Speaker Biographies


Mark A. Borges
Principal
Mercer Human Resource Consulting

Mark Borges is a principal for Mercer Human Resource Consulting in the firm’s Washington Resource Group in Washington, DC. This group provides assistance and advice to Mercer consultants and clients regarding legislative, regulatory, and judicial developments that affect corporate benefits, compensation and other human resource consulting programs.

Previously, Mr. Borges was a Special Counsel in the Office of Rulemaking, Division of Corporation Finance with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Before that, he was General Counsel for ShareData, Inc., the leading provider of software for employee stock plan administration, prior to its acquisition by E*TRADE Group, Inc. in 1998. Mr. Borges practiced law with the firms of Ware & Friedenrich (now Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich) from 1987 to 1992 and Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro from 1982 to 1987, specializing in equity compensation and insider trading matters as well as venture capital finance.

From 1981 to 1982, he served as law clerk to the Honorable Marion T. Bennett of the United States Court of Claims in Washington, D.C.A California native, Mr. Borges graduated from Humboldt State University in 1976. He received his J.D. from Santa Clara University in 1979 and an L.L.M. in Taxation from New York University in 1981. He is a member of the American Bar Association.

Jesse M. Brill
Jesse M. Brill
Chair, NASPP and CompensationStandards.com
Publisher, Executive Press
Securities Counsel, Morgan Stanley

Jesse Brill is recognized as one of the country’s leading authorities on insiders’ transactions and compensation planning for executives. Mr. Brill is the Publisher-Editor of the nationally acclaimed newsletters The Corporate Counsel and The Corporate Executive, which he has been publishing for over 30 years. His publishing company, Executive Press, also publishes Peter Romeo and Alan Dye’s Section 16 Treatise and Reporting Guide, The Section 16 Forms and Filings Handbook, Comprehensive Section 16 Outline and Section 16 Updates—and the highly acclaimed websites, Section16.net, TheCorporateCounsel.net, DealLawyers.com and CompensationStandards.com.

Mr. Brill is also Securities Counsel for Morgan Stanley and Chair of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals. He received his law degree from Yale Law School.


Martha L. Carter, Ph.D.,
Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Corporate Governance
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS)

Martha Carter joined ISS as Senior Vice President and Director of U.S. Research in 2002. As Managing Director, Corporate Governance, she heads Global Thought Leadership and Policy and chairs the ISS Global Policy Board. Prior to joining ISS, she served as Director, Listing Qualifications, for The NASDAQ Stock Market, where she analyzed and reviewed compliance issues for NASDAQ listed companies to ensure that companies were meeting the market's listing standards. Martha holds a Ph.D. in Finance from George Washington University and an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. She did her undergraduate work in Mathematics and French at Purdue University.


Frederic W. Cook
Chairman
Frederic W. Cook & Co., Inc.

Fred Cook is the founder and currently Chairman of Frederic W. Cook & Co., Inc. an independent consulting firm specializing in executive compensation issues. Prior to forming the firm in 1973, Fred was a Principal in Towers, Perrin, Forster & Crosby, a firm which he joined in 1966 following four years of service as an infantry officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. Frederic W. Cook & Co., Inc. has about 37 employees providing services from offices in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

The firm has served about 1,700 clients in 32 years of existence. Fred is a 1962 graduate of Dartmouth College, an honorary lifetime member of the American Compensation Association and a recipient of its keystone award and a Fellow in the National Academy of Human Resources. In addition, Fred is a member of the Department of Defense Business Board and the Defense Advisory Committee on Military Compensation.


Donald P. Delves
President
The Delves Group

Don Delves, as President and Founder of The Delves Group, provides expertise in measuring performance, designing innovative pay and incentive systems, and helping companies get what they pay for with their compensation dollars. He works with boards, compensation committees, senior executives, and sales forces to improve their effectiveness and reassess the way they are organized, directed, and rewarded.

In his book, Stock Options & the New Rules of Corporate Accountability (McGraw Hill, August 2003), he pinpoints the problems of the current system and outlines steps that will dramatically improve the weak link between executive pay and performance. Prior to founding The Delves Group, he started and managed the Chicago office of iQuantic, was a Senior Consultant at Sibson and Co., an executive compensation consultant with Towers Perrin, served as a manager in personal financial planning and taxation with Arthur Anderson & Co., and served as a financial consultant to middle market companies for Harris Bank.

Mr. Delves is a CPA, holds an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago, and earned a BA, summa cum laude, in economics from DePauw University. He serves on the Chicago Compensation Association board, and is involved in a variety of civic and community organizations.


Diane L. Doubleday, JD
Principal
Mercer Human Resource Consulting

Diane Doubleday is a principal in Mercer’s Performance, Measurement and Rewards Practice. Prior to joining Mercer in1989, she practiced tax law with Morrison & Foerster. She specializes in reward strategy, executive compensation and corporate governance. She advises boards of directors and senior management on executive and director compensation strategy, competitive market assessment, incentive plan design, executive benefits and perquisites, severance and change in control programs and program implementation. She has extensive experience working with organizations on structuring equity programs and has also worked on corporate governance issues with colleagues at Mercer Delta, a sibling company specializing in organizational change.

Her responsibilities at Mercer include a national role coordinating the Practice’s response to emerging issues and developments. Diane is a frequent speaker on executive compensation and corporate governance, including WorldatWork, NASPP, and the Vail Leadership Institute. Diane earned her Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and is an inactive member of the State Bar of California. She is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors 2003 Blue Ribbon Commission on Executive Compensation and Compensation Committees. She is a member of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals and WorldatWork.


Brian T. Foley, Esq.
Managing Director
Brian Foley & Company, Inc.

Brian Foley has more than 25 years of experience in advising boards of directors, compensation and other board committees and senior managements of major publicly-traded and privately-owned corporations, as well as potential acquirers of, major investors in, and individual senior executives at such companies, on executive compensation and related corporate governance matters.

That experience includes 9 years as a tax attorney and executive compensation and benefits specialist with the law firm of Lord, Day & Lord in New York; 8 years as a principal and senior U.S. executive compensation and M&A/restructuring consultant with Handy Associates in New York and with the New York office of The Wyatt Company (now Watson Wyatt); and 13 years as the head of Brian Foley & Company, Inc.

Since 1985, Mr. Foley has been an advisor on executive compensation matters to boards, board committees, senior managements and individual CEOs and other senior executives at Fortune 500 and other large manufacturing companies in the aerospace, apparel, automotive parts, beverage, biotechnology, building materials, chemicals, computer hardware and software, cosmetics, electronics, electrical equipment, food, household products, industrial equipment, jewelry, luxury goods, metals, mining, pharmaceutical, publishing, photographic equipment, recreational equipment, specialty steel, textile and tobacco industries, among others.

During that period, Mr. Foley has also advised boards, board committees, senior managements and individual CEOs and other senior executives at Fortune 500 and other large service companies, including, among others, financial services companies engaged in investment banking, mortgage and other consumer lending, mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities issuance, asset management, securities brokerage, commercial lending and banking, life and property and casualty insurance and other activities; a variety of telecommunications sector companies; office, industrial and hotel REITs and hotel/resort and other real estate development and/or management companies; department store and specialty retail companies; wholesale distribution companies; airline, trucking, ocean-going transportation, airlines services and aviation leasing companies; gas and electric utilities; diversified services companies; advertising, public relations and other communication companies; a wide range of internet-related companies; and various internet-based, direct mail and other marketing companies.

Mr. Foley has spoken before a number of professional, business and academic groups on the strategic and design issues involved in creating and implementing effective executive compensation programs, and on various related Board and senior management corporate governance topics.

Mr. Foley has also been quoted on numerous occasions on executive compensation and related governance issues in stories appearing in major print publications including, among others, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal (combined total of more than 90 articles since January 2002), and The Washington Post, the Financial Times, and The International Herald Tribune, numerous other major regional/metropolitan newspapers, Fortune, American Banker, and Smart Money.  He has also provided commentary on executive compensation and related governance developments in connection with numerous broadcast news reports, including reports appearing on CBS News Sunday Morning, a number of CNBC-TV’s financial news programs, CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and MPR's Marketplace Morning Report.  His commentary has also appeared in a number of news wire and internet news service reports (more than 40 since January 2002) appearing on the AP, Reuters, Dow Jones, Bloomberg and Knight-Ridder Tribune news wires,  and on Time.com, Forbes.com, CNN/Money.com, CFO.com and elsewhere.

Mr. Foley is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and of Columbia University Law School (where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar), and also has an L.L.M. in tax from New York University Law School.  He is also a member of a number of professional organizations and groups, including, among others, the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, and the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals.


Douglas Friske
Managing Principal
Towers Perrin

Doug Friske is a Managing Principal in the Executive Compensation & Rewards practice at Towers Perrin. Doug manages the Central Region EC&R practice for Towers Perrin, as well as serving on the practice’s global leadership team. He is a noted expert in executive compensation and serves as the executive pay advisor to many Fortune 1000 companies.

Doug holds a B.S. degree in Finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a M.M. degree from The Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He has published many articles on executive pay and is a frequent speaker on the subject.


Steven Hall
Managing Director
Steven Hall & Partners

Steven Hall, Managing Director, is a founding Partner of Steven Hall & Partners and has consulted for more than 25 years with senior management and Board Compensation Committees in planning and implementation of senior executive compensation programs and incentives for corporations, subsidiaries, business units, spins and divestitures.

His strong technical background in tax, accounting and finance is of major importance in the design of innovative remuneration programs, including partnerships, LLC carried interests and side-by-side investments. In addition to managing the Firm, Mr. Hall personally leads Steven Hall & Partners’ practice among global corporations and in the financial services, real estate, regulated utility and energy sectors. He also serves as expert witness and consults with corporations and law firms on litigation matters.

He is a member of the faculty of the National Association of Corporate Directors where he teaches courses related to executive and director compensation, and best practices in compensation committee governance.

Mr. Hall, who holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.B.A. in Accounting, is a Certified Public Accountant. His prior experience was with Pearl Meyer & Partners as President and co-founder, Ernst & Young, Handy Associates and as Chief Financial Officer of two private firms.


Michael J. Halloran
Worldwide Partner, Business Leader
Mercer Consulting

Mike Halloran is a Worldwide Partner at Mercer Human Resource Consulting and a leading practitioner in the Firm’s Human Capital Advisory Services (HCAS) business. He is based in Dallas, and is responsible for the Firm’s HCAS group in that office. He has consulted on executive compensation and benefit issues for over 25 years, with a focus on linking executive compensation to business strategy and enhanced performance for shareholders, working with company management and board compensation committees. Key areas of focus include:

His clients include many major publicly traded and privately held companies, located mainly in the US and in Europe. These clients include many leading multinational companies and their subsidiaries in a wide variety of industries. He also has extensive international experience, having consulted with a number of major companies outside of the U.S., representing countries such as Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.K.

He joined Mercer in the fall of 2001 when his prior firm, SCA Consulting, was acquired by Mercer. At SCA, he was a Senior Partner with responsibility for the firm’s Dallas office. Before moving to Dallas, he was the managing partner of the New York office.

Previously in his consulting career, Mike worked at Towers Perrin, where he was a Vice President and the head of Towers Perrin’s worldwide executive compensation practice, as well as the firm’s overall compensation consulting practice for its Eastern Region. He also worked at Watson Wyatt, a major compensation and employee benefits consulting organization, where he directed the firm’s executive compensation practice.

Mike received a BA degree in Mathematics from Northwestern University, and an MBA degree from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, specializing in accounting and finance. He is a frequent speaker on executive compensation, and is often quoted in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Fortune magazine.


Paul Hodgson
Senior Research Associate, Executive and Director Compensation
The Corporate Library

Paul Hodgson is Senior Research Associate, Executive and Director Compensation, The Corporate Library, Portland, Maine. He is the author of the book, Perspectives: Building Value Through Executive Compensation (CCH Inc.)

 

 

 


Blair Jones
Semler Brossy

Blair Jones focuses on helping clients motivate and retain their talent in ways that contribute to sustained shareholder value creation. She has particular expertise in performance management and executive rewards design. She has worked with leadership teams across a number of industries, including healthcare, retail, telecommunications, professional services and consumer products. She works extensively with companies in transition.  Ms. Jones joined Sibson Consulting in 1991. Prior to that time, she worked for Bain & Company, helping clients develop pricing and marketing strategies.   She holds a bachelor's degree with highest honors from Williams College and has spoken at the WorldatWork and National Association for Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP) National Conferences on the topics of leadership rewards and talent management.  She has also presented at the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) Global Equity Conference, as well as to a variety of industry groups. She has published in many journals including Directors and Boards, World at Work Journal, Workspan, The Journal of Business Strategy and The Corporate Board. She has also been quoted in publications such as The New York Times, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and forbes.com, KiplingerForecasts.com, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and HR Executive.


Michael Kesner
Principal, Human Capital Advisory Services
Deloitte Consulting LLP

Mike Kesner is the principal in charge of firm's Executive Compensation practice. He has over 26 years' experience working with companies on a wide range of executive compensation issues, including assessment of competitive pay levels, incentive compensation plan design, executive employment agreements and severance benefits, and deferred compensation plans. Mike also has experience with recruitment and retention arrangements, supplemental executive retirement programs, benefit security techniques, board of directors compensation and change-in-control pay issues. He is the independent advisor to the compensation committee of the board of directors on executive compensation matters at several Fortune 500 companies.

Mike has authored articles published in the Harvard Business Review, CFO Magazine, Directors and Boards, National Association of Corporate Directors' newsletter, and served on the NACD's Blue Ribbon Commission on executive pay. He is also a co-author of a chapter in A Practical Guide to SEC Proxy and Compensation Rules. He has often been a guest speaker on compensation and benefit matters at conferences sponsored by the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals, Ray Garrett Jr. Corporate and Securities Law Institute, American Bar Association, PLI, Executive Enterprises, Garrett Law Institute (Northwestern University), Tulane Corporate Law Institute and Tennessee Law Institute. Mike is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Illinois CPA Society, and the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals. He received a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Illinois.


Patrick S. McGurn
Executive Vice President & Special Counsel
Institutional Shareholder SVCS Inc.

Patrick McGurn is Executive Vice President & Special Counsel at Institutional Shareholder Services. ISS is the world’s leading provider of proxy voting services and corporate governance research. Founded in 1985, ISS recommends votes on ballot issues for more than 20,000 shareholder meetings in 80 markets around the globe each year. Prior to joining ISS in 1996, Pat was director of the Corporate Governance Service at IRRC. He also served as a private attorney, a congressional staff member and a department head at the Republican National Committee.

He is a graduate of Duke University and the Georgetown University Law Center. He is a member of the bar in California, the District of Columbia, Maryland and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Pat serves on the Advisory Board of the National Association of Corporate Directors. Pat is frequently cited by business publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Business Week. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight, Bloomberg TV, CBS Evening News, CNBC, CNN, NBC Nightly News, Nightly Business Report, National Public Radio and ABC’s This Week. He is a frequent presenter at conferences.


Michael Melbinger
Partner
Winston & Strawn LLP

Michael Melbinger is a Partner in the Chicago office of Winston & Strawn . Mr. Melbinger heads the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Department. He represents companies, fiduciaries, compensation committees, boards and executives in all aspects of executive compensation and employee benefit plan matters, and related tax, and securities law and ERISA concerns; designs, drafts, and implements all types of executive compensation arrangements, including stock incentive plans, stock option plans, phantom stock plans, long-term incentive plans, and golden parachute arrangements; designs and implements all types of qualified and non-qualified retirement plans; counsels clients in mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings involving executive compensation and ERISA-related matters; handles disputes and litigation that arise from employee benefit plan, fiduciary, or executive compensation matters and advise clients on the interplay between U.S. and non-U.S. benefits laws.

He is the author of Executive Compensation (CCH 2004) and more than fifty articles on executive and employee benefits topics. He writes a blog on CompensationStandards.com. Mr. Melbinger obtained his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame in 1980 and his Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1983.


Pearl Meyer
Steven Hall & Partners

Pearl Meyer, Senior Managing Director of Steven Hall & Partners, has served for more than 30 years as advisor to Boards and senior management, here and abroad, in matters of executive and Board compensation, performance, governance, organization and selection. Mrs. Meyer co-founded Steven Hall & Partners, as well as Pearl Meyer & Partners. She is known for the creation of groundbreaking, innovative compensation strategies that translate corporate goals into managerial results and rewards.

Mrs. Meyer and her Partners are retained as outside independent counsel by the Compensation Committees of Boards of Directors in the discharge of their fiduciary responsibilities. She has played an integral role in developing many of today’s most widely used Board and executive compensation programs and arrangements. As a recognized authority on corporate governance, she also serves as expert witness in executive compensation litigation.

Mrs. Meyer is regularly quoted by major news organizations and is a frequent contributor to business periodicals. She has served as Chairman and keynote speaker for The Conference Board, the National Association of Corporate Directors, WorldatWork and the American Management Association, as well as for seminars at Harvard, Yale and other leading business schools.

A cum laude graduate with Ph.D. studies at the New York University Stern Graduate School of Business Administration, Mrs. Meyer received her initial training in executive compensation at Kraft.


Ira Millstein
Partner
Weil, Gotshal & Manges

Ira M. Millstein is a senior partner at the international law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, where, in addition to practicing in the areas of government regulation and antitrust law, he has counseled numerous boards on issues of corporate governance, including the boards of General Motors, Westinghouse, Bethlehem Steel, WellChoice (fka, Empire Blue Cross), the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), Tyco International, The Walt Disney Co., and the New York State Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Mr. Millstein is a member of the board of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, the entity charged with overseeing the fundraising and construction of the World Trade Center Memorial, and related museums and cultural facilities located at the World Trade Center site. He previously served as pro bono counsel to the Board of Directors of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the agency overseeing the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan. Most recently, he was appointed Chairman of the New York State Commission on Public Authority Reform by Governor George Pataki.
 


Ronald O. Mueller
Partner
Gibson Dunn & Crutcher

Ron Mueller is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.  Mr. Mueller works in the corporate/securities area with an emphasis on proxy and disclosure issues, corporate governance, executive compensation (including Section 16 and Rule 144) and corporate transactions.

From September 1989 to June 1991, Mr. Mueller separated from the firm to work as legal counsel to Commissioner Edward H. Fleischman at the United States Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).  While at the SEC, Mr. Mueller worked on many of the matters before the Commission, including enforcement matters and regulatory initiatives.

Mr. Mueller is admitted to practice before the courts of New York and Washington, D.C., and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association and the American Bar Association.  As well, he is a member of the Subcommittee on Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation of the Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities (Section of Business Law, American Bar Association) and a member of the American Society of Corporate Secretaries.

Mr. Mueller has written articles and spoken at seminars about a variety of securities law issues, including trends and developments in proxy disclosures and proxy contests, the SEC's disclosure requirements, corporate governance developments, and executive compensation disclosure rules.  Mr. Mueller is a contributing author to A Practical Guide to Section 16, Aspen Law & Business; A Practical Guide to SEC Proxy and Compensation Rules, Aspen Law & Business; and Federal Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Insider Reporting and Short-Swing Trading, Matthew Bender.

Mr. Mueller received his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1986, where he was both a Harlan Fisk Stone Scholar and a James Kent Scholar, and his B.A., magna cum laude, from Vanderbilt University in 1982.


John F. Olson
Partner
Gibson Dunn & Crutcher

John Olson, a 1964 honors graduate of the Harvard Law School, is a founding partner of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Washington, D.C. office.  Mr. Olson has extensive experience in general representation of business organizations as to corporate governance, corporate securities, corporate finance and merger and acquisition matters.  He has acted as special counsel for boards of directors and board committees on governance issues and in assessing shareholder litigation, responding to business combination proposals and conducting internal investigations.  He also has represented corporations, broker-dealer firms and individuals in defense of Securities and Exchange Commission and other governmental investigations.

In the American Bar Association (ABA), Mr. Olson is Chairman of the Business Law Section's Committee on Corporate Governance, and was recently a member of the Presidential Task Force on Corporate Responsibility appointed by the President of the ABA.  Previously, he was Chairman of the ABA's Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities (1991-1995).  He is a member of the Executive Council of the Securities Committee of the Federal Bar Association.

For the ABA, Mr. Olson has also chaired the Task Force on Regulation of Insider Trading, which produced a comprehensive analysis of and report on U.S. insider trading law, and he chairs the Task Force which has produced the third (2001) and fourth (2004) editions of The Corporate Director's Guidebook.  He served for nine years on the Legal Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange and was a member of the Legal Advisory Board of the National Association of Securities Dealers.  He was a Founding Trustee of the American College of Investment Counsel.  In 1987, he served on a select committee of leading securities lawyers, appointed by the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which drafted definitive insider trading legislation introduced in the United States Congress.

In 2004, Mr. Olson was identified by Legal Times as one of the "10 Leading Securities Attorneys" in the Washington, D.C. area.  A frequent lecturer at legal and business seminars, Mr. Olson co-chairs various seminars on an annual basis.  He is on the executive committee for the San Diego Securities Regulation Institute and the advisory committee for the Practicing Law Institute's Annual Securities Regulation Institute.  He is the author of more than 100 articles and a member of the editorial advisory boards for a variety of securities and corporate law publications.  Mr. Olson is the co-author of Director and Officer Liability: Indemnification and Insurance, published by West Publishing (revised 2002) and has edited several other books on securities law issues.  Mr. Olson was the Distinguished Visiting Practitioner in Residence at Cornell Law School in Spring 2003 and is currently an adjunct professor of law at Northwestern University School of Law.


George Paulin
President
Frederic W Cook & Co Inc

George Paulin has been a consultant specializing in the areas of executive and employee compensation for more than 25 years, and is nationally known as an advisor to board compensation committees and management. 

He joined Frederic W. Cook & Company in 1982.  He was named president of the firm in 1994, and assumed responsibility as Chief Executive Officer in 2001.  He opened the firm’s Chicago office in 1983, and in 1987 he opened the office in Los Angeles where he currently resides.  During the past two years, the Cook firm has served more than 45% of the current Fortune 200 companies, and over 1,400 major U.S. companies since the firm was founded as an independent organization owned by its principal consultants in 1973.

In 2004, he attended over 130 board compensation committee meetings.  He was a member of the WorldatWork (formerly the American Compensation Association) faculty for more than 15 years until 2002, where he was instrumental in developing its certification courses on executive compensation.  He served on the WorldatWork Executive Compensation Council from 1991 to 1997.  In 2004, he was named to the Advisory Board of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP), and made an honorary life member of WorldatWork.

His writing and research on executive-related topics is well known.  Recent published articles include "Ideas for Improving Equity Compensation," "Use and Misuse of Restricted Stock," and "Using Stock to Retain Key Employees."  He has recently been a keynote speaker at sessions sponsored by the American Bar Association, Conference Board, National Association of Stock Plan Professionals, Stanford Law School Institutional Investor Forum, and Northwestern Law School Corporate Counsel Institute.

Mr. Paulin has a master’s degree from the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Illinois, where he has been active in alumni affairs and received their Distinguished Alumni Reward in 1990.  His undergraduate degree is in economics.


Joseph R. Rich
President
Pearl Meyer & Partners

Joseph R. Rich is President of Pearl Meyer & Partners. He consults broadly on compensation matters, and specializes in executive and board compensation.

Before becoming President of Pearl Meyer & Partners, Mr. Rich was an Executive Vice President of Clark Consulting (Pearl Meyer & Partner's parent firm) and a leader in the firm’s Human Capital Practice. Previously Mr. Rich was one of the co-founders and managing partners of Executive Alliance, a leading compensation-consulting boutique that was acquired by Clark Consulting in 2001.

Prior to forming Executive Alliance, Mr. Rich was a Principal and elected officer of William M. Mercer, Incorporated, where he served as a member of the national executive compensation practice. Formerly, Mr. Rich was a Consulting Manager in the Human Resource practice of KPMG/Peat Marwick, and prior to that he held a variety of positions at Data General Corporation, including Corporate Compensation Manager.

Mr. Rich holds a BS in economics and an MS in human resources and statistics, both from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, where he is a member of both the Alumni Board and the Dean’s Advisory Council.


Tim Sparks
President
Compensia

Tim Sparks is a co-founder and President of Compensia, a consulting firm that provides counsel to Boards, Compensation Committees and senior mangement on issues concerning executive and Board pay, reward strategy and corporate governance as it relates to compensation plans. Prior to co-founding Compensia, Tim was a co-founder and Executive Vice President of Callisma, Inc., a leading network services consulting company, which was acquired by SBC in 2003. Tim joined Callisma after fourteen years at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, in Palo Alto, California, where he was the head of the firm’s Employee Benefits and Compensation Group. Tim received a B.S. in Business Administration from U.C. Berkeley and a J.D. from U.C. Hastings College of the Law. Tim serves on the Advisory Board of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals.


Mark Van Clieaf
Managing Director
MVC Associates International

Mark Van Clieaf is Managing Director of MVC Associates International, based in Tampa and Toronto. A leading consultancy in integrating organization / accountability design, leadership assessment, and pay for performance linked to value for shareholders and society.

His recent research into pay for performance and executive compensation has identified a number of potential new liabilities that Board Directors face in this new post Worldcom / Disney era. Recent ground breaking research includes the fact that 60 US companies that destroyed over $ 700 billion in value over 5 years paid their named executive officers $ 12 billion in total direct compensation. See "The Myths of Executive Compensation", "New Compensation Committee Liabilities" and "Executive Accountability & Excessive Compensation: A New Test For Director Liability" at www.mvcinternational.com or www.compensationstandards.com

His over 15 years or organization consulting has identified 5 Levels of CEO Work and accountability, and 5 Levels of Corporate Governance, which form the foundation for 5 Levels of Innovation and Enterprise Sustainability. Current check the box approaches to corporate governance fails to get at the core organizational and leadership issues required to sustain value creation for shareholders and society. See "The New DNA of Corporate Governance" and "Are Boards and CEOs accountable for the Right Level of Work?" at www.mvcinternational.com

The Failure of having Boards and CEOs accountable at the right Level of Work risks the loss of shareholder capital. Over 50 % of the top 1800 public companies in North America have failed to return a profit greater than their cost of capital over 5 years, Boards / CEO's operating at to low a Level of Work also results in failure to take into account the broader environmental and societal level risks that impact longer term shareholder value and the broader business ecosystem.

Mark is a guest Lecturer on Corporate Governance (organization, leadership and pay for performance design) at the Ivey School of Business.

He is a frequent speaker on organization design, CEO Accountability, executive Pay for Performance, and succession planning, all linked to shareholder value.

He was a Commissioner for the National Association of Corporate Directors, Blue Ribbon Commission on CEO Succession Planning, in Washington DC. He was a Founding Member, Executive Selection Research Advisory Board, Center for Creative Leadership, Greensboro NC and was Special Guest Editor, Human Resource Planning, for the Human Resource Planning Society, based in New York, NY. He is also past President of the The Strategic Leadership Forum.

He is currently a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and the International Corporate Governance Network.

Previously he was with Price Waterhouse in their Business Strategy and Executive Search Consulting Practices, working across 4 continents. Including playing a role in setting up the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board and recruiting its first CEO in 1990.

His early career was in the advertising, direct marketing, graphic design industries. He holds an undergraduate degree in economics and business and a post graduate diploma in international business.

He can be reached at mark@mvcinternational.com