Gupta picks home-grown board members

While controversial tech entrepreneur Vinod Gupta widely cultivates political alliances around the country, he stays close to home when he picks board members for his Omaha-based company, infoUSA.

Six of the company’s eight directors, including Gupta, have strong ties to Omaha or Nebraska, a Muckety analysis shows. A seventh is a name partner in a law firm that did more then $1 million in business with infoUSA last year.

Truly independent directors are a key to responsible corporate governance, experts say. If directors are too close to a CEO, they can’t properly oversee his actions.

Gupta’s lavish spending on his political connections, including naming buildings after Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton in one of his India projects, have caused a backlash. Some infoUSA shareholders sued Gupta for wasting company money.

Two company directors have resigned since early 2006, both after short tenures. Each cited other pressing duties.

Previously a large contributor to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Gupta says he is no longer involved. “With all this publicity,” he told The New York Times, “to be frank with you, it just isn’t worth it.”

Gupta was born in India and emigrated to the U.S. where he started infoUSA in 1972, soon after receiving engineering and business degrees from the University of Nebraska.

Three of his directors have ties to Omaha’s Creighton University, including Bernard Reznicek, who became a director in March of last year.

Reznicek is a former dean of the Creighton business school and once worked for a Berkshire Hathaway insurance company. Berkshire is run by Omaha investing legend Warren Buffett.

Vasant Raval is an accounting professor at Creighton and George Haddix earned a master’s at Creighton, as well as a bachelor’s degree from Nebraska.

Dennis Walker, another director, earned a bachelor’s from Nebraska. Bill Fairfield is a long-time Omaha businessman.

Minneapolis attorney Elliot Kaplan has been a member of infoUSA’s board since 1988, the longest tenure of any outside director. InfoUSA
paid $1,092,211 to Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP last year, according to company filings. One of Kaplan’s specialties is crisis
management, the firm’s Web site says.

The final director is Anshoo Gupta, no relation to Vinod. Anshoo worked at Xerox for more than 30 years and now runs a management consulting business. He earned an MBA at the University of Rochester in New York.

InfoUSA, which reported $434 million in revenue last year, pays its non-employee directors a base rate of $48,000 a year. The average age of the board’s members is just over 64.

Vinod Gupta received about $840,000 in base pay last year, according to company filings, in addition to options grants worth nearly $1 million and other compensation worth $112,600. The other category included an allowance of $96,000 for a home office and $10,000 in executive compensation consulting fees.

Laurel Gupta, Vinod’s wife, is also an infoUSA employee. She was paid $159,996 last year, according to company filings.

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