As more boards see the breadth and depth of the lead director role expanding, committees charged with director compensation oversight are recommending the institution of new retainers for lead directors and, in some cases, doubling the retainer already in place.
For example, Adobe Systems instituted a $50,000 retainer for its lead director in the past year, while Leucadia National instituted a $30,000 retainer for its lead director, according to SEC filings analyzer MyLogIQ. A third board, Genesee & Wyoming, disclosed that it had decided to institute a retainer but was currently conducting a pay analysis at the time its proxy was filed and hadn’t settled on the dollar figure.
Similarly, Facebook, which has recently faced increasingly loud calls from investors to separate founder Mark Zuckerberg’s CEO and chair roles, instituted a $50,000 retainer in January for lead director Susan Desmond-Hellmann. Facebook says it considered Desmond-Hellmann’s workload and “the importance of such a role in light of our status as a founder-led company with our controlling stockholder as Chairman.”
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