May 08, 2014
Directorships: 3
Total director compensation, 2008-2012: $1,974,211
Average annual director compensation: $394,842
Average compensation per full year of service as director: $151,448
Stuart E. Eizenstat, a graduate of Harvard Law School, currently leads the international practice of the law firm Covington & Burling. He spent much of his career in the Carter and Clinton administrations. From 1977 to 1981 he was Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to President Carter. He later served as Ambassador to the European Union before being named Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade from 1996 to 1997. He went on to serve as Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs from 1997 to 1999 and, under then-Secretary Larry Summers, as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury from July 1999 through the end of Clinton’s presidency. Eizenstat was also a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution and an Adjunct Lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University.
Among the major accomplishments noted in his bio are his work negotiating the Helms-Burton Act, which strengthened economic sanctions against Cuba, and the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, both in passed in 1996. More recently, Eizenstat testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on behalf of the Trans-Atlantic Business Council, a group that represents the largest corporations in the U.S. and Europe, and of which he is co-chair. His testimony concerned the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Agreement, which Eizenstat said, “would be the most comprehensive trade agreement in history.” He stressed the need for “regulatory convergence” on issues such as state-owned enterprises, workforce mobility, and intellectual property protections.
Eizenstat has been a director of United Parcel Service, or UPS, since 2005. For most of that period, UPS’ stock has hovered around the S&P average. Since the bottom of the recession in early 2009, UPS has, slightly underperformed the average. Yet CEO pay has skyrocketed: from 2009 to 2011, UPS CEO D. Scott Davis saw a pay raise of 109%, from $6.2 million to $13.1 million.
Another company on whose board Eizenstat sits is Globe Specialty Metals, where he was brought on as a director in February 2008 ahead of the company’s initial public offering (IPO) the next year. Globe went public at the end of July 2009, after which the stock rose to its peak in the middle of 2011. The company’s stock then fell dramatically, both relative to the overall market and in real terms. Yet from FY2011 to FY2012—the latter during which the stock declined precipitously—CEO Jeff Bradley’s pay went from $3.1 million to $7.1 million, representing a 131% raise.
Eizenstat has also served as a director of Alcatel Lucent, a French company, since December 2008.
