Hard to Fix Exec Pay When Execs Sit on Board

Excessive executive compensation cannot be controlled as long as executives sit on boards of directors (“Watchdog Challenges CEO Pay,” Oct. 21).

Stacking a compensation committee with outside directors will not work when those directors were appointed to the committee by the chairman of the board who also is the chief executive and who might even have arranged their nominations as directors.

The board is supposed to represent the owners, the stockholders. Chief among directors’ duties is to hire, supervise, evaluate and (if necessary) fire the company’s top executives.

There is an unavoidable conflict of interest when the executives being governed also are among those governing. Excessive executive compensation is merely the most visible symptom of that conflict of interest.

David E. Ross

Oak Park