Sitting on the board of directors for a Fortune 500 company must be easy.

[brainshrub]

Sitting on the board of directors for a Fortune 500 company must be an easy job.

TheyRule.net is a site that allows users to display graphically how American corporations are interlocked with one another. It's like the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon - for political wonks.

After observing the close relationships between these companies, I've come away with the following impression:

For the amount of money executives get paid, serving on the board of directors for a Fortune 500 corporation must be one of the easiest jobs on the planet.

Among the working-class if you are paid a decent salary and are critical to the functioning of a business, you are expected to spend a significant amount of time working at the said business. A career mechanic can't just spend a few hours in the garage, then take a quick shower and go across the street to spend the rest of the afternoon as a full-time accountant. (At least she can't without a significant drop in pay from both companies.)

Corporate board members, on the other hand, seem to have plenty of time to work multiple jobs.

For example, Leonard S. Coleman sits on the board of directors for five Fortune 500 companies. (See image on below) Either the man never sleeps and snorts caffeine to keep moving, or sitting on the board of a Fortune 500 corporation does not take that much time out of the day.



I should make it clear that I have no beef with Mr. Coleman. A quick look at his bio shows that he's an intelligent, hardworking individual who cares about his community.

But five jobs?

With so many commitments pulling him in so many directions, how does Coleman develop a true understanding of what makes any one of these companies tick?

What the heck is Coleman doing that makes him so invaluable that he can justify a six-figure salary for what must be, at the very most, a few months work.

Is he the only one with keys to the file cabinet?

Further research shows that Leonard Coleman has got a lot more going on than what the TheyRule.net database gives him credit for. He also serves on the Board of Directors of New Jersey Resources, Churchill Downs and Electronic Arts.

Wow! Either the rich have more hours in the day than us working folk... or most of those directorships only require a few days of attending meetings a year.

Coleman is not a unique case, I just pulled him out at random. It turns out that this kind of arrangement is hardly unusual among the upper class. For the amount of compensation an executive can demand, you'd think they would be expected to focus on one company... or at least one type of company!

Another observation I've made is that the more power an industry has, the fewer degrees of separation there are between direct competitors.

For example, there are five degrees of separation between the retail booksellers Barnes & Noble and Borders:



Now compare this to the chart for the financial houses Bank of America and Wachovia: (See image to below)



What industry do you think has more influence over your day-to-day life: Retail book chains or banks?

Is the general public to believe that there is any true competition between the most important industries, when the people who run these companies seem to have such overlapping interests?

The charts I've made are just a tiny sampling. I don't want to get into any tinfoil-hattery, but I do recommend that you go to TheyRule.net and come to your own conclusions.

The way executives are able to work for so many corporations simultaneously, makes a strong case that most boardrooms are excuses for the upper-classes to harvest the work of the rest of the organization without contributing much to the companies they supposedly manage.

www.brainshrub.com/board-easy-work

[cosmicdot]

1. and receiving $35,000 - $50,000 or more/year retainer for each ...

plus additional $ if heading up a sub-committee + of course, 1st class travel and living arrangements ... makes it even nicer ... sure wish I could get a couple of Board gigs ...

I don't know where these people find the time to sit on multiple boards, several think tank advisory boards, this-n-that, etc.; while still being CEOs or management in their own companies, etc.

if one studied the Carlyle Group, I suspect one would find that its Managing Directors, etc., are strategically placed on Boards TCG has equity investment in, and probably sit on competitor Boards as well ... having a TCG bigwig on the NY Times Board of Directors is not coincidental ...

imho ... interlocking directorates should be an issue ... what presidential hopeful will make it one? I suspect to hear <crickets> ... where's Theodore Rosevelt when we need him? ...
... increased visibility into private equity firms like TCG and its mirror, The Blackstone Group sould be nice, too ... that they don't is likely why Poppy Bu$h and James Baker went that route ...

http://progressiveliving.org/interlocking_directorates_def.htm

http://www.fair.org/media-woes/interlocking-directorates.html

Theyrule is an excellent tool and resource.


edited to add: I often look up annual proxies (annual stockholder meeting reports) ... Form DEF 14A ... at http://www.sec.gov ... great way to see who sits on Boards ... but, also, a way to see who/what holds more than 5% of a company (aka Beneficial Owners) ... via sec.gov is how, for example, I found that TCG, up until about a year or so ago, held well over 20% of Dianne Feinstein's husband's URS Corporation http://www.urscorp.com/ ... interesting considering the money following this White House policies ... It sometimes, also, is interesting to see what proposals stockholders put forth (i.e., dealing with environmental issues; human right issues in countries doing business in, etc.) and noting that Boards always urge stockholders to VOTE 'NO'. These corporations wage their own foreign policy in our name.

[Caution]

2. Being on the board of directors is not what most people think it is

They act as an advisory panel to the day to day operators of the company. Pretty much nothing more. The get involved when it comes to mergers, and acquisitions and things of that nature as well. Otherwise they simply act as teh voice of the stockholders to the actual executives within the company.

Most board meet quarterly, are apprised of the ongoing situation and major deals that a company is involved in finally they are responsible for determining, based upon the reports from the financial secton of a company if the management is leading the company in the right direction.

Finally, contrary to popular belief, board members typically aren't paid. While it is true that some companies provide a nominal sum (when compared to the money CEOs, and other top level execs make), most don't provide that. Usually this is because the board members are typically people who have heavy investments in the company and thus don't want operating capital wasted on a salary for them.