From the Campaign Trail to the Boardroom
from March/April 2008
by Mike Scott
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Mike Dukakis, shown campaigning in 1988, now helps steer Amtrak. |
What happens to those who fail in their bid for the White House, as either their party’s official nominee or just a contender for the top spot on the ticket? Quite a few end up as directors of public and private companies. Democratic candidate and former vice president (and senator) Walter Mondale, now 80, joined a slew of boards after losing the race for the presidency to Ronald Reagan in 1984. Among them: Northwest Airlines and privately held Cargill, both of which called Minnesota—Mondale’s state—home. He has since stepped down from most of them but remains a director of RBC Dain Rauscher Corp., a Minneapolis-based financial-services outfit that’s part of the Royal Bank of Canada.
Most presidential hopefuls quit all boards the moment they announce their candidacy. Hillary Clinton went one better than that, resigning from the boards of Wal-Mart Stores and privately held TCBY, a restaurant chain, when her husband was making his White House run in 1992.
Are companies glad to welcome politicians to their boardrooms once the race is lost? In some cases, yes. Examples:
Bill Bradley, now 64, who was defeated in his 2000 bid to head the Democratic ticket, serves on the boards of Starbucks Corp. (where he is on the compensation/ management development and nominating/corporate governance committees), Seagate Technology (the nominating/corporate governance committee), and Willis Group Holdings, a global insurance broker (chair of the corporate governance/ nominating committee and member of the executive committee). Bradley’s private boards include LabNow, a developer of point-of-care diagnostic systems; LRN, a consulting firm; Meetup, a community website portal; and Superprotonic, a fuel-cell-technology developer.
Wesley Clark, 63, one of the Democratic presidential hopefuls in 2004, quit a number of boards, including Allied Van Lines’, before entering the primaries. Last June he joined the board of NutraCea, which provides rice-bran products to makers of food supplements, beauty and skin-care items, and animal feed.
Bob Dole, 84, 1996’s Republican nominee, spent eight years on the board of OneMain.com, an Internet service provider that’s now part of EarthLink. He is currently a director of AsiaUniversalBank, a privately held bank in Kyrgyzstan.
Michael Dukakis, 74, the 1988 Democratic nominee, was appointed by President Clinton to the board of Amtrak, a position he held from 1998 until 2003. He’s now vice chairman of the Amtrak Reform Board.
Richard Gephardt, 67, who was a perennial Democratic presidential hopeful, serves on the boards of several public companies: Centene Corp., a health-care outfit; Embarq Corp., a provider of local and long-distance phone, Internet, and satellite services; and Spirit AeroSystems, a manufacturer of fuselages and other airplane parts (he’s on its corporate governance/ nominating committee). Gephardt has served as a director of U.S. Steel since 2005, and sits on its audit/finance and public-policy committees. He’s also a director of privately held Aravo Solutions, a software maker.
Al Gore Jr., 59, the former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee, is on the board of Apple Corp. and serves on its compensation and nominating/governance committees. He stepped down as vice chairman of Metropolitan West Financial, a financial-services company, after its 2003 merger with Wachovia Corp.
Ross Perot, 77, the independent candidate in 1992 and Reform Party candidate in 1996, served on General Motors’ board before he got into politics (the automaker had bought EDS, the company he founded). He later started Perot Systems, which he chaired until 2004. Now chairman emeritus, he continues to serve as a director.
Dan Quayle, 61, the former vice president who withdrew his name from the 2000 Republican primaries, is chairman of the international division of Cerberus Capital Management, a hedge fund. He represents it on the boards of Aozora Bank, a public company in Tokyo, and privately held IAP Worldwide Services, a government contractor in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
