year humiliation of American business following the tech bubble's burst and the Lay-Skilling-Fastow-Ebbers-Kozlowski-Scrushy perp walks that will forever define an era has run its course. After the pounding and the ridicule, penance has finally been done. No longer despised by the public, increasingly speaking up and taking stands, beloved again by investors, chastened and much changed--business is back.
It's a historic shift that can't be seen in any single event. When you come back from as much disgrace as U.S. business brought upon itself in the past half decade, you don't do it with trumpets blaring and banners flying. You creep back. And even today executives don't want to say, at least not on the record, that they've done it. But they have.
They will gladly talk about any number of other issues, more volubly than at any time since the glory days. It's the most striking sign - after not just the scandals but also America's post-9/11 focus on Washington - that businesspeople at long last sense it's okay to become public figures again.
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