Our Team

Robin A. Ferracone, Chief Executive Officer
Gary C. Hourihan, Senior Vice President
Ronald R. Bottano, Vice President
Dayna L. Harris, Vice President
Linda A. Steffen, Vice President
Jack Zwingli, Leader of Information Services
Randi Caplan, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development

Senior Leadership

Our team is unparalleled in the business. Our senior professionals have tens of thousands of hours of experience in executive compensation consulting. We work with a wide variety of clients across industries and have been engaged in all types of situations.  We strive for innovative yet elegant solutions.  We love to sink our teeth into the most vexing issues.  While we’ve often “seen the movie before,” we will apply our accumulated experience, proven processes, and proprietary research to your unique situation to arrive at creative, tailored solutions that work.

Robin A. Ferracone, Chief Executive Officer

Robin A. Ferracone is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Farient Advisors and the author of Fair Pay, Fair Play: Aligning Executive Performance and Pay. With more than 30 years of consulting experience, Ms. Ferracone has advised clients in the areas of business and talent strategies, executive compensation, value management, and performance measurement.

Prior to forming Farient in 2007, Ms. Ferracone was president of the Human Capital business of Mercer, a business which included talent and compensation consulting, software, and data services globally.

Ms. Ferracone is the author of numerous articles, is a frequent presenter for prominent organizations, is quoted regularly in national publications, and testified before a Congressional sub-committee in Washington, D.C. regarding the salary of the President of the United States. In 2003, Ms. Ferracone received the WorldatWork Distinguished Service Award.

Ms. Ferracone is a member of the Duke University Board of Trustees, World Presidents’ Organization, The Committee of 200, and the International Women’s Forum. Ms. Ferracone earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar and a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude in Management Science and Economics from Duke University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She can be reached at robin.ferracone@farient.com.

Read Ms. Ferracone’s Forbes.com blog post, ” Zynga’s Pre-IPO Compensation Misstep.”

Gary C. Hourihan, Senior Vice President

Gary Hourihan is a Senior Vice President at Farient Advisors and has more than 35 years of executive compensation, organizational design, and leadership and talent consulting experience. Mr. Hourihan advises clients across a broad spectrum of pay-related issues and industries. His areas of expertise include pay strategies, performance metrics, alignment of performance goals to business strategy and shareholder interests, competitive pay and performance assessments, employment arrangements, compensation in M&A situations, and corporate governance and disclosure.

Prior to joining Farient, Mr. Hourihan was chairman of Korn/Ferry’s Leadership & Talent Consulting Group, and was co-founder, chairman, and CEO of SCA Consulting, and partner at Booz, Allen & Hamilton.

Mr. Hourihan has been frequently quoted in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, and The Los Angeles Times, and co-authored an article for Harvard Business Review. He also is a frequent guest lecturer at London Business School, USC’s Marshall School of Business and other leading business schools.

Mr. Hourihan holds an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, a license en economique appliqué from the University of Louvain, Belgium and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University. He can be reached at gary.hourihan@farient.com.

Click to read Mr. Hourihan’s Directorship article, “The Time Is Now to Link Succession Planning to Compensation.”

Mr. Hourihan provides expert commentary in the Chief Executive article, “How to Reward Top Performers.”

Ronald R. Bottano, Vice President

As a Vice President for Farient Advisors, Mr. Bottano is responsible for advising the firm’s clients on performance measurement and compensation strategy, with the ultimate goal of aligning reward programs with the creation of shareholder value.  He also oversees the firm’s leading edge research into proprietary analytical methodologies that ensure client’s executive pay decisions are defensible, timely, and transparent to all stakeholders.

Mr. Bottano has two decades of experience as a trusted advisor to boards and senior management.  He is a recognized expert on the strategy, governance, and financial structure of executive incentive plans, possessing in-depth knowledge on governance, regulatory compliance, SEC disclosure, and tax considerations.

Previously, Mr. Bottano was Managing Director of Executive Compensation Advisors (a Korn/Ferry Company), a principal at Mercer Human Resource Consulting, and a former partner of SCA Consulting, acquired by Mercer in 2001.  His clients have included Fortune 500 companies, privately held firms, and pre-IPO start-ups across a varied array of industries.

Mr. Bottano holds an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting from the University of California Haas School of Business, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He can be reached at ronald.bottano@farient.com.

Click to read Mr. Bottano’s article “IPO Compensation Conundrums,” which was published on Corporate Compliance Insights’ website.

Dayna L. Harris, Vice President

Ms. Harris is a Vice President with Farient Advisors, and has over 20 years of experience providing advice on executive and Board compensation.  She focuses on designing incentive programs that align compensation with business strategy and value creation for shareholders.

Ms. Harris’ experience includes advising boards and senior management of public and private companies across a variety of industries. This involves her working with management and boards to reach a consensus on program design that is effective within the context of a company’s organization structure and situation. Further, her incentive design work focuses on identifying the appropriate incentive structures, performance measures, and approaches for goal-setting.

Prior to joining Farient Advisors, Ms. Harris was a Principal at Semler Brossy Consulting Group, and previously held other executive compensation consulting roles at Sibson & Company, SCA Consulting, and Mercer, and an investment analysis and portfolio management position at an investment firm.

Ms. Harris has been a speaker on pay and performance topics for the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP). She is a member of WorldatWork and NASPP.

Ms. Harris holds an M.B.A. and a bachelor’s degree, both from San Diego State University. She can be reached at dayna.harris@farient.com.

Read Ms. Harris’ white paper “Say on Pay: Identifying Investor Concerns,” which she co-authored with Ms. Ferracone.

Linda A. Steffen, Vice President

Linda Steffen is a Vice President with Farient Advisors, and has close to 25 years of experience providing compensation and financial performance  advice to top executives and board members.  She focuses on designing incentive programs that align compensation with business strategy and value creation for shareholders. Ms. Steffen has extensive experience across multiple industries and has focused on businesses with unique operating and financial situations.

Ms. Steffen works closely with senior management and boards of directors to develop rewards philosophies and design programs that link compensation with individual and company performance. She is a recognized thought leader in areas of performance measures and cash and equity incentive design; having spoken on these topics at annual conferences held by GEO, NASPP, NCEO, World at Work and The Conference Board.

Prior to joining Farient Advisors, Ms. Steffen has held senior consulting roles with Compensia, Towers Watson (formerly Watson Wyatt), Deloitte, and iQuantic.  Ms. Steffen also headed the compensation department for Amazon.com.  Financial measurement expertise was gained in corporate and investment banking positions while in Chicago and San Francisco.

Ms. Steffen received an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago with concentrations in Finance and Human Resources. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Miami University of Ohio where she majored in Economics and Finance. She can be reached at linda.steffen@farient.com. 

Jack Zwingli, Leader of Information Services

Jack Zwingli is Leader of Information Services for Farient Advisors.  He is responsible for directing efforts to support investors and corporations with research, analysis and reports focused on executive pay and performance alignment.

With more than 30 years of experience in information and analytical services, Mr. Zwingli has led multiple public and private businesses to notable success. Before joining Farient, Mr. Zwingli led the creation of GMI Ratings, the leading independent provider of global corporate governance and ESG ratings and research. As CEO of GMI, he led a successful effort to integrate three independent research businesses to form a market leader, including the rapid deployment of two major new product releases – GMI Analyst and the 3D Diverse Director DataSource – and the merging of multiple ratings, products and analytics onto a common platform.

Prior to assuming the leadership role at GMI, Mr. Zwingli served as CEO of Audit Integrity, a predecessor firm to GMI which provided its services to major investors, insurance firms, audit companies, regulators and others.

Mr. Zwingli also spent more than a decade at Standard & Poor’s (S&P), where he had overall management responsibility for many of S&P’s well-known business lines as Executive Managing Director, Investment Services. Mr. Zwingli joined S&P from Dun & Bradstreet, where he held management positions at D&B Credit Services and Moody’s Investors Service.

Mr. Zwingli earned his Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Indiana University and his MBA from Rutgers University. He was named to the 2011 NACD Directorship 100. He can be reached at jack.zwingli@farient.com

Randi Caplan, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development

Ms. Caplan is Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Farient Advisors. She works closely with Farient’s senior leadership to build visibility through high touch integrated marketing programs. Ms. Caplan also identifies and furthers growth opportunities for the Firm with private equity and Fortune 500 companies as well as institutional investors. She focuses on positioning the Firm’s executive pay and performance alignment services and providing boards of directors with effective ways to communicate with shareholders.

Prior to Farient Advisors, Ms. Caplan held marketing roles of increasing responsibility with Ernst & Young Consulting and Cap Gemini, and most recently was the Technology Marketing Leader for Deloitte Consulting.

With more than 18 years of experience in professional services marketing and business development, Ms. Caplan is known for extensive lead generation and global research programs. Her innovative research initiatives have involved CFO Research, Corporate Board Member, and CIO Enterprises. She has also designed, developed, and launched comprehensive lead generation programs with JD Edwards, Oracle, and IBM.

Ms. Caplan studied Hotel Restaurant Management and Marketing at the University of Denver and holds a BA in English Literature from California State University Northridge.

Ms. Caplan works in Farient’s Los Angeles and New York offices. She can be reached at randi.caplan@farient.com.