I was reading this article (http://thomashawk.com/2010/12/an-open-letter-to-carol-bartz-ceo-yahoo-inc.html) and had the brainstorm -- would there be a market for a startup that monitors and rates corporate board of directors?
I know there are often a lot of misaligned incentives for the people serving on these boards, but wouldn't there be some real value add if I could look at, say, the top 10 (by market cap) companies in an industry and get a breakdown of what % of the board was comprised of, say, the CEO's handpicked buddies vs. relatively independent appointments?
This data could be used for board election notices that stockholders receive., and companies could highlight their participation or rating in this startup by saying "we're the only company in our sector's top 5 who submits to this level of transparency," etc.
I suspect that the principal-agent problem would make this tough to implement, but as an investor/citizen, I'd love to hear any thoughts...
