Equifax CEO Steps Down Amid Hacking Scandal (cnbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Richard Smith, CEO and chairman of Equifax, abruptly retired Tuesday following a data breach at the credit-reporting service that affected the personal information of 143 million people. Smith, who was 57 as of the company's proxy statement in March, became CEO and chairman in 2005 after 22 years at General Electric in senior roles in various divisions. He is to appear at a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee on Oct. 4 and is the only person scheduled to testify. He is also scheduled to testify next week at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Smith's salary for 2016 was $1.45 million and his bonus was $3.045 million. In a regulatory filing on Tuesday, the company said Smith will not get a bonus for this year and any other decisions regarding how his departure has been characterized or how much the company owes him will be deferred until the board completes an independent review of the breach and the response to it. In a separate report, CNBC notes that Smith could walk away with at least $18.4 million in pension benefits. The company is looking for a new CEO, naming its Asia-Pacific head to take on the interim CEO role.

Comments

Re:like Arthur Andersen became Accenture amid scan

[ShanghaiBill]

like arthur andersen becoming Accenture amid the Enron scandal

Accenture split from Arthur Andersen in 1989. The Enron scandal was 13 years later, and Accenture was not involved.

Re:Did extent of damage finally sink into CEO's mi

[DarkOx]

None of that will happen none. This guy will quietly disappear to his multi-million dollar estate until the general public mostly forgets his name. After which point he will decide if he wants to come out of retirement or not, if he chooses to go back to work a buddy of his will invite him to buy into a seat on a board of directors somewhere where he can start drawing a nice salary and quickly recoup his investment in the stock he had to buy.

That is how this works. Enron was only different because it literally resulting in massive job losses localized to a few communities, and the lights had to be turned off in some buildings. Finally a bunch of public pensions got hit by that one. It was impossible for the public to ignore those things some nobles had to actually be sacrificed. Wont happen this time because nobody can really even show they were specifically damaged by these breaches.