Presidents Cash In on Corporate Board Seats

Joseph Echevarria is a busy man.

In addition to his role as president and CEO of the University of Miami and president of its affiliated health system, Echevarria sits on three corporate boards: the Bank of New York Mellon, Pfizer and Unum. Collectively, they held 77 board and committee meetings last year, SEC filings show. (Related disclosures do not show how many Echevarria attended.)

But his packed schedule is rewarding. 

Echevarria raked in $1.2 million in compensation and stock for his service on corporate boards last year. And he’s not the only president with a lucrative side hustle: An Inside Higher Ed analysis of SEC filings turned up dozens of presidents who are paid handsomely for sitting on various corporate boards, though Echevarria appears to be the best compensated for his outside roles.

The University of Miami did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

Some experts say those commitments raise questions about conflicts of interest and how presidents are fulfilling dual obligations with high demands—especially at a time when college leaders themselves say they are stretched thin due to the pressure and time challenges of the job.

James Finkelstein, a professor emeritus of public policy at George Mason University who has researched presidential service on corporate boards since 1997, believes such commitments yield greater benefits for leaders than universities. 

“Is serving on a corporate board for the public good, or is it for personal gain? Everything that we’ve seen in our research suggests that the scales are heavily tipped toward personal gain,” Finkelstein said.

Others take a more charitable view. 

“Presidents are expected to engage beyond the boundaries of their campuses,” said Ross Mugler, president and CEO of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. “And the right kind of outside board service can strengthen business relationships, community relationships, broaden the president’s perspective—and ultimately benefit the institution.” 

Mugler added that board service must be “reasonable, transparent and appropriately overseen.”

Community Connections

Inside Higher Ed’s analysis found more than 30 presidents serving on corporate boards who together make nearly $11 million in those roles, a mix of cash compensation and stock awards. The types of boards vary from finance and technology companies to banks and defense contractors. Several presidents sit on multiple corporate boards.

Below are the 10 presidents in Inside Higher Ed’s analysis who earned the most from outside board service in 2025.

(One caveat: President Gregory Washington is on two corporate boards, one of which is not publicly traded. That company—Washington Gas—does not have the same disclosure requirements, meaning his total compensation may be higher. Neither George Mason nor Washington Gas responded to requests for comment from Inside Higher Ed seeking clarity on the president’s board compensation.)

Multiple institutions defended presidential board service as a common practice.

“It is entirely routine for highly successful, visionary leaders to be sought after by major organizations to lend their expertise, and President Khator is no exception,” a University of Houston spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed. “Throughout her tenure, she has consistently been asked to serve in high-level advisory capacities, including spending three years as chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.”

The spokesperson wrote that Renu Khator “takes personal vacation time to attend all of her corporate board meetings” and that the UH System Board of Regents has approved all outside appointments.

Palm Beach State College also noted in an emailed statement that Ava Parker uses vacation time to attend corporate meetings and expressed confidence in her ability to manage her commitments.

“Presidential leadership includes meaningful engagement with business, civic and community organizations,” Board Chair Daniel Z. Epstein wrote. “President Parker also contributes her time to national and local volunteer boards supporting education, business and workforce development. The Board values her leadership and the connections she brings to Palm Beach State and is confident that the College’s students and mission remain her highest priority.”

A Stevens Institute of Technology spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that President Nariman Farvardin has approval from the Board of Trustees to serve in outside roles and “devotes a small fraction of his time to board work.”

A Wellesley spokesperson wrote that “President Johnson’s board service with Johnson & Johnson draws on her expertise as a cardiologist and epidemiologist and her leadership in women’s health. Wellesley has a strong Business Conduct policy for vetting potential conflicts.”

Other universities listed above did not respond to requests for comment.

Benefits and Pitfalls

Experts see both benefits and pitfalls in presidents serving on corporate boards.

“Corporate board experience gives presidents a lot of exposure to strategy, risk, technology and talent. It can pay huge dividends for an institution because as part of that service on the board, they’re meeting people from around the country that can bring resources to the institution,” Mugler said. “In addition, it can provide opportunities for students with internships.”

Finkelstein is skeptical. 

He and his research partner, Judith Wilde, also a professor at George Mason, said they haven’t found empirical evidence that presidential corporate board service brings significant benefits to their universities. But their research, which included interviews with presidents serving on outside boards, identified some professional benefits. Some presidents told them that gaining experience with corporate boards helped them better understand how to deal with the trustees at their institutions, which can be a point of friction for many campus leaders.

Beyond the concerns about presidents spending too much time on outside obligations, Finkelstein said board service can also yield public relations disasters when tragedy strikes. He pointed to former Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee’s service on the board of Massey Energy, a mining company that flouted environmental and safety regulations, leading to a $20 million settlement with the Environmental Protect Agency while he was on the board and a fatal disaster shortly after he stepped down. 

Gee served on the board from 2000 to 2009, including a stint as chairman of the company’s Safety, Environmental and Public Policy Committee. He resigned from the board amid pressure from environmental groups less than a year before 29 miners were killed in an explosion in 2010. An independent investigation released in 2011 attributed their deaths to “a failure of basic coal mine safety practices,” and several company officials were sentenced to prison in the resulting fallout. 

Gee was dragged into years of litigation over Massey Energy and thus “had to spend precious university time with lawyers on things that had nothing to do with [the] university,” Finkelstein said.

(Contacted via LinkedIn, Gee did not respond in time for publication.)

Presidents have also courted controversy by taking paid roles on for-profit college boards. In 2016, critics blasted then–University of Arizona President Ann Weaver Hart and then–University of California, Davis, Chancellor Linda Katehi for accepting board roles at DeVry Education Group, which was under federal scrutiny at the time for deceptive advertising practices. DeVry reached a $100 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission later that year.

Finkelstein and Wilde said the optics of joining a troubled for-profit college board were damaging enough. But beyond that, Katehi had defied rules requiring campus leaders to go through a multistep approval process to get permission from the UC system to serve on outside boards. Katehi resigned in 2016 following that and a flurry of other controversies that trailed her.

In a more recent example of conflict with trustees, in 2023 the Broward College board pressed then–President Gregory Haile for details on his service and related compensation from corporate boards before he resigned abruptly.

Where Finkelstein, Wilde and Mugler agree is that board service shouldn’t interfere with a president’s job. While Finkelstein and Wilde would prefer presidents eschew board service, Mugler believes it should be capped and that campus leaders must be transparent about their obligations. When he was a trustee at Old Dominion University, he said, presidents were limited to three board roles.

They also concur that presidents should report time commitments and outside compensation to their governing boards. Ultimately, they said, it’s up to trustees to determine how much outside work is too much for presidents, whose primary obligation should be to the institutions they lead.