Salary, Integrity and Selection of a New Chair for California’s $12 Billion Cell and Gene Therapy Enterprise

^{Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash}

The directors of the $12 billion California stem cell agency are looking for a new chair who is both decisive and collaborative, passionate and inclusive. But at the top of the wish list is a person who is a pillar of integrity. 

At least that is what a survey of the 35 board members showed today. The results were released this afternoon, less than one business day before the directors’ Governance Subcommittee takes up the matter of compensation and qualifications for the new chair.  

The post carries a salary range that currently tops out at $566,500 annually. But that could be boosted by the directors of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), as the agency is officially known. Also figuring into the salary is whether the post should be a full-time job. 

The new chair will oversee CIRM during the next decade or so, a period in which its results are likely to determine whether it lives or dies. Depending on its pace of spending, the agency will run out of cash...