James Otieno
Mr. Otieno is a retired Vice President of Executive Compensation and Services at Hewlett-Packard and is currently an independent business consultant. He has over 30 years of experience in executive compensation, board of director compensation, general compensation, sales compensation, benefits and human resources. In his role as the Vice President of Executive Compensation and Services, he managed programs in over 70 countries with a budget of over $1billion (covering approximately 3,500 executives and over 150,000 other employees worldwide). Mr. Otieno’s other company experiences include Henkel Corporation, Control Data Corporation and St. Paul Companies where he was responsible for a variety of human resources activities. He is also currently the Lead Director of PV Technology Inc., - a US based solar energy startup, with primary operations exclusively in Africa.
As an independent business consultant, Mr. Otieno has most recently worked on projects with eBay, Synnex, Silicon Valley Education Foundation and Music for Minors organizations. The projects included advising on matters of human resources, executive compensation, stock equity programs, board governance, organizational alignment, strategy and goal setting, etc. He has formerly served as board chair for both Palo Alto University and Child Advocates of Silicon Valley and is also on the Advisory Board of the Children’s Health Council (CHC). In addition, he is a former Encore Fellow and has also launched his own foundation - Karibu Rafiki Foundation.
Mr. Otieno holds a bachelor’s degree (1982) in Economics & Psychology, and a master’s degree (1984) in Industrial Relations from the University of Minnesota. He has an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Palo Alto University (2016) and was the recipient of the 2014 John Gardner Award for outstanding community service in Santa Clara County from the Los Altos Community Foundation and of the inaugural 2015 Dan L. King Award. Mr. Otieno is originally from Kenya, East Africa and has made California his home for the past 30 years. He is married to Maren Otieno and they have three children (Emmanuell, Nereya, and Alena).