Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein

David Chun: "The Demand For New Directors Will Increase Exponentially Over the Next 12-24 Months."

Episode Summary

In this episode, I talk with David Chun, the founder & CEO of Equilar, a Silicon Valley based leading provider of corporate leadership data solutions. Companies of all sizes rely on Equilar for business development, recruiting, executive compensation and shareholder engagement, including 70% of the Fortune 500 and institutional investors representing over $20 trillion in assets. Among other topics, we discuss the recent strategic partnership announcement of Equilar with Nasdaq to advance boardroom diversity, and the current state of boardroom diversity in public and private companies. We also talk about some of the latest trends in corporate governance, executive compensation and market trends in Silicon Valley and beyond. If you like this show, please consider subscribing, leaving a review or sharing this podcast on social media. You can find all the show notes on the website boardroom-governance.com and please feel free to subscribe to the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at evanepstein.substack.com

Episode Notes

(1:40) - Start of interview
(2:38) - David's "origin story"
(4:49) - The founding of Equilar in 2000.
1. The modern "corporate governance" era started after the corporate scandals of the early 2000s (Enron, Tyco, Adelphia, WorldCom, etc.) and the passage of SOX in 2002.
2. "Very few people talked about corporate governance in the 1990s"
3. With this new focus on corporate governance, there was a lot of attention given to exec comp.
(9:56) - The Board's role in setting compensation for the CEO: "It's a very tricky decision, and there is no right answer." "Compensation is a very emotional and difficult decision, with many different stakeholders involved."
(11:33) - Their work on the investors' side (Calpers, Vanguard, Blackrock, etc).
(12:11) - They made a conscious decision from day one to track the trajectories of executives and directors from SEC data, which has resulted in the development of their BoardEdge Product.
(13:59) - His take on Say on Pay regulation: it increased significantly the amount of shareholder engagement.
(17:05) - His take on Elon Musk's ~$55bn comp package at Tesla and other 100% at-risk performance awards.
(19:33) - The Nasdaq-Equilar Strategic Partnership on boardroom diversity (announced on Dec 9, 2020).
1. Distinctions with CA laws SB-826 and AB-979.
2. Equilar's BoardEdge product includes one million executives and directors.
3. Equilar's Diversity Network (36 Partner Institutions, 5,158 Member Profiles, 2,044 board appointments) "Registry of registries"
(30:53) - The challenge of meeting the new boardroom diversity requirements set by SB-826, AB-979 and Nasdaq. "There is a need for more candidates who are not on boards." "The demand will go up exponentially in the next 12-24 months, and Equilar is working to help on the supply side."
(32:27) - The latest trends on director compensation, and impact of COVID-19 on boards (Stanford/Equilar study).
(35:09) - His take on the current state of private and public capital markets (the "window is wide open for going public, but when the market shuts down - it will shut down hard")
(37:03) - His thoughts on the latest trend of companies and executives leaving SF/Bay Area/CA to TX, FL, etc.
(39:30) - His take on the stakeholder vs shareholder debate as a CEO and executive compensation expert.
(42:04) - His favorite books:
1. The Hard Things About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz (2014)
2. Measure What Matters How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs, by John Doerr (2018)
(43:11) - His mentors (his dad, and his best friend's dad in high school).
(44:30) - His favorite quote: "Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is today" (Wayne Gretsky)
(45:42) - His "unusual habit": a classic multitasker.
(47:00) - The living person he most admires: Warren Buffett.
(48:00) - His final thought on where the puck is going on governance: boardroom diversity beyond public companies: private companies, PE, VC, non-profits, etc. Human capital metrics will become increasingly more relevant.

David Chun is the founder & CEO of Equilar, a Silicon Valley based leading provider of corporate leadership data solutions. Companies of all sizes rely on Equilar for business development, recruiting, executive compensation and shareholder engagement, including 70% of the Fortune 500 and institutional investors representing over $20 trillion in assets.

In addition, David is a Trustee of the Committee for Economic Development (CED) and serves on the boards of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) and the Asian Pacific Fund Community Foundation of San Francisco. He is on Catalyst’s Women on Board Advisory Council, the Silicon Valley Advisory Council of the Commonwealth Club of California, the Women on Boards Advisory Council of the California Partners Project and the Advisory Council of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation.

David is a also a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), Past Chair of the SF Bay Chapter, a founding member of the Council of Korean Americans (CKA) and a former advisory board member of the Wharton Center for Entrepreneurship.

Follow Evan on Twitter @evanepstein

Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License