Everybody’s talking about executive compensation – so much so that the drone of the conversation is drowning out more important discussions about risk management and succession planning.

That’s too bad because most corporate directors don’t believe that recent rules changes concerning executive compensation will help them better manage executive compensation, according to a new survey of more than 100 corporate directors at U.S. publicly listed companies conducted by BDO USA last month.

Even worse, 91 percent of compensation committee members indicate that Dodd-Frank will not strengthen their oversight of executive compensation. more

I-9 compliance. EU data privacy requirements. Verification of dependents under the 2012 U.S. health care reform law. Federal payroll taxes.

The number of compliance risks within the human resources (HR) function seems to be outpacing the growth of risks in other parts of the organization, including corporate finance. Yet, unlike many HR managers and executive, most finance and accounting folks are intimately familiar with audits. more

Despite what the business-page headlines would have us believe, some of the most advanced risk management approaches still come out of the financial services industry. I caught up with Mike Pugliese, co-lead of Capco North America’s finance risk and compliance group, to learn about the wider application of risk-adjusted profitability.

Eric Krell: The sluggish economy and anemic recovery has put downward pressure on revenues across most industries. How can organizations strategically cut costs and protect and grow their revenue stream in this environment?

Mike Pugliese: For financial institutions, there is downward pressure on revenue for two reasons: the economy and the regulatory mandates coming out of Washington D.C. However, all businesses are coping with the difficult economic environment. more

The movie Contagion opened in the U.S. last weekend , and some critics worried that this Hollywood portrayal of a global pandemic might exaggerate this societal risk while playing on, and heightening, the fear it generates

A little fear may be a good thing, particularly if it motivates risk managers to update their pandemic preparedness components of their business continuity management (BCM) and disaster recovery programs.

This article is a healthy place to start.

How resilient is the American Dream?

That was one of several big and engaging questions that have come out of discussions with compensation experts I’ve held in recent weeks for a new research project. These discussions honed in on several compensation risks, which I’ll get to in a moment.

The American Dream question arose when a compensation consultant discussed his concerns about the growing gap between executive compensation and general workforce compensation. more