The hazard of off-base bias.

• Author: Kristie, James
• Position: THOUGHT LEADERSHIP - Reprint

From Corporate Concinnity in the Boardroom by Nancy Falls. Copyright [c] 2015 by the author. Published by Greenleaf Book Group Press (www.gbgpress.com).

Recently I heard a panel of experts speak on executive compensation. While I don't remember the particulars of what they were recommending, I do recall quite a list of things to avoid, most of them related to the top five issues of the most vocal proxy advisor firms. I had been personally very interested in the Whole Foods CEO salary cap (as a max multiple of the lowest employee), something that few companies were doing at that time. So I asked one of the experts whether Whole Foods was truly an outlier or the beginning of a trend.

I had barely finished asking my question when the responder dismissed the Whole Foods case as less than mildly relevant. I accepted her opinion; but then, less than six months later, such caps were on the list of top 10 comp issues to watch for all boards. Was this expert wrong...