Do Compensation Consultants Tell CEOs What They Want To Hear?

One of the myriad regulatory changes that came in the wake of the financial crisis was a 2009 SEC decision to require that firms break down the fees paid to compensation consultants if they also provided other services. The idea was that CEOs could potentially use the promise of extra business to influence a compensation consultants recommendations and that shareholders have a right to know what’s going on. But the result was rapid turnover in the industry and more space for boutique firms specializing solely in compensation consulting to eat up market share by telling CEOs what they want to…