America has come a long way since the days when rampant sexual misconduct was commonplace in many work environments.  Over the past three decades a standard has been set for workplace behavior, and if you step outside of it, sometimes even just a little bit or accidentally, you will pay.  If you’re wealthy, you will pay a lot.  We don’t get many things just right, and there’s definitely still women enduring the pain of sexual harassment, but prosecuting those who propagate it has become part of the culture.  That being said, here are five of the biggest sexual harassment cases and settlements: 
 

ABM

Image Source

 
ABM is a large building maintenance company employing some 91,000 in the U.S. and Canada.  On behalf of 21 Hispanic Workers, the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) filed suit against the company after discovering gross sexual harassment and abuse.  The victims were forced to deal with “varying degrees of unwelcome touching, explicit sexual comments and requests for sex by 14 male co-workers.”  One woman alleged she had been raped, and the accused just happened to already be a registered sex offender.

Another woman claims that she was fired after reporting being touched by the janitor. “My supervisor would laugh at me,” she says. The company, which takes in more than $3.5 billion annually, was able to weasel its way out of the charges, settling for $5.8 million without admitting any wrongdoing.  The money was a pittance to the company, who had this to say: “We constantly strive to provide all of our employees a professional and safe work environment free from harassment of any kind.”  And when they fail, they provide their employees with some money.

Mitsubishi Motors

Image Source

 
Working for Mitsubishi in the 90′s was a dream for many — but not for the female workers at the Normal, Illinois plant.  In 1998 the company was charged with allowing a hostile setting for women to work in since at least 1990; not so normal after all.  In the plant, women were habitually fondled, verbally abused and subjected to inappropriate jokes, behavior and graffiti. Women were denied promotions unless they performed sexual favors.  In one outrageous case, an air rifle was fired between a female worker’s legs ‘as a joke’.  In 1998, Mitsubishi agreed to pay $34 million to the female workers after these conditions were brought to light in a collective lawsuit — but only after discrediting their workers by claiming that a ‘public spectacle’ was made of the issue, which they thought was mishandled.  Millions more were paid in individual suits.  Mitsubishi claims to now have a zero tolerance policy in place for sexual harassment and seems to have really stuck to it.
 
 

Lois Jenson

Image Source

 
This was such an infamous case, it was depicted by Charlize Theron in the 2005 film “North Country.”  Lois Jenson was an employee at the Eveleth Taconite Co. mine in Minnesota during the 70′s and 80′s.  Sexual harassment is still rampant now, but at the time it was often an accepted and assumed part of many work environments.  At Jenson’s job, women were regularly harassed sexually and in a way that was threatening to their safety.  When Jenson first complained about her treatment, her car tires were slashed, and the company refused to do help or reimburse her.  Jenson took the matter to court, engaging in what would become a decades-long fight which lasted into the 1990′s.  She was joined by other plaintiffs from within the mine, and eventually won a settlement for $3.5 million.  Her bravery and refusal to back down set a standard that helped many women who came after her.  If it weren’t for courage like this, it’s more than likely that sexual harassment would still be considered nothing more than a part of men and women working together. 
 

Lowe’s

Image Source

 
This is a strange case of equal opportunity sexual harassment at a Lowe’s in Washington. Two young men and one woman were subjected to sexual harassment, and in one instance a sexual assault took place.  The female plaintiff (21 at the time) was taken into the office of the 44-year-old male store manager and allegedly sexually assaulted after weeks of being subjected to verbal and physical passes.  She had also been propositioned for sex by the same manager after she had received a promotion. When the victim complained, she was fired along with two other women who had tried to reach out for help regarding sexual harassment claims.

In 2009, Lowe’s was forced to pay a $1.7 million settlement to the victims.  The EEOC also forced Lowe’s to change its sexual harassment policies and enforcement. 

EEOC Regional Attorney William R. Tamayo had this to say: “No worker, regardless of gender or other discriminatory factors, should ever have to endure harassment in order to earn a paycheck.”  Lowe’s will now provide comprehensive training to management, non-management and all resource employees in sexual harassment awareness and how to do their part in providing a safe and discrimination-free environment. 
 

Ashley Alford

Image Source

 
Sexual harassment is a terrible, scarring, costly crime.  Never has it been more costly than in the case of Ashley Alford.  Alford worked for a St. Louis Aaron’s (a rent-to-own company) between 2005 and 2006.  During this time she was tormented by constant sexual harassment, culminating in two horrible assaults.  On one occasion Alford’s manager Richard Moore allegedly grabbed Alford by her ponytail and hit her in the head with his penis.  Another time he grabbed Alford by her hair, held her down and masturbated on her.  He faces criminal charges for the assaults.  Alford reported the crimes to Aaron’s, but they were never investigated, as seems to be the trend with behemoth companies.  In June 2011, however, a jury awarded Alford $95 million for what she’d been through. Unfortunately, the federal cap on sexual harassment judgment stops at around $40 million, so the rest of the money is little more than a verbal condolence.  Aaron’s plans to appeal the verdict, but in the mean time this is the largest settlement amount ever awarded for a sexual harassment case in the US.

In a recent study, scientists combed the Earth looking for an elusive creature spoken of only in hushed voices over dimly-lit campfires and mostly-empty water coolers (didn’t someone tell Steve to replace that? Steve, come on man it’s your turn).  Referred to colloquially as “A Good Boss” and scientifically as Notdouchebaginus Zeromicromanaginicus, scientists found this creature to be startlingly common.  The important caveat was that satisfaction with one’s boss is highly correlated with income, meaning the more you make, the more you’re willing to put up with.  For those of us making under $75,000 a year, our boss is more likely a person who makes the already unpleasant activity of working in an office that much more miserable.  But anyone who’s had a terrible boss can attest that it’s not just the yelling, patronizing, or coming into work to find a giant steaming dump on your keyboard.  The worst part is the Orwellian double-speak they obviously picked up from their more competent counterparts elsewhere and corrupted well beyond their original meaning. Phrases such as: 
 

“I want it done and I want it done yesterday!” 

Image Source

 
 
What they think it means: 
Despite the stereotype of the ineffectual, demanding boss, there are plenty of totalitarian taskmasters out there that are very good at running things.  Steve Jobs, for example, was notoriously demanding and unforgiving.  In a business setting, you need someone who can set a clear vision for the company, punish employees who don’t live up to that vision, and generally be the dynamo that powers the whole process.  Good examples of these types of bosses are often described as “hard, but fair” despite that phrase always sounding like a euphemism.  Unfortunately your terrible boss saw these other good bosses and learned the easiest and most evident, but also the most wrong lesson: being a good boss means being demanding, and nothing else. 

What it actually means:  “I forgot about this” 
For a variety of reasons, this phrase is particularly common in the financial industry.  Usually, because of the speed at which the industry hums along 24 hours a day, you’ll hear it on a trading floor because someone literally needed something yesterday.  Unfortunately, your terrible boss decided they want to flex their managerial muscles when something falls through the cracks (and something always falls through the cracks), so they spout this utterly meaningless phrase.  If you’re having a hard time understanding why this command can be so frustrating, let’s lay out what usually happens because of its maddening vagueness: 

Step 1: Terrible Boss says “I want it done, and I want it done yesterday!”
Step 2: Terrified employee asks for clarification, the boss yells the phrase again so as to appear bold and demanding
Step 3: Terrified employee thinks “Oh so this is my highest and most immediate priority”, and focuses only on this task to the exclusion of their other responsibilities
Step 3: Everyone wonders why nothing is getting done, but since they depend on Terrified Employee for a variety of responsibilities, they can’t finish their work
Step 4: Company grinds to a halt, Terrible Boss blames Terrified Employee for doing exactly what he was told to do
Step 5: Do not profit 

It’s easy to look at that set of steps and thing “Well, Terrified Employee should have known not to neglect their other responsibilities.”  This is true and you are right.  But, as we all need money to buy food, shelter, and filthy filthy porn (just kidding, no one pays for porn), Terrified Employee works well in excess of 40 hours a week and this is likely to happen almost every day.  Eventually, Pavlov and self-preservation kick in and make financially-ruined fools of us all. 

“I work all the time, so should you” 

Image Source

 
What they think it means: 
Anyone who’s worked in an office at a level above temp can tell you that “40 hours a week” is more of a weak guideline that will be curb-stomped and left for dead in a coffee-fueled rage on three hours of sleep in three days.  Weeks easily stretch to 60, 70, and 80+ plus hours, and that’s just what’s expected to justify the gobs of money you hope to make.  Believe it or not, this often pays off, as those low-level Analysts that stick it out frequently end up making more money than anyone under 35 should be trusted with.  The reason they were able to do this was usually because their boss led by example, putting in insane hours themselves, and always carrying their work phone even though it made them look like a douche when they set two Blackberries on the table at dinner.  In other words, it was a shared sacrifice based on mutual respect. 

What it actually means: “I don’t have to pick up the phone when you call, you do” 
First off, if your Terrible Boss honestly put in the long hours and hard work of the good bosses above, they likely don’t fall in to the Terrible Boss category.  More than likely, they don’t work that hard, they just say they do.  No one ever corrects them because, one, who’s going to call the boss lazy, and two, it allows everyone else to goof off with wilder abandon.  The expectation for how much work will get done is lowered because everyone’s in on the “Man I work so hard [opens Farmville]” joke. 

This isn’t the bad part.  The bad part is that the Terrible boss will leave early, take long lunches, and generally faff about because when something needs to get done, he can always put it off or make someone else do it.  He’s the boss like that.  (A good boss doesn’t abuse this privilege, but we’re not talking about them).  Except when he wants something done, you are expected to be on call 24/7 because you foolishly submitted to this charade so that you could browse Facebook and get paid for it.  Now while the lazy employee deserves some blame here, and indeed for all of the failures mentioned in this list, the fish rots from the head, as they say. 

“We need to hire a superstar”

Image Source

 
What they think it means: 
Everyone knows that person in the office.  The one that puts in the extra hours, goes the extra mile, and who wows and charms both clients and coworkers.  They are the drive shaft that makes the well-oiled engine of the company hum like a song.  They are rare, but with enough searching and careful cultivation, they can be found.  While a company needs so much more than a handful of superstars, often the sheer driving force of them will push quality and productivity up, inspiring employees and managers alike to work harder and better. 

What it actually means: “We are so fundamentally fucked” 
No superstar employee is going to fix a company that is already fundamentally broke, and if Terrible Boss even feels the need to utter this phrase, it usually is.  First off, superstars are there to be had, but because they’re so good they are usually incredibly expensive.  Second, even if you do manage to find a diamond in the rough, many of the company’s problems likely stem from the Terrible Boss herself.  No employee, even an extremely capable one, can get much done when they are being, say, micromanaged, harassed, and given confusing priorities.   

So when this phrase comes out of Terrible Boss’s mouth, it usually means something closer to “Everything is wrong. I don’t know how to fix it.  I don’t possesses the self-awareness to fix myself.  Let’s try to find someone to shift the responsibility on to”.  And in her mind, it sounds like she’s calling for high-powered, hard-charging, silicon valley corporate culture instead of meekly drowning in a lack of perception. 

“We are going to do this perfectly, no mistakes”

Image Source

 
What they think it means: 
Of course, every office strives for perfection on every project.  But here’s the thing, it is really, really hard to avoid the millions of mistakes that can get made every day.  Reams and reams of business literature have been written on how to ensure quality of the highest degree.  It often doesn’t involve working harder or more intensely, but putting into place the proper procedures to eliminate the most error-prone step of the process (that part is the humans…for now). 

What it actually means: “I will micromanage this shit into the ground” 
One of the biggest problems with Terrible Bosses is that a combination of arrogance and misguided good intentions frequently leads them to micromanage their employees.  This creates the perverse incentive where employees end up tailoring projects, products and procedures exactly to their Terrible Boss’s specifications, instead of improving on them when the opportunity presents itself.  The exacting nature of micromanaging also leads employees to shoot for the boss’s specifications, and no further.  This is because the first thing out of Terrible Boss’s mouth when shown a project isn’t “What can we improve here?” or “Oh that’s interesting, what was the idea behind this?”.  It’s usually more along the lines of “Why didn’t you do what I said?” 

This is the result of the Terrible Boss wanting and demanding perfection, but not realizing that unless he is Steve Jobs or an OCD genius, he is going to miss things.  And the harder he tries to control more of the process, the less responsibility employees will feel to double check themselves or, god forbid, innovate on top of Terrible Boss’s design.  Ironically, shooting for perfection is worse in this scenario than shooting for “as good as we can do”, because Terrible Boss will have fewer chances to mess things up.  More importantly, employees will be responsible for their own slice of the project, meaning if something goes wrong they don’t have the excuse of “I just did what you told me”, and a productive conversation about what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future can ensue. 

“Summarize it for me” (Alternately, “Bulletpoints”) 

Image Source

 
What they think it means: 
As boring as they are, regular updates and progress reports are important to make sure everyone is on the same page, time doesn’t get wasted working on overlapping areas of a project, and the boss — who is likely overseeing many teams simultaneously — knows what is going on.  A good boss keeps up to date with the reports, comments on the progress, and addresses problem areas.  This is all really basic stuff. 

What it actually means:  “I will never read this” 
Unfortunately, if your boss actually kept abreast of what was going on and tried to address problems, he wouldn’t be terrible.  Not only do most of your e-mails sit unread in his inbox, he will often call you later to ask for a verbal summary.  Worst of all, when something goes wrong (and it will), you will ineffectually point to your numerous e-mails on the subject, to which your Terrible boss will reply “you should have called me”.
   
It is frustrating because with a Terrible Boss the real problem will never get addressed, but to make things even worse it turns out that your boss is actually speaking an entirely different language. 

It’s a stressful job being a CEO but it isn’t normally physically dangerous. CEOs may sometimes make a killing, but they don’t get killed ― usually. However, when some people say they want to strangle their boss, they may be speaking literally. CEOs are magnets for public anger, especially since the credit crunch, and have always been easy targets for political and business assassinations. They are also vulnerable to disgruntled or insane employees with a grudge and poor skills in conflict resolution. Here are 10 high-ranking executives who were murdered in cold blood.

10. Andy Hadjicostis

The Northern area of Cyprus is well known as the Northern Ireland of the Mediterranean, having been disputed by the Republic of Cyprus and Turkey since Turkey invaded the island in 1974. When the outspoken head of Cyprus’ most powerful publishing house Andy Hadjicostis was gunned down outside his home by unknown attackers, it was suggested that politics was the cause of the assassination. Hadjicostis had used his impressive media powers to support the peace negotiations between the warring Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and it was suggested that his murder was intended to destabilize the situation and stir up trouble between the two sides.

9. Gagandip Singh

One of the owners of British Sky channel Sikh TV, Gagandip Singh’s body was found in his own burnt-out car on a back road in London with severe head injuries in February 2011. Singh, 21, had already established a reputation for conquests both inside and outside the business world. This may have led to the young businessman’s death, as his girlfriend and a teenage friend, believed to be involved in a love triangle, became two of the three primary suspects in his murder. The trio are due to stand trial in November.

8. Lalit Kishore Chaudhary

Manager Lalit Chaudhary, the head of the Indian branch of car component manufacturer Graziano Transmissioni, had been forced to fire a large number of employees due to an outbreak of violence at the plant in 2007 and the generally sucky economic conditions of the late 2000s. Being an amiable soul, he invited over 100 of his former workers back for a meeting in September 2008 to discuss a possible reinstatement deal. Of course, his employees were grateful for this show of generosity… oh wait no, the whole crowd of them ganged up on his staff and beat him to death with a hammer. Altogether, 34 people were injured during the incident and up to 100 arrested. A government minister managed to make Indian labor relations look even worse internationally by stating that the attack: “Should serve as a warning for management, workers should not be pushed so hard that they resort to whatever happened.” Open mouth, insert foot.

7. James Po Ho Cheung

Online gambling has always been the Mafia of paying sports, with its association with out of control debts and, even worse, cheesy pop-up ads. 777 Sports Entertainment Corp President and Chief Executive James Po Ho Cheung had always flirted with shady characters, facing charges in 2001 for money laundering, and in 2007 he found out what a bad idea that could be when he was shot to death at the wheel of his Cadillac outside his house in the middle of the night. No suspects have yet been announced for the murder of the head of a multi-million dollar online card game company. Maybe he should have invested in some bullet-proof glass… although that didn’t help the next person on our list.

6. Alfred Herrhausen

This mysterious murder is believed to have been a political assassination, but the identities and motives of the assassins are still unclear. Alfred Herrhausen, the head of Germany’s biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, was ambushed in November 1989 by a group of very professional terrorists who used a sophisticated bomb linked to an infrared beam to destroy his bullet-proof Mercedes and mortally wound him. The bomb was deliberately targeted at the most vulnerable part of the car ― the door next to where Herrhausen was sitting ― and required split-second timing to overcome its armor plating. The terrorist organization the RAF (the Red Army Faction ― not to be confused with the British air force) were initially believed to have been behind the attack, but a key witness, Siegfried Nonne, later retracted his statement and has since claimed that he was coerced by the Verfassungsschutz, the German internal intelligence agency, into becoming a witness. To date, no-one has ever been charged with Herrhausen’s murder.

5. Tim Mackay

Tim Mackay was the popular and well-respected CEO of the Swiss-owned Holcin Indonesia cement company, and one of the victims of the July 2009 hotel bombings in Indonesia, the first major terrorist attack in that country for four years. While attending a business meeting at the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, he was caught in the blast of a bomb planted in the breakfast room rented for the event. He was the only New Zealander affected by the blasts which killed 9 people and injured 50 more. The attack is strongly suspected by the police to have been planned by the al-Qaeda influenced group Jemaah Islamiyah and specifically by the now deceased Muslim extremist Noordin Mohammad Top.

4. Sid Agrawal

The late 2000s credit crunch ruined a lot of people financially. Jing Hua Wu, an engineer who was terminated from his job at semiconductor company SiPort Inc. and lost the rest of his money on property investments, is just another example. His reaction however was not typical; in 2008 he allegedly took a handgun to the Santa Clara SiPort offices and killed the CEO of the company, Sid Agrawal, vice president of operations, Brian Pugh, and head of human resources Marilyn Lewis after they agreed to meet with him to discuss his employment. SiPort’s top management was effectively wiped out by the incident. Wu was arrested the following day without a struggle.

3. Federico Bloch

The CEO of airline consortium Grupo TACA, Federico Bloch was described as a man who “dreamed big things and always built them.” Over 25 years, he transformed his company from a small business with only 3 planes into a thriving $600 million a year operation. However, the businessman was no match for crime ridden El Salvador, as proven when he was shot down in a probably gang-related act of violence in 2004. Six teenagers were arrested in connection with the shooting, including two 16-year-olds who were reportedly friends with the CEO. Even more tragically, just a few days before his death he had resigned as CEO of Grupo TACA for family reasons due to one of his son’s ongoing treatment for bone cancer.

2. Maurice J. Spagnoletti

On June 15 2011 executive Maurice J. Spagnoletti was on top of the world, having just won a $400,000 a year contract to re-organize Puerto Rica’s troubled Doral Bank. He had also had a successful former career as the CEO of Summit Banks’ Pennsylvania operations. However, as he was driving home through San Juan’s wealthy (and usually safe) Condado neighborhood, he was gunned down by a hail of shots from a passing car in a suspected contract killing. Police are currently offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrator, which may or may not be linked to an audit he ordered of the financial institution. According to Spagnoletti’s former boss at Summit, James Lynch, it is “unusual” for physical violence to be connected to this sort of banking job in Puerta Rica. Good to hear…

1. Todd Bachman

Todd Bachman was the head of the Minneapolis-based flower power empire Bachman’s Floral, Home & Garden, and was probably even more famous for being the father of Elizabeth Bachman McCutcheon, a member of the 2004 women’s indoor volleyball team, and father in law of the 2008 men’s indoor volleyball team head coach, Hugh McCutcheon. He was killed and his wife and a female tour guide were wounded in an apparently random knife attack during the 2008 Chinese Olympic Games. The family was sight-seeing at the 14th century Drum Tower, a popular Beijing tourist attraction. Their attacker, 47-year-old Chinese man Tang Yongming, apparently jumped to his own death from the second story of the building a few moments later.

I brought up the issue with an Italian small business owner who I happened to run into after reading all your comments. Here’s how it went:

“What do you think about Sarah Palin’s role in the Tucson shooting?” I asked. “I think that everyone should have a right to free speech, so what she said was okay. How about you?”

“At that level,” he told me, “you should know better than to say things like that.” Essentially, when you’re a leader and you know that people are hanging onto your every word, you have a moral and ethical responsibility to refrain from certain language.

“Not long ago in Italy,” he added, “we had someone on the media say that a certain journalist should have a stick taken to him. And what happened? A group of youths ganged up on the journalist with a baseball bat and other weapons and beat him up.” (This isn’t quoted verbatim, but you get the gist.)

Well, hell. The man had a point. In my previous post, I implicitly assumed that if we’re all just smart enough to not take Sarah Palin seriously, and not give her any credit, this thing will blow over.

“We’re all just smart enough” is a bad assumption to make. So let me revise my idea some and share where I stand now, thanks in no small part to your comments and feedback.

The Hitler Lesson

Someone once told me that when Hitler came to power in Germany, his lackeys made sure that every German family received a copy of his autobiography Mein Kampf. They delivered the copies personally, door to door. Most Germans stuck the book on a shelf and forgot about it. Why? Because things were going okay for them. The book was just an accessory. There was no point in reading or thinking too hard about it.

We all know what happened next.

The point is that when something extreme pokes its head over the horizon, you ignore it at your own peril.

The Facts

I believe that my previous take on Sarah Palin was a little too close to shelving Mein Kampf and assuming everything would continue to be hunky dory on Planet America. So here’s my revision.

Fact: Sarah Palin is a person of power with fans who hang on to her every word.

Fact: Sarah Palin invokes language that could be construed as being violent. “They all say things that are vague enough that they can later deny them,” my Italian friend told me. “Reloading” and “targeting” apply. And, as Thomas Hobbes indicated, language precedes action in politics.

Fact: People in positions of authority have a moral responsibility to say things that are in the best interest of the greater good.

Fact: This rarely happens, because people in positions of authority love power.

Given this, how does a democratic society mitigate wingnuts when they start gaining enough traction to inspire violence? What is our check and balance on political ethics?

We used to have a law against extremist rhetoric in the media, but it was shot down years ago, giving rise to the likes of Glenn Beck. Reinstituting that law and putting legal limits on the kind of language people in a position of authority, as per a preset legal definition, can use, is one option. Instituting something like a Jedi Council on ethics is another, if more idealistic, option.

The Gut Level Security Blanket

I want to think that no matter who you are, you can say what you want. Because we live in a free country with free speech.

While that kind of blanket statement feels good and justified from a personal rights level, it doesn’t acknowledge the increased responsibility that has to come with leadership in a stable and functional society.

When I think about the kind of society where leaders are absolved of responsibility in the name of overarching concepts–of freedom, of gut-level rights–a complex and functional democracy, which by its very nature requires mature discussion, does not come to mind. The leader’s audience may feel morally justified, but because of the leader isn’t getting any kind of proper performance review, s/he can get away with all kinds of mischief.

My Revised Conclusions

a) Jared Loughner remains a rarity in that he took violent action against a particular group of people

b) There is, at time of writing, no direct link between Sarah Palin and his course of action

c) I maintain that smart people should not give finger-pointing myths more power than they deserve, but, since I have to admit that not everyone is smart:

d) Sarah Palin, and any politician or media authority, are leaders. As such, they need to be held accountable for the consequences of their rhetoric, no matter how vague the insinuations may sound to smart people. Because, dammit, we’re not all smart.

e) I currently am not aware of what the accountability structure is for such leaders, and how it is employed. Bottom line: If we want to be a functional democracy, we need to activate it.

25. Tony Hayward

Image: World Economic Forum/Flickr

BP sent Tony Hayward off to deal with Russian oligarchs after the CEO failed miserably at verbally handling the Gulf oil spill. Hayward seems to become a walking faux pas the second a television camera points in his direction. Shortly after the oil rig explosion that led to the massive Gulf spill, Hayward was recorded emitting gems like ““I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest” and “What the hell did we do to deserve this?”

When the hobbit-like Brit finally accepted that his company’s oil was threatening to destroy an entire ecosystem, he said he was sorry. Followed by “I would like my life back.” When such gaffes caused his public approval rating to plummet to negative numbers, he publicly responded with “I’m a Brit. I can take it.” Hayward was replaced by American executive Bob Dudley not long afterwards. Now, he’s heading TNK-BP, a joint venture with Russia.

We assume he’s taking the frigid Russian winter like a true Brit.

24. Dov Charney

Letting it “all hang out” at the office takes on a new meaning when you work for American Apparel (AA), the US’s largest clothing manufacturer. When Dov Charney came to a design meeting wearing only underwear, he said “it’s normal, come on, we design underwear!”

“Yes, it’s normal to see Dov in his underwear,” said one of the many females who sued Charney for sexual harassment. “How else can he market his product?” As Dov explains it, “I often drop my pants in meetings and to potential advertisers and show off our product.”

But what of the five suits alleging that Dov demanding her boss “perform simulated masturbation?” as one plaintiff alleges, or that another claims she was routinely asked to do things outside of her job description, including, hiring “massage therapists?”

If there’s one redeeming quality about this self-admitted “healthy sex obsessed” CEO, it’s that his shenanigans aren’t making a fool of some wife who’s long since considered filing for divorce.

23. John Mackey

Image: Joe Marinaro/Flickr

“Bankruptcy remains a distinct possibility (for Wild Oats) IMO if the business isn’t sold within the next few years.” So said rahodeb, a mysterious poster who spent hours panning health-food retailer Wild Oats on Yahoo! forums. “The writing is on the wall. The end game is now underway for (Wild Oats) …. Whole Foods is systematically destroying their viability as a business — market by market, city by city,” was another rahodeb gem, as reported by Reuters.

Can you guess who rahodeb, a 7-year veteran of the forums, was? None other than Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, in the virtual flesh. The FTC uncovered rahodeb (really Mackey’s wife Deborah’s name spelled backwards) when it was investigating Whole Foods’ acquisition of Wild Oats for antitrust.

Rahodeb even went so far as to call John Mackey handsome, leading some forum users to cry foul. Perhaps rahodeb had a point, however, when he said that “If you are waiting for Trader Joe’s or Wegmans to slow down the Whole Foods express train you’re going to be waiting the rest of your life. It ain’t (going to) happen.”

22. Robert McCormick

Robert McCormick, former CEO of Savvis, Inc., either has the crummiest home life of any suit in the country, or he’s a masochist of whom Marquis de Sade could be proud. Either that, or he’s the filthy stinking rich variant of the nerd who can’t get a girl.

Get this: the guy spent $241,000 (of American Express’s money) at Scores. Now, to his credit, so to speak, Scores used to be firmly ensconced in the circle that is the crème de la crème of strip joints in Manhattan, and enjoyed repeated endorsements by Howard Stern.

That said, not only did McCormick not inform Savvis of the charges to his company-issued credit card, he also didn’t make any effort to pay back the money he owed. Who the hell spends $241k on lap dances anyway? That whole “look but don’t touch” routine has got to drive a guy mad.

Naturally, in an attempt to preserve his dignity, he claimed up and down that he never went there. Scores proved otherwise and he stepped down. Guess where he went to drown his sorrows?

21. Marcus Schrenker

Imagine you’re a crooked insurance agent. Over three years, you bilk your insurance agency out of some $1.4 million by taking out advance commissions on policies that were never sold or that lapsed. When you don’t pay up, your employers takes you to court for the money–and all the other illegal activities you pursued to get it.

What do you do? Why, you take your plane for a spin, parachute out on the way to the Gulf of Mexico, and let the plane crash, faking your own death. Or so you think.

Heritage Wealth Management President Marcus Schrenker, whose plane crashed in Florida instead of the Gulf of Mexico as planned, was found hiding at a remote campground two days later. The guy just isn’t a very good criminal. Now, in addition to all the charges he tried to run away from, Schrenker is also guilty of intentionally crashing a plane. Wonder what kind of failed scam he’s going to try to run in prison.

20. Fritz ter Meer

Fritz ter Meer helped perpetuate heinous crimes against humanity, and what did he get for it? A big, fat corporate promotion. Ter Meer was behind a factory for chemical giant IG Farben in Auschwitz. IG Farben used slave labor during the war, experimented on people, and worked with “Angel of Death” Josef Mengele. One of its subsidiaries also produced Zyklon B, the gas used in Nazi death chambers.

In 1945, after nearly 20 years on IG Farben’s board of directors, ter Meer was imprisoned for war crimes. He was released after serving four of seven years.

Several years later, Bayer rewarded him for his efforts by making him chairman of their supervisory board. Today, his grave has a huge wreath on it–donated by Bayer to honor his services.

19. Mark Hurd

Anyone who wants to become a CEO, or member of Congress for that matter, should be trained in how to make rational sexual decisions. Again and again, no matter how savvy or effective these guys are, they get caught with their figurative pants down.

Former HP CEO (and now co-president Oracle) Mark Hurd had “one of the great executive runs in recent American business history,” writes the New York Times. But then hot blond marketing consultant Jodie Fisher slid into the picture. HP was paying Fisher up to $10,000 to help organize parties; Hurd and Fisher would dine out afterwards, according to the Times. Though there was never evidence of anything R-rated between the two, Hurd did try to hide the relationship by falsifying expense reports.

When HP stopped contracting her services, Fisher accused Hurd of sexual harrassment, hiring shark celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred to defend her case. The HP board forced Hurd to resign, but instead of going to the sharks himself, Hurd fell into the arms of Oracle President Larry Ellison, who hired him on as co-president. Good luck, HP. And stay away from hot marketing consultants, Mr. Hurd.

18. James McDermott

Image: Crain’s

How do you thank your favorite mistress for her services? James McDermott, the former chairman and CEO of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, a NY investment bank, eschewed the usual flowers and diamonds in favor of stock trades. Thanks to McDermott’s insider trading tips, his mistress, Canadian adult film star Marylin Star, made Star at least $88,000 in profits on six deals. That’s a heck of a lot more than the porn industry pays. The indiscretion cost McDermott his career, and landed Star in jail.

17. Lord John Browne

Image: Gabinete

BP CEO Lord John Browne was the poster child for corporate success. He joined BP in 1966 and worked his way to the top. Along the way, he was knighted, given 17 honorary doctorates from universities around the world, and became a director at Goldman Sachs.

Ironically, a tabloid allegation ended up bringing the 17-PhD corporate hero down. Lord Browne, so the story went, had used company assets to support his Canadian boyfriend landed Browne in court. Under oath, Browne claimed he’d met his boyfriend while jogging. It was later discovered that “jogging” was either Browne’s code word for “gay escort site,” or Browne had blatantly lied about the origin of his relationship. Bad web surfing habits revealed, Browne stepped down from BP and Goldman.

16. Ramalinga Raju

Image: World Economic Forum/Flickr

Raju was one of the top dogs in the consulting and IT sectors, but he threw it all away for greed. First, his company Satyam tried to take over the two companies owned by his sons (so much for family loyalty). Then he admitted to India’s version of the Securities and Exchange Commission that he defrauded his company for a fat wad of cash.

But surprise, surprise, just like Uncle Sam bailed out AIG and friends, India’s brass bailed out Saytam (but left Raju out to dry). How’s that for karma?

15. John Rigas

John and his two sons were in cahoots when they ripped off daddy’s company, Adelphia Communications. A well-known telecommunications and cable provider for the New York area, Adelphia was once worth a lot of money, until father Rigas and his two spawn were indicted on 18 counts of bank, wire and securities fraud to the tune of about $2.3 to 3.1 billion of off-the-books funds.

Do you think Rigas had any shame? Considering he petitioned then-President Bush for a pardon, we’re thinking not. Did he at least have the courtesy to include his sons in the pardon? Not so much. After all, any man who has the cojones to rip his own company off for billions wouldn’t be above selling his own kin down the river to get off a little easier.

Rigas now rots in a North Carolina penitentiary, probably continuing to run minor scams of some sort.

14. Peter R. Harris

We can agree the U.N. usually does-p-or at least tries to do–good things. We can also agree that companies providing quality food to developing countries and organizations around the world are also a good thing. 1+1=2, yes?

In this case, the math doesn’t quite add up. Multinational food service company Compass Group stood to lose their cushy contract with the U.N., due to some past contract screw-ups.

“I know how we can fix this!” the CEO of the UK, Africa and Middle Eastern branch of Compass, Peter Harris, said to himself. He proceeded to bribe the hell out of the U.N.’s procurement officers to clear up any ‘misunderstandings’.

Unfortunately, not even a million bucks is enough to pave the way to sunlight and rainbows. Harris was “appropriately dealt with” (a.k.a. fired), proving the fact that even in industries with selflessness at the core of what they do, those holding the reins are, at the end of the day, every bit as fallible and foolish as everyone else.

13. Ernest Saunders

Image: Sandi Keinaenen/Flickr

Former Guinness CEO Ernest Saunders–known for his impeccable Ben Stein impressions, humor notwithstanding–was charged with fraud back in the 1980s, along with four others. Their goal? Inflate the price of Guinness stock in order to enrich themselves.

Ernest was originally sentenced to 5 years, but had a pretty nifty trick up his sleeve. At his 1991 appeal he claimed he was suffering from Alzheimer’s. He had his sentence commuted.

Anyone who’s familiar with Alzheimer’s knows it’s neither fun nor incurable. Well, that didn’t stop ol’ Ernest from claiming, much like John Cleese’s peasant who supposedly got turned into a newt in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, that he “got better”.

Ernest has remained moderately successful as a business consultant. It seems his dishonest dealings weren’t enough to tarnish him for all eternity.

12. William Agee

Image: Grateful41/Wikimedia

If the company name Bendix already sounds slightly perverted to you, read on. CEO William Agee had a hot little affair with his assistant, Mary Cunningham. The both of them left their respective spouses so they could shag on the conference room table like that scene in Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun, but without the death.

They denied it up and down, but the fact that they left the company and moved to Napa Valley to get hitched kinda tells the tale. Another interesting fact is that Mary went from executive assistant (in all senses of the word) to Bendix’s VP of Strategy. Media pressure later made her quit, but you have to admit, that was one lubed-up career climb.

11. Dennis Kozlowski

Take a moment to imagine yourself as the CEO of a thriving company with diverse holdings. You are Scrooge McDuck, swimming in your metaphorical vault of money.

Now imagine the sorts of people you have under you to help you run things. If an ability to drink heavily and party to excess are at the core of the sort of people you want around you, then you must be thinking of Dennis Kozlowski (or maybe of Julius Caesar).

Despite the booming success of Tyco International–where Kozlowski showed near flawless business acumen–in his personal life, he more closely resembled a rich frat boy. It was almost as if a young Bruce Wayne had never taken up the cape and cowl, and instead went off to re-enact Animal House.

And where did he get the funds for all this extravagant living? Bankrolled by the company, of course. He purchased heavily in artwork, which in itself isn’t bad, but when your funds are illicit, it kinda makes your appreciation seem a little hollow. At his wife’s 40th birthday bash on the Greek island of Sardinia, he picked up half the $2 million dollar tab. Part of that hefty fee went to a working ice sculpture of David that he’d had erected for the occasion. The best part? It peed vodka. Now that’s classy.

10. Tino Di Angelis

A mousy, fat 50-year old man doesn’t strike you as the sort of person who could cleverly hoodwink global commodity traders, powerful financial institutions and the government. But you can’t judge Tino Di Angelis by his cover. The commodity trader started out as a bit player in the market, selling goods to Europe to shore up their stock following WWII.

Gaining more clout, he thought he could corner the market on soybean oil, so took out loans from American Express (and eventually 51 different banks) based on the quantity of oil he had. Problem was, he almost never had the amount of oil claimed and yet companies like AmEx continued to issue him loans. He even tricked inspectors by filling his tanks with water, only topping them off with oil.

The funniest part of it was that, near the end, AmEx had authorized loans for more gallons of soybean oil at this one Bayonne, New Jersey facility than existed in the entire country. Someone must have seriously been asleep at the wheel.

When the hammer came down, AmEx took the brunt of the blow when they had to make good on millions of investor dollars. All told, Di Angelis’ ripped off $175 million (roughly $1.2 billion in today’s money). He only went to prison for seven years.

Guess what he did when he got out in 1972? He got involved in a Ponzi scheme with cattle in the Midwest. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

9. David Edmondson

When you’re an intelligent, capable and upwardly mobile worker in the big leagues, with naught on your mind but bettering the company for which you work, you’re basically golden. At least that’s how it worked for one David Edmondson, until he cocked up royally over something supremely stupid.

Edmondson began his life at Radio Shack in the early 1990s, impressing the CEO with his revolutionary ideas about improving the Shack’s value by providing the latest products from names like Apple while demystifying tech for your average layperson.

Edmondson went on to become CEO of the company in the 2000s, but then the other shoe dropped. It turned out the ordained Baptist Minster had falsified his résumé. He claimed he’d earned degrees in Theology and Psychology. A Dallas-Forth Worth paper uncovered that both degrees were fake, and he resigned after admitting the falsehood.

In other news, Edmondson has been arrested a few times for driving under the influence. Maybe he has trouble coping with the idea that he’s a colossally bad liar.

8. Dan Adomitis

Dan Adomitis, despite claims to the contrary, adheres to the Dickensian principle of child labor: “A working child is a happy child.” Adomitis is President of Firestone Natural Rubber Company. Their principle plantation in Liberia, West Africa, seems frozen in time, with similar working conditions as when the company started there in 1926. Poverty is through the ceiling, and education prospects are limited. Even though Firestone is supposedly funneling millions of bucks in to help out, kids can only go through ninth grade.

Adomitis claims workers only spend a couple minutes tapping each rubber tree. Yes, but each worker covers about 650 trees a day. That works out to more than 20 hours of work in a day. He knows those conditions are bad, yet he continues to allow his workers to do themselves in for it, giving him the dubious honor of putting the Stone Age back into Firestone.

7. Dirk Jens Nonnenmacher

Here’s the story of an ailing bank, shady deals involving millions of euros, spying, and intrigue. If it sounds like a poor man’s James Bond story, well, it’s even less interesting than that.

One Dirk Jens Nonnenmacher, former CEO of German lender HSH Nordbank AG, was dismissed under allegations of spying. His spying had nothing to do with arms dealers, corrupt politicians or a super weapon. Instead, he spied on former CFO Frank Roth for supposedly leaking insider documents to the media. It later turned out that Roth did no such thing.

To compound his already ballooning troubles, Nonnemacher made some faulty deals that cost the bank roughly €500 million, right before two German states had to bail it out. This guy’s just one bad slip after another.

Dirk when on to claim that the bank found out he was blameless in regards to spying on Roth, although the veracity of that claim is debatable. The company later booted him anyhow, because who needs a nosy CEO who makes bad deals right before a bailout?

6. Brian Keane

Picture this. You’ve got it made; you’re living the American Dream. You’re a high-powered muckity muck who is rolling in dough amidst a fairly successful, middle-tier company. Now, here’s the question. Do you keep your schlong in your pants when it would be inappropriate to whip it out? Or do you flout authority and just do whatever you damn well please because you’re top dog?

Well, Brian Keane, son of the founder of the Boston-based outsourcer and technology consultant, Keane, did the latter. Two separate women, one who worked for the company at the time, and one who did so previously, pressed charges against Brian for sexual harassment.

Details on just what took place are sketchy, but if you’re going to do something, you’d better do it big, right? Keane denied the charges until he was blue in the face. On the other hand, he did admit that he exercised “poor judgment”. We’ve heard that kind of thing before, but Keane ended up not doing too badly after leaving his namesake company.

5. Sumner Redstone

The 87-year old billionaire who owns both Viacom and CBS has a pet project. He’s dying to get the Electric Barbarellas, an all-girl band he’s smitten with, airtime on MTV (which he owns) as well as their very own reality show about them shopping around their demo tape to get their big break.

Word on the street is that the band sucks, though Redstone won’t hear boo about them. He’s also bound and determined to find out which MTV executive (he assumes) broke the story to a certain magazine writer, one Peter Lauria, who works for reporting and opinion rag, The Daily Beast.

Redstone makes no secret about his preference for women who are young enough to be his daughter. Maybe he fancies himself the Hugh Hefner of television and music? If that’s so, maybe he should find himself a hot girl group who isn’t a mix of the Pussycat Dolls and the Spice Girls. He insists the show is fried gold, but we won’t hold our breath to see if this thing turns into straw after the fact.

4. Ferdinand Mahfood

Charities are wonderful things, when they work properly. Money goes in; goods, services and a general sense of purpose come out. Yet some charities have a dark underbelly.

Ferdinand Mahfood, for one, was Food for the Poor’s elephant in the room. The charity, now run by younger brother Robin, had Ferdinand leading it from 1984-2000. As a family-run organization, you can probably imagine what sort of scandal could be cooked up.

As it turns out, Ferdinand, who suffers from bipolar disorder (no, he didn’t make it up), funneled several hundred thousand dollars of the charity’s money to two women he was sleeping with. How’s that for sexual favors?

Hope the sex was great, Ferdinand, because they made you look like a real dupe. If you thought not-for-profit employees earn a pittance, think again–Mahfood the elder earned a cool $425,000 in 2000, Forbes reports. Also, they’re the 5th biggest charity in terms of donations, at $1.1 billion, much of which goes to various sources of need in Central and South America as well as the Caribbean.

Well, when it works, it works well, but if you have a guy like Ferdinand running the show, who knows how long the ride will last?

3. Mark McInnes

David Jones (or DJs) is a mid- to high-end chain of department stores in Australia. The store was ailing a bit when gold-plated divorcé Mark McInnes stepped up to bat in 2003. He certainly turned it around, raising the store’s stock a whopping 318%.

Mark was a handsome, well-built 40-something who was very popular with the ladies. Most of the time, it was just harmless flirting with young, blonde debutantes. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except Mark, a fitness buff fond of going for long runs on Sydney’s beaches, couldn’t keep his mouth shut or keep his hands off one married 25-year old executive.

During one event, he tried to hug and kiss her. Several months later, at an annual luncheon in a posh restaurant, he explained at volume, “My calves are sore from soft sand running.” He then proceeded to rub his legs while standing at her table.

He knew he had cooked up something awful. Rather than let the board fire him, he tendered his resignation shortly thereafter. His response to this travesty? “I behaved in an unbecoming fashion and I apologize.” But this foul-up wasn’t limited to the personal. McInnes took his entirely-too-generous $1.5 million severance package and fled overseas with his girlfriend (who was four months pregnant at the time).

2. Peter Privateer

This fellow has one of the most unfortunate and unoriginal surnames in history. Given that he was the CEO of an Atlanta data security firm, perhaps you can glean some sort of amusement out of piracy puns.

His crime certainly doesn’t warrant any jokes, about piracy or anything else. He propositioned a young girl (who was 12 at the time, but didn’t cry wolf until she was 15) for sex via her pimp, reportedly paying her and a 20-year old prostitute $600 for sex.

In one fell swoop, the married family man with three kids went from a successful white-collar executive to one of the over 7,000 on Georgia’s sex offender’s registry. One can imagine any number of reasons why he’d hit up the girl, who was a meth junkie to boot.

The media leveled criticism at the Duluth (the location of the hotel where Privateer hooked up with the two women) police for the overly long length of time between the girl’s outcry and his arrest. Maybe he paid them off, or they were just naïve. Whether or not this was his first time diddling the kiddos or he’s made an illicit career of it, one thing’s sure, this guy belongs on the pariah registry.

1. Jeff Hawn

Animal rights activists should probably stop reading right now. We’ll save you the trouble and tell you that the guilty party was punished. But just what did he do?

The CEO of Seattle-based business software company Attachmate hired a handful of hunters to shoot 32 of his neighbor’s bison because they ‘wandered onto his land.’ Now, bison may be tasty and better for you than beef, but he didn’t even do the poor beasts the honor of eating them. He left them out there in the elements after killing them for sport.

Free range laws allow the animals to go where they will. Doubtless Hawn knew this, or could have easily found it out. He also knew about the bison owned by his neighbor. This begs the question. Why didn’t you install a fence, you festering lackwit? For all that, he only spent ten days in jail, and was fined $15,000.

Honorable mention: Jan Harry

Image: seanmichaelragan/Flickr

She wasn’t a CEO, but Jan Harry deserves an honorable mention. Here’s why:

Between 2005-8, as many as 1,200 patients in England’s Stafford Hospital might have died due to horrendous staff treatment. This included being forced to drink water out of flower vases and lying in their own feces, according to the Telegraph.

The hospital justified its negligence as part of necessary cost cutting—senior managers cut 160 jobs so that Stafford could become a foundation, a much sought-after position for a UK organization.

One of the woman behind the galling treatment was nursing director Jan Harry, who denied allegations throughout the UK government’s investigation of Stafford. She didn’t recall that 52 nurses were eliminated under her watch, forgot plans to increase the hospital’s proportion of untrained staff, wasn’t concerned about treatment at the hospital, and said it wasn’t her place to monitor treatment standards at the hospital. Either the chief nurse was bone ignorant or lying through her pearlies. It was probably the latter, consider that there is evidence that Harry “assured the chairman that the loss of 52 posts would not hurt patient care,” according to the Telegraph.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg paid a visit to Beijing to talk to Robin Li, who runs Baidu, China’s biggest search engine. As much as Zuckerberg would love for Facebook to penetrate China, he, like many others before him, first needs to build the kinds of relationships that will let his software penetrate the so-called Great Firewall. From the Guardian:

Zuckerberg appears to have found common ground with Li, an internet entrepreneur who has completed a postgraduate course in the US….Since then, he has shrugged off Google and Yahoo, as well as criticism about a supposedly weak stance on censorship and copyright piracy, to make Baidu the dominant force in the Chinese search engine market. In an earlier interview with the Guardian, Li said Baidu would one day become an international rival to Microsoft and Google.

China already has two social networks that are Facebook imitators: Kaixin, with 80 million users, and Renren, with 150 million. These lack the economic clout and global reach of Zuckerberg’s company but they do have the advantages of language and cultural awareness, as well as the protection of the Great Firewall….To tackle them and other big Chinese platforms, such as QQ, Facebook would probably have to move inside the firewall and accept greater censorship.

Facebook would tap a market of 1.3 billion users in China, according to Mashable. Zuckerberg is chomping at the bit to get in, just like everybody else. Since China is notoriously hard to get into for online companies, a Facebook allowance could pave the way for other social media companies, too. How likely that is to happen is a different question.

Activist investor Bill Ackman, who owns 37% of Borders through his Pershing Square Capital Management, has indicated willingness to finance a merger between Borders and Barnes & Noble. The New York Times reports:

Mr. Ackman, the largest investor in Borders, has not outlined his strategy and he did not return calls for comment. What is clear, however, is that he does like to try to shake things up at a range of companies. Within the last two months alone, Pershing has announced big positions in the retailer J. C. Penney and the conglomerate Fortune Brands, which owns both Jim Beam and Titleist….Borders said in a statement on Monday that it “welcomes” his participation in pursuing a deal with Barnes & Noble.

Major Barnes & Noble shareholders, including both Mr. Burkle and the company’s chairman, Leonard S. Riggio, are unlikely to accept Mr. Ackman’s proposed $16-a-share price, the people briefed on the matter said….A person familiar with Mr. Burkle’s thinking said, however, that the overture by Mr. Ackman represented a good starting point for an acceptable bid.

A sale is unlikely to happen this year, according to the Times. I bet Ackman would love to make up for the massive 2009 losses he incurred by investing in Target. Meanwhile, both Borders and Barnes & Noble are floundering in the wake of e-competition, making a merger look appealing.

If you want to honor your boss for Boss’s Day 2010, Friday might be your day. The Hallmark holiday, which stubbornly occurs on October 16 every year, falls on a Saturday this year.

How do you make your appreciation for your boss heard without your gift coming across as a bribe? Here are some general boss gift-giving tips by Lahle Wolf, who says to consider a group gift first. Mary Ellen Slayter, in her own list of tips, says to give your intern or assistant just as nice a gift as you would your boss. Zero in on your boss’s hobbies, writes Leah Ingram, in order to make your gift unforgettable.

If you work in a corporation, be sure to check with your HR department for gift-giving rules before buying anything. Some companies won’t allow gifts over a certain amount. Also, make sure the gift fits in with your company’s culture.

Here are some additional easy, last-second Boss’s Day gift ideas:

A gift certificate to his/her favorite coffee haunt (For something even more general, try a universal gift certificate.)

A restaurant or catered lunch and team-signed card, paid for by everyone in the team.

Tickets to a game or other event that you know your boss will like.

And don’t forget that Hallmark card (or e-card, or free printable card.)

(Image: Mr. Spaceley’s photo gallery)

10. Steve Jobs (Apple) – $1

Image by Matthew Yohe, via Wikimedia

Steve Jobs has taken home a $1 salary for the last decade, earning himself a place in the Guinness Book of Records at one point as the official ‘World’s Lowest Paid Chief Financial Officer’ – he does however own 5.5 million of Apple’s shares, and 138 million shares of Walt Disney Co. stock (making him their largest stakeholder). Jobs also files for between $200,000 – $800,000 expenses a year. Unfortunately for him, the financial crisis whacked nearly half a billion of the value of his personal stock.

9. Vikram Pandit (Citigroup) – $1

Image by William Munoz

Indian CEO of financial services giant, Citigroup, in the wake of the global recession Pandit testified to that he had declared to his board of directors, ‘my salary should be $1 per year with no bonus until we return to profitability.’ A nice gesture, but consider that he had received $10.82 million in 2008^. He was also forced to apologize for letting the bank consider completing the purchase of a private jet plane after receiving some $45 billion in public bailout money.

8. Richard Fairbank (McLean) – $0

Public domain image, via MSN Money

Not strictly on $1, but we thought we’d include him in the list – Fairbank, CEO of Virginia-based banking, McLean, and credit card company, Capital One, has taken no salary or bonus since 1997. After being awarded $17.1 million in stock in 2007, he again chose to take none in 2008. That made him the current lowest-paid CEO, with his $68,000 in compensation consisting solely of allowances for health care, transportation, home security and insurance. You won’t find him collecting welfare however, as in 2001 he Fairbank was the highest-paid financial company CEO, earning $69 million, all of it in stock awards, according to Bloomberg data.

7. Eric Schmidt (Google) – $1

Image by Charles Haynes

Schmidt joined Google’s board in 2001 and became CEO later that year. He earns a base salary of $1, but along with other compensation his total annual remuneration comes to around $508,763 – although in 2008 he did not receive any cash, stock, or options . Schmidt is one of the few people who have become billionaires based on stock options received as an employee in a corporation of which neither he nor a relative was the founder. The 2006 ‘World’s Richest People’ list ranked Schmidt as the 129th richest person in the world with an estimated wealth of $6.2 billion.

6. Larry Page & Sergey Brin (Google) – $1

Image by Joi

Page and Brin founded Google in their garage in 1996 and today, while much of the media sector struggles in the depths of the recession, Google powers on, dominating the online advertising market. Profits were up in the first quarter of this year, to $1.42bn on the back of revenues of $5.5bn – Google is, undoubtedly, the most powerful media brand in the world today. Page and Brin cut their salaries to only $1, and have drawn this for several years – but with personal fortunes estimated at $8.3 billion, they really can afford to.

5. Jerry Yang (Yahoo!) – $1

Image via Wikimedia

Yang succeeded Terry Semel as CEO of Yahoo, who had previously received only $1. Along with David Filo at Stanford University, Yang co-founded the amusingly named ‘Jerry and Dave’s Guide to the World Wide Web’ in 1994 – what would go on to become Yahoo! yang only drew £1 in salary, but has recently been replaced by Carol Bartz whose base salary is over $1 million.

4. Edward Liddy (AIG) – $1

Image via reobama

CEO of American International Group, Edward Liddy, who is handling the resurrection of the banking giant, will receive $1 in compensation this year and next. Fair enough, we say, as the head of a financial group which received nearly $150 billion in public money. Liddy will still be receiving an as-yet-undisclosed stock package as well, although with the hit AIG have taken this might not be worth an awful lot – like the rest of the $1 salary club, Liddy can, however, probably afford to live off his previous paydays for a while.

3. Richard Kinder (Kinder Morgan) – $1

Image via wikimedia

This former head of Enron knew he was in the public’s bad books, so as head of Kinder Morgan in 2008 he drew only a $1 salary, without stock option or bonus. No bonus, no options, no restricted stock – how does he get by? He owns 24 million shares in Morgan Kinder, and since the company paid an annual dividend of more than $3 per share last year, Kinder himself made at least $72 million. Morningstar recently named Kinder its CEO of the year for 2005, in part because of how his compensation aligns his interests with those of shareholders.

2. Lawrence Ellison (Oracle) – $1

Image via rediff

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will receive a base salary of $1 for fiscal 2010, according to a regulatory document filed in August – that’s a decrease of $999,999 from last year. But Ellison won’t exactly be starving. He is the world’s fourth wealthiest person, according to Forbes. Ellison’s base pay of $1 million in 2009 only accounted for 1.2 percent of his total compensation anyway – 97% was in the form of stock.

1. Jen Hsun-Huang (NVIDIA) – $1

Image via Tinakasan

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has reduced his salary this year to $1 after taxes and benefits, along with all his chief execs. With the global economy locked in a year-long recession, 2009 has been a rougher than normal year for NVIDIA, but instead of firing employees, Huang and his board nobly consented to drawing only symbolic salaries. You’d think he’d be able to though, as in 2009 Huang received $4 million in total pay, including a total salary of $401,272, plus option awards worth $3.6 million – and that was down from $6.1 million in 2008.

Sources: 1,2,3

Kraft Foods recently released a proxy statement calling for a meeting in which shareholders will decide whether to let it issue up to 370 million shares in order to boost its offerings for a Cadbury buyout. Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway is the company’s largest shareholder (9.4%), did not cozy to this idea. He not only voted against the plan, but also issued a cautionary press release to Kraft management today:

“The share-issuance proposal, if enacted, will give Kraft a blank check allowing it to change its offer to Cadbury – in any way it wishes – from the transaction presented to shareholders in the proxy statement. And we worry very much that, indeed, there will be an additional change from the revision announced this morning.

To state the matter simply, a shareholder voting “yes” today is authorizing a huge transaction without knowing its cost or the means of payment.

What we know with certainty, however, is that Kraft stock, at its current price of $27, is a very expensive “currency” to be used in an acquisition. In 2007, in fact, Kraft spent $3.6 billion to repurchase shares at about $33 per share, presumably because the directors and management thought the shares to be worth more.

Does the board now believe those purchases were a mistake and that Kraft’s true value is only the current price of $27 per share – and that it is therefore fine to structure a major acquisition based upon that price? Would the directors use stock as merger currency if the price were, say, $20 per share? Surely the true business value of what is given is as important as the true business value of what is received when an acquisition is being evaluated. We hope all shareholders will use this yardstick in deciding how to vote.

Our understanding is that Kraft must announce its final offer for Cadbury by January 19th. If we conclude at that point that the offer does not destroy value for Kraft shareholders, we will change our vote to “yes.”

At this time, however, we believe no shareholder should vote “yes” when he can’t possibly know what he is voting for.”

Rational Walk’s Ravi Nagarajan has a good analysis of the Berkshire press release:

It is unusual for Warren Buffett to publicly criticize the management of companies in which Berkshire holds minority positions…the statement (in the first paragraph of the press release)…reveals a lack of confidence in management to protect shareholder interests and profound dissatisfaction with the slightly sweetened terms of Kraft’s offer for Cadbury which were announced this morning.

While the press release keeps open the possibility that Berkshire may change its vote to “yes” if the terms of Kraft’s final offer for Cadbury (due by January 19) are acceptable, today’s press release clearly is intended to send a message to Kraft’s management and board. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of today’s drama is that Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld either did not consult with her biggest shareholder in advance or knew of Mr. Buffett’s opposition and went ahead regardless. In either case, Mr. Buffett’s reason to criticize management in a very public way seems very justified.

Read the whole analysis here.

CNNMoney says that “Kraft, apparently referring to Buffett, noted in its statement Tuesday that certain shareholders “have expressed a desire for Kraft Foods to be more sparing in its use of undervalued Kraft Foods shares as currency for the offer.”