Google It: "overpaid CEO Calcutta"

At this point I should not be surprised when I inadvertently discover that a blog that I wrote long ago was referenced last month in an online article about CEO pay. I also should not be surprised that the article appeared in "Calcutta Online" which is published by the India Institute of Management though I don’t know anyone there and have never spoken to them. Least surprising of all is that it would appear in the "Diatribe" section of the site. Of the alternative definitions of "diatribe" I prefer of course Merriam-Webster's third one.

The article, authored by Sidarth Mohan, is titled "CEO Compensation Debate" and the excerpt he quoted from me is:

“Most CEOs I've dealt with are highly intelligent, have advanced degrees--often from one of the top universities in this country or elsewhere in the world--and have worked 70 or more hours per week for most of their career. Even if they weren't CEO of a public company, people with a background like that get paid much more than the average person.”

This is from an opinion piece I authored for Cnet's News.com site 18 months ago. What's most interesting is that while 18-month old news can be quite outdated, when I re-read this piece I thought it could have been written yesterday, and likely could be republished 18 months from now and seem just as fresh. This is because the CEO pay debate is not dying down; it is still escalating and will continue to do so, particularly as we head into a presidential election year in the US.

Compensation Committees must be aware that the SEC's scrutiny of proxy disclosures will continue next year, the media will piggy-back on those disclosures as never before, and Committees will be under increasing pressure to have a diligent, data-based decision process that is thoroughly and clearly disclosed in the proxy statement.

Compensation Committees also need to be aware that in a global economy with investments crossing international boundaries compensation practices are subject to scrutiny of those beyond America’s borders. An article in Calcutta Online might have a similar impact to an article in the San Jose Mercury News (not to suggest that they are of similar journalistic status – I don’t know if they are or not) and could influence a shareholder or shareholders to view differently the executive compensation arrangements at a company. We all know where that can lead.

I also don’t know how Sidarth Mohan’s influence compares to that of Gretchen Morgenson or how Calcutta Online stacks up against the New York Times, but I do know that people easily find information online, don’t always know much about the source, and are often influenced by what they read.

For those Compensation Committee members that remember the uproar over “Oh, Calcutta!” – which debuted off-Broadway in 1969, was revived on Broadway in 1976 and ran for 13 years briefly becoming the longest-running play in Broadway history, with a total of 5,959 performances - they will remember how events thought to be innovative are easily re-defined as "scandals" and capture the public’s attention, and executive compensation has become ensconced in the scandal category. As we wind down 2007, have Compensation Committee meetings planning for 2008, and anticipate the continued evolution of the regulatory, disclosure, political, and media environment in the new year we should all remember that things said and done long ago (in Internet time) can have quite a lifespan.

(The worst thing about an 18-month old web page is that my affiliation is incorrect. I am now, in addition to my role as Principal Consultant of Compensation Venture Group, Inc., a Fellow with Salary.com (NASDAQ: SLRY), advising them on executive and equity compensation matters in connection with their CompAnalyst Executive data service.)