The Advisors' Blog

This blog features wisdom from respected compensation consultants and lawyers

March 14, 2016

Who Really Determines CEO Salary Packages?

Broc Romanek, CompensationStandards.com

In this study, Susanna Gallani of Harvard Business School proposes two reasons why CEO compensation packages often look so similar to one another:

– Interlocking directorates: many directors are board members at a number of public companies – and she found evidence that companies with directors in common have similar compensation packages.
– Compensation consultants: strong commonalities among pay programs at companies that shared compensation consultants – and whether compensation consultants should be held to similar accountability standards as auditors, noting that on many proxy statements the name of the consulting firm does not appear.