The controversy over executive compensation practices has generated a lot of heated conversations in the media and around the water cooler. On November 2, under the lights of camera crews from C-span, CNBC, CNN and Bloomberg, the Smith School’s new Center for Financial Policy shone a spotlight on this controversial issue at its first roundtable discussion, “Executive Compensation—Practices and Reform.” The event featured keynote speaker Kenneth Feinberg, a well-known lawyer and mediator recently appointed to be the Obama administration’s special master for compensation.

In the wake of the financial crisis of last fall, the Obama Administration appointed “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg to work with the Department of the Treasury to sort out the way top executives at firms are compensated and what reforms should be made. Just last week, Feinberg came out with a plan to drastically slash compensation at seven companies bailed out by the federal government. But is focusing on reforming executive compensation barking up the wrong tree?

Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009, 7:30 a.m.; Monday, Nov. 2, 2009, 4:30 a.m. Financial System Reforms – Executive Pay

College Park, Md. – October 26, 2009 – The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business today announced the winners of its third annual Mergers & Acquisitions Competition, held October 22-23. The event, organized by Smith’s MBA Finance Association, challenged 10 teams of MBA students from leading business schools to craft and present M&A pitches to a panel of executive and faculty judges. The student team from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University won the $5,000 first prize.

College Park, Md. – October 12, 2009 — The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business will launch a new Center for Financial Policy on Nov. 2 with a Roundtable on Executive Compensation event in Washington, D.C. Kenneth Feinberg, Special Master for Compensation of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, will keynote the event, which will explore executive compensation practices and policy reforms.

When you think of on-campus dining, you probably envision plastic trays, a long buffet, and an endless supply of chocolate milk. On September 22, 2009, however, undergraduate students in the Robert H. Smith School of Business Finance Fellows program were gathered in Van Munching Hall’s Executive Meeting Room in a different context—a formal networking dinner with finance professionals. In addition to an evening with opportunities to connect with professionals in the finance industry, students were dressed in business formal and treated to a catered sit-down dinner.  

“This is the problem at hand, and it does need a solution,” said Sam Germaine, an associate at ETF Venture Funds who traveled from Philadelphia to attend the Robert H. Smith School of BusinessThoughtLeadership@Smith series event on Executive Compensation and Public Policy on September 18.

Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009, 7:30 p.m.Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009, 7:30 a.m.Monday, Oct. 5, 2009, 4:30 a.m.  Setting CEO Pay – Executive Compensation

The University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business is pleased to welcome the following new faculty members for fall 2009. Accounting and Information Assurance Carolyn Levine, assistant professor; PhD, Carnegie Mellon University James Staihar- Assistant Professor; PhD, University of Michigan Decision, Operations and Information Technologies Karen Gold, Tyser Teaching Fellow of statistics, UCLA Canan Savaskan-Ebert, visiting assistant professor; PhD, INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France Finance

College Park, Md. – August 11, 2009 — The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business today announced finance industry leaders Clifford Rossi and William Longbrake have joined the school to lead the new Center for Financial Policy, which will be launched this fall. Rossi was named managing director of the center and Longbrake will serve as an executive-in-residence and senior policy advisor.