Steven A. Clifford is an American author and former businessman and government official. He was the Special Deputy

Comptroller of New York City The Office of Comptroller of New York City, a position established in 1801, is the chief financial officer and chief auditor of the city agencies and their performance and spending. The comptroller also reviews all city contracts, handles the ...

and was CEO of

King Broadcasting Company King Broadcasting Company is an American former media conglomerate founded in 1946 by Dorothy Bullitt. The company was owned by the Bullitt family until it was sold to the Providence Journal Company in 1991; it is currently a subsidiary of ...

and

National Mobile Television National Mobile Television (NMT) was a Los Angeles-based television broadcasting industry corporation that operated a fleet of mobile television units. Then known as Northwest Mobile Television, NMT was founded by Stan Carlson and Stimson Bull ...

. He is most famous for his 2017 book, ''The CEO Pay Machine.''

Biography

Clifford received his B.A. from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

in 1964 and his M.B.A. from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...

in 1968. During the New York City financial crisis of the 1970s, he was a special deputy comptroller of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, where he was credited for creating the city's integrated financial management system (IFMS) between 1975 and 1977. From 1987 to 1992, Clifford was CEO of

and then

from 1992 to his retirement in 2000. In 2017, Clifford published ''The CEO Pay Machine: How It Trashes America and How to Stop It'', a book that reveals how corporations craft their compensation packages and criticizes what Clifford calls "outrageous" pay of corporate chief executives, arguing that excessive pay would hurt American businesses and shareholders. In 2019, he delivered a testimony in the

United States House Committee on Financial Services The United States House Committee on Financial Services, also referred to as the House Banking Committee and previously known as the Committee on Banking and Currency, is the committee of the United States House of Representatives that oversees t ...

. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

, Clifford's criticism of the corporate pay gap and call to rein in their compensation packages were cited by multiple critics and publications. Clifford sits on the board of

KING-FM KING-FM (98.1 MHz; "Classical King FM") is a non-commercial classical music radio station in Seattle, Washington. It is owned by Classic Radio, a nonprofit organization. The studios and offices are on Mercer St in Seattle. KING-FM holds perio ...

, and has been a director of companies including

Mosaica Education Mosaica Education, Inc. is an education management organization that operates preschool, elementary, middle and high school programs in the United States, United Kingdom and India in addition to other countries through Mosaica Online. Mosaica Educ ...

and

Todd Shipyards Todd or Todds may refer to: Places ;Australia: * Todd River, an ephemeral river ;United States: * Todd Valley, California, also known as Todd, an unincorporated community * Todd, Missouri, a ghost town * Todd, North Carolina, an unincorporate ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clifford, Steven Living people American chief executives in the media industry American telecommunications industry businesspeople American chief executives Columbia College (New York) alumni Harvard Business School alumni 21st-century American writers 20th-century American businesspeople American civil servants Year of birth missing (living people)