Could the sun finally be setting on the General Electric empire? Chief executive John Flannery on Tuesday raised the prospect of ending GE’s long life as one of the world’s best-known industrial conglomerates by floating the idea of spinning off one or more of its remaining three core businesses into separately traded companies. The breakup of the company born in Thomas Edison’s labs is one of the more radical ...

Consider the curious case of the all-male boards. Hard to believe that in 2017 anyone would think they are OK, but they’re more common than you think...

By Shirley Leung Globe Columnist July 25, 2017 What do Amazon, Facebook, and Netflix have in common? Not a single person of color sits on their corporate boards. Advertisement For that reason alone, the Massachusetts pension fund refused this year to support the slate of board nominees recommended by each company. When it comes to diversity in the boardroom, Treasurer Deb Goldberg, who also serves as chair of the state pension board, is taking a hard line...

Some complain that the annual shareholder meeting is a vestige of the old days, a tradition whose time has expired in the era of Skype and webcasts. Others insist it’s the last remaining forum for individual investors in publicly traded companies to sit in the same room as a business’s executives and directors...

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. CEO Jeffrey M. Leiden saw his total compensation drop 38 percent to $17.4 million last year, largely on a steep cut in his stock-option awards from the Boston-based biotech. It was the second year in a row that Leiden’s pay declined from a 2014 payout of $36.6 million that made him the highest-paid head of a Massachusetts public company and sparked some shareholder criticism...

Perhaps the turning point of gender equality in corporate America will come down to the simple but powerful act of commissioning a piece of art...

What a massive hash the board of trustees has made of that place and its reputation. The downtown college prides itself on turning out socially conscious graduates and civic leaders, the kinds of people who make a city great. Pity the poor faculty and students, who strive to embody those ideals ...

Brian Snyder/Reuters General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt (left) negotiated a rich incentives package with Governor Charlie Baker (center) and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to move his company to Boston. Many small companies relocate for the local workforce. By Scott Kirsner Globe Columnist July 29, 2016 In January, around the time General Electric executives were ratifying the decision to move the conglomerate’s headquarters from Connecticut to Boston’s Seaport District, David Hurley was living in an Airbnb apartment rental in the same neighborhood. Hurley had landed some early funding from two Boston venture capital firms, and he’d decided ...

Dr. Elizabeth Nabel is paid well — $1.3 million in salary alone in 2013 — to run Brigham and Women’s Hospital, one of the nation’s premier medical centers. She also finds time to hold three other paying positions, which is unusual for a Boston hospital president ...

A strongly worded letter was the culmination of a probe Maura Healey’s office launched during the height of the school’s administrative turmoil ...

The buzz around the gender pay gap had been building – with a flurry of bills filed and Equal Pay Day speeches made — but those with the power to take immediate action, the companies that issue the paychecks, were slow to act on their own. Enter Natasha Lamb, director of equity research and shareholder engagement at the Marion-based investment firm Arjuna Capital, who decided it was time to take matters into her own hands ...

After assurances last fall that he would give up his seat on two high-paying corporate boards, Governor Charlie Baker’s former tax commissioner did not do so — despite a law prohibiting him from engaging in any outside business for profit. Aides to the governor said in November that Mark Nunnelly, who was appointed in March 2015, would “transition off” the boards of ...

Talk to a community banker about the Dodd-Frank law and all the rules out of Washington as a result, and you’re bound to hear about the headaches. But the new rules have been a boon for these banks’ lawyers, the ones who are behind the scenes ...

Helping publicly traded, private, or not-for-profit businesses find board members is the business of Quincy-based BoardProspects. Its chief executive officer, Mark Rogers of Weymouth, a corporate lawyer who practiced in the Boston area for 10 years before founding his venture, said his company is the world’s largest boardroom community...

Out-of-control pay for corporate directors is an integral part of a bloated CEO compensation system that has institutionalized sweetheart deals as the norm rather than the exception (“Few hours, soaring pay for directors,” Page A1, Dec. 2). Think of ...

are white men, even though women and minorities make up most of the population. Then on Friday the Boston Club, in its annual census of women on boards conducted by Bentley University, will detail another year of incremental improvement, with female ...

In Massachusetts, gender diversity on corporate boards has received more attention than racial diversity, thanks in part to the work of the Boston Club, a prominent women’s leadership group that tallies the number of women on boards every year...

which tracks executive compensation. A Regeneron spokeswoman, Alexandra Bowie, argued Vagelos was “technically an employee” because he was given an employment agreement in 1998 that requires him to work 30 to 50 hours a month, or an average of nine ...

If you’re looking for a board seat, Mark Rogers can help

Interested in a paid, part-time job on a board in the financial or retail sector?

Mark Rogers can make the connection for you. The former corporate lawyer just added an upgraded service to BoardProspects.com, a social media site he runs that’s geared for members of boards — or those aspiring to serve on one. The upgraded service allows companies to post their board opportunities for free. Potential applicants can search these opportunities for no charge, but need to pay if they apply through Rogers’ site.

In the ...

WASHINGTON -- Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts took aim at the country’s top Wall Street regulator Tuesday, saying in an unusually blunt letter that Securities and Exchange Commission chairwoman Mary Jo White’s leadership has been “extremely disappointing” and accusing her of providing “misleading information.” In the 13-page letter, Warren said there has been a “significant gap” between the promises White made during her confirmation and her subsequent performance helming the independent commission. “I am disappointed that you have not been the strong leader that many hoped for — and that you promised to be,” Warren wrote in the letter sent ...

Most company annual meetings are long-winded, boring, and generally useless exercises. But they offer one grudging nod to democratic capitalism: a microphone in the audience for any stockholder, big or small, to give top executives a piece of his or her mind. Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. will hold its meeting Thursday at the company’s Boston headquarters...

One person who has prospered through the rocky reshaping of the business is chief executive Ronald Sargent. His annual total compensation has nearly doubled to $12.4 million over the past three years. Sargent is leading a “reinvention” plan that aims to shrink Staples’ physical retail presence and boost online sales. Last year, Staples said that it planned to close 225 stores by the end of 2015...

Two leading advisory firms are recommending shareholders vote against executive pay packages at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., calling aspects of last year’s compensation at the Boston biotech company “excessive” and “exorbitant.” The two firms that advise large shareholders how to vote on questions presented at company annual meetings were particularly critical of $29 million in one-time retention bonuses awarded to Vertex’s top five executives last year...

Bank of America shareholders voted Wednesday to elect all of the board of directors recommended by management, including Thomas J. May, the chief executive of Eversource Energy who had faced a campaign to unseat him in recent weeks over...