A Fair Day’s Pay?
Published by Bob Foster
Many have wondered where the folks in the big corporation boardrooms were while their companies were tanking, and then taking taxpayer money to stay alive. Well, maybe it was a case of not wanting to rock the boat, because board members of big corporations are paid quite well to maintain the status quo of executive management.
As an example: BusinessWeek recently published the pay records of 10 of the highest paid board members of various big-name companies. The average pay to sit on the boards of these companies was $1,686,297 for the year 2008.
The highest paid of the group was Anthony P. Terracciano, who was paid $4,789,993 for sitting on the board of SLM—a giant student loan company. To Terracciano’s credit, he also turned down more compensation in the form of bonuses and additional stock options.
The biggest problem for most directors is that, because of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, they have had to increase their annual hours worked from an average of about 100 hours per year, to an average of about 225 hours per year.
A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work?
Comments
Leave a Reply
My Book
Any business crisis can be managed before it becomes fatal . . . Be Your Own Turnaround Manager tells you how. Click here for more information.