Executives

Microsoft's board on Friday voted to give shareholders more say in how the software maker pays its executives.

The board of directors approved a plan that calls for a vote on the company's executive compensation every three years. However, under the board's plan, the vote will be advisory in nature.

The first of the advisory measures is set to be a part of this year's shareholder meeting, which takes place November 19.

"Given the interest in executive pay, we think it makes sense to encourage more dialogue with our shareholders on our compensation approach," … Read more

Sony Ericsson's president, Hideki "Dick" Komiyama, is to retire at the end of the year, the company said Monday.

The new president for the loss-making handset maker will be Bert Nordberg, who will move over from Ericsson. Nordberg, who currently heads up Ericsson's networking research and development wing in Silicon Valley, will become co-president of Sony Ericsson at the start of September, to allow for a smooth transition.

"In the two years he has been at Sony Ericsson, Dick Komiyama has made some very important changes to their organization and laid the foundation for the … Read more

The recession has forced IT executives to cut costs while trying to bring in quicker returns on investment, according to a study released Wednesday by AT&T.

For its "Road to Growth" study, AT&T spoke with 77 key IT executives from large global companies. Sixty-four percent said they're under pressure to focus on projects that bring in return on investment in half or less than half the time than in the past. As a result, two-thirds said this pressure has affected their IT budgets, strategies, and priorities.

One CIO said his company is looking … Read more

In a move that comes as little surprise, Apple announced Monday that Google CEO Eric Schmidt is resigning from its board of directors.

"Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in the release. "Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple's core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric's effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to … Read more

AOL has promoted Stephane Panier to the role of president at social network Bebo, which it acquired last year for $850 million.

Panier, who joined AOL in January after six years at Google, had previously been serving as chief operating officer of Bebo.

Joanna Shields, who was CEO of Bebo when it was acquired, left AOL in May. Before she left, Shields was head of "People Networks," a new AOL division devoted to social networks. Last week, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong announced that People Networks would be nixed in a restructuring.

Bebo has been placed in a new division called AOL Ventures, … Read more

This week there is just no shortage of dudes named Armstrong in the press. There's the one who rides bikes and likes to tweet about it, the one who walked on the moon 40 years ago, and then there's Tim Armstrong, who has officially been CEO of AOL for 100 days as of Monday.

So he celebrated with press coverage! Armstrong interviews were published Monday on by the Associated Press, AllThingsD, AdWeek, and Advertising Age, and AOL advertising chief Jeff Levick talked to PaidContent. We hope Armstrong also commemorated the 100-day mark with some cupcakes, because while press … Read more

It was bound to happen. With the U.S. government promising truckloads of cash to overhaul the U.S. health care system, while simultaneously making positive noises around open source, it was just a matter of time before someone connected the dots.

That someone appears to be Joanne Rohde, former executive vice president of worldwide operations at Red Hat, who has launched the Axial Project, a stealth-mode start-up that aims to "combin[e] the principles of Open Standards and Open Source...to connect all the parties in the Health ecosystem safely and securely."

It's a big task, … Read more

Facebook has named former Genentech executive David Ebersman to the office of chief financial officer. He replaces Gideon Yu, whose departure was announced at the end of March.

"We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "We quickly recognized that David was the right person for Facebook. He was Genentech's CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to Facebook."

Ebersman served as chief financial officer … Read more

After you've helped develop and launch a game-changing mobile device on the market, what do you do for an encore?

Bob Borchers, the former head of Apple's worldwide marketing for the iPhone and an original member of the team that developed the iPhone, hopes he can help nurture entrepreneurs and inspire others to innovate.

On the very day that he helped launch the latest version iPhone 3G S, Borchers left Apple to embark on a new career as a venture capitalist at Opus Capital, a small Silicon Valley firm. A week later he's already starting to settle … Read more