It’s proxy season
Posted by Marc Hodak on March 21, 2013 under Executive compensation, Governance, Reporting on pay | 
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And that means a new flood of stories about CEO pay. In the past, the stories have almost uniformly been of the “can you believe…” variety. Can you believe that CEO whose company stock dropped 20 percent still earned $5 million? Can you believe that CEO who was canned got $20 million on the way out the door? So, I was surprised to finally see an example of intrepid journalism entitled “Pay for Performance’ No Longer a Punchline.” Apparently the relationship between pay and performance is improving.
The shift in how CEOs are paid highlights the growing role of investors in shaping executive compensation—and their push to align pay more closely with corporate results.
While a welcome the change in tone, I think that both the shift to improved alignment and the role of growing investor involvement are overstated. To see why, consider two items about CEO pay that are approximately true: