Stanford's President Leads the Corporate Crossover Cohort

John Hennessy's intensive corporate board engagement is not unique, but it isn't typical.  And there's a surprising double standard when it comes to outside board participation by college presidents. 

The Wall Street Journal (John Hechinger and Rebecca Buckman) profiled the sweet deals enjoyed by John L. Hennessy, president of Stanford University (EIN 94-1156365 Form 990), starting with a haul of a million dollars in November of last year from retainers, sale of stock, and exercise of options for Cisco Systems, Google, and Atheros Communications.  He sits on all three boards.  (The article is subscription-only at the WSJ, but at least for now there are bootlegs here and here.)

The reporters do their best in the arched-eyebrow style to try to portray these entanglements as a conflict of interest.  But they also recognize that the standards at Stanford are already very flexible.  Its research policy handbook acknowledges that "Conflicts of interest are common and practically unavoidable in a modern research university" and emphasizes disclosure within one's own department."  Rules for outside consulting services allow faculty up to thirteen days every quarter for outside work. 

Mr. Hennessy's corporate involvement preceeded his work at Stanford, as he was a co-founder of Atheros Communications.  And of course Stanford as an institution is closely aligned with Google from its birth.

What's more interesting to me is the question of whether Mr. Hennessy represents a new model of college president as the article claims.  The premise was proposed well over a year previously by the Chronicle of HIgher Education (College Presidents on Company Boards: Prestige, Money, and Risks, by Paul Fain, November 18. 2005, which really, really is subscriber only, sorry).  This was after a survey of college presidents showed that a handful (then 3.1%) sat on three or more for-profit corporate boards.  A somewhat larger number sat one one or two (28.6%). 

But the Chronicle of Education pointed out that the typical outside board seat for a college president is with a local or regional institution, like a bank, that would typically pay them $20,000 to $50,000 annual retainer plus $1,000 to $2,000 per board meeting plus some stock options.  It's not known how many college presidents are going the high-profile corporate board route, but Mr. Hennessy is not alone, either in the quantity or the quality of outside board positions (from the WSJ article, to which I've added the links to the financials).

Some other quantity players (three or more boards) are:

• Ruth Simmons, Brown University (EIN 05-0258809 Form 990), Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, Texas Instruments
• Shirley Ann Jackson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (EIN 14-1340095 Form 990), IBM, FedEx, Marathon Oil, Medtronic, Public Service Enterprise Group
• E. Gordon Gee, Vanderbilt University (EIN 62-0476822 Form 990), Dollar General, Hasbro, Gaylord Entertainment, Massey Energy, Limited Brands.  We've already noted that Mr. Gee has agreed to reduce his board seats from five to three. 

Here are some of the quality players (one or two high profile boards):

• Susan Hockfield, Massachusetts Insitute of Technology (EIN 04-2103594 Form 990), General Electric
• Mary Sue Coleman, University of Michigan (state entity, no Form 990, annual financials PDF 5Mb), Johnson & Johnson, Meredith
• Shirley Tilghman, Princeton University (EIN 21-0634501 Form 990), Google
• Richard Levin, Yale University (EIN 06-0646973 Form 990), American Express

My guess is that there are fewer than a hundred presidents (out of 1,400 or so four-year colleges and universities) that are going the high-profile corporate player route, and it's probably closer to fifty.  Given the time commitment, it is probably easier for professors to take on this kind of service than for presidents.  (We've noted the risks of this behavior, including the clear possibility of involvement of a nonprofit representatives in an options back dating scandal.)

And I also note with some surprise that while relatively few presidents take on multiple outside board seats, there is much less restraint when it comes to nonprofit boards.  The Chronicle of Education found that more than a third sit on four or more charity boards, and 2.8% sit on ten or more nonprofit boards.  This is astounding and really only makes sense if a large number of these boards are somehow connected with their university, which I suspect is the case.  Still, it may show a bit of the double standard that is applied to nonprofit staff that their for-profit board seats get the attention of the Wall Street Journal, but their more numerous nonprofit board seats go without comment. 

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複数の政府関係者が明らかにした。外交安全保障政策で助言を得るためとしているが、政府の役職に野党関係者を起用するのは極めて異例だ。国会対策で焦点となる公明党との関係強化を模索する狙いもあるようだが、民主、公明両党間の正式ルートで協議した痕跡はあまり見えず、“民公”接近につながるかどうかは微妙だ。
関係者によると、高野氏の起用は、藤村官房長官が高野氏に「外交機能を強化したい」と打診した。政府高官は３日、「外交関係のアドバイザーだ。国連平和維持活動（ＰＫＯ）の問題も含め、広く意見をうかがう」と説明した。ただ、政府内にも「公明党とのパイプ強化を狙ったものだろう」との見方が強い。

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　府警は、西口容疑者方から黒い原付きバイクを押収し、関連の有無を調べている。