SMS
RSS feeds
Reddit
NewsvineA smiling President John Hennessy juggling a roll of money, a diploma and a computer chip glazed the cover of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) yesterday. Accompanying the photo was a 3,287-word-long article documenting the president’s private investments in a number of technological corporations and his eight figure profits over the last five years.
Enlarge
The WSJ calculated that, as a result of his investments in several venture-capital funds and his roles on the boards of several Silicon Valley firms, Hennessy made $43 million over the last five years — a number far greater than the president’s annual University salary of $616,000.
The WSJ found some similarities between the University’s investments and Hennessy’s own, and suggested that in some instances companies endorsed by Hennessy received funding from venture-capital funds in which the president had also invested. Two companies the WSJ claims Hennessy unofficially supported — Peribit Networks and Atheros Communications, for example — received financial backing from Foundation Capital, a firm in which Hennessy and the Stanford Endowment are both investors.
While some administrators at other universities questioned whether it was possible for Hennessy to keep his private investments from affecting his role as Stanford’s president, Burton McMurty, the chair of the Board of Trustees, and Debra Zumwalt, general counsel for the University, both suggested that Hennessy’s private dealings in no way affected the Stanford’s investment decisions and that protections had been made to protect against any potential conflicts of interests.
Both McMurty and Zumwalt also told the WSJ that Hennessy has revealed details about his private investments to both of them, but they declined to provide that information.
While it is not uncommon for presidents of universities to have positions on corporate boards, the WSJ focused heavily on the similarities in Hennessy’s and the University’s investments, which it suggested were unique.
Ultimately, though, high-ranking University officials as well as corporate executives touted Hennessy’s commitment to ethics and claimed that all efforts have been taken to avoid creating ethical conflicts.