Executives

DETROIT -- Auto executives worldwide believe sales of hybrid cars and low-cost, fuel-efficient models will outpace sales of sport utility vehicles, pickups, and luxury models over the next five years because of lingering concerns about fuel prices, according to an annual survey released yesterday. Eighty-eight percent of the executives said they expect gas-electric hybrids to gain market share, up from 74 percent who felt that way in 2004. Seventy-nine percent said they expect low-cost cars to gain share.

The exodus at 38 Studios LLC has begun. Two senior officials, including its chief executive, appear to have left as the video game company founded by former Red Sox ace Curt Schilling runs low on cash. The chief executive, Jen MacLean, had already been on maternity leave. But she and John Blakely, senior vice president for product development, recently changed their profiles on the business networking site LinkedIn to indicate they no longer work at 38 Studios. MacLean, a former Comcast executive who joined 38 Studios in 2008, declined to comment.

WASHINGTON - Bankers including Goldman Sachs Group chairman and chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief Jamie Dimon called on President Obama and Congress to raise the federal debt limit to steer the US government away from the threat of default. "The consequences of inaction - for our economy, the already struggling job market, the financial circumstances of American businesses and families, and for America's global economic leadership - would be very grave," the executives wrote in the letter sent yesterday by the Financial Services Forum, a Washington-based trade group...

James E. Rooney , executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, is among the Boston execs who will perform the Bard on Thursday night. He and other big business names — including Eastern Bank CEO Richard Holbrook , Bain & Company senior adviser Phyllis R. Yale , Tufts Health Plan CEO Jim Roosevelt , and Boston Globe publisher Christopher Mayer — will stage an abridged reading of Shakespeare's "Coriolanus," and will follow the drama by talking about themes in the play.

Liberty Mutual chairman Edmund F. "Ted" Kelly, under fire for receiving nearly $50 million a year from the Boston insurance giant, said Friday that an "accounting issue" made his compensation appear larger than it is. Kelly, who retired as chief executive last June after 13 years, but still serves as chairman, estimated his annual compensation package between 2008 and 2010 was closer to $13 million to $15 million, but was inflated by performance incentives,...

The so-called phantom stock programs that allowed former Liberty Mutual Holding Co. chief Edmund F. "Ted" Kelly to collect nearly $50 million a year are used by many large private companies to recruit and retain talented executives, industry executives say. Compensation Resources Inc., a New Jersey compensation consultancy, found that one-third of 230 private companies it surveyed used some sort of phantom stock program designed to mimic stock...

WASHINGTON -- On the eve of the State of the Union address, the chief executives of 10 major corporations urged President Bush to support mandatory reductions in climate-changing pollution and establish reductions targets. "We can and must take prompt action to establish a coordinated, economy-wide market-driven approach to climate protection," the executives from a broad range of industries wrote in a letter to the president yesterday . Bush, who in the past has rejected mandatory controls on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, was expected to address climate...

Four executives are leaving Sprint Nextel Corp. in a reorganization that will combine the sales and marketing functions for both its consumer and business units. Spokesman Scott Sloat confirmed the move, which was laid out in a memo sent by Sprint CEO Dan Hesse on Friday. The news was reported earlier by Reuters. Sprint is in the midst of a costly upgrade to put its phones on a "4G" network, and Hesse expressed the need to become more efficient in the memo. Sprint shares fell 5 cents, or 2.2 percent, to close at $2.19 on Friday.

WASHINGTON - At least 17 Smithsonian Institution executives with six-figure salaries will see future pay cuts - many in the tens of thousands of dollars - under reforms adopted by the museum complex. According to figures released recently by the Smithsonian Institution, the chief financial officer could see the biggest reduction. If the cuts planned for five years from now were made today, CFO Alice Maroni could lose as much as $120,000, or 41 percent of her base salary of $293,280.

WASHINGTON - A House panel voted yesterday to prohibit financial firms from offering corporate pay packages that encourage executives to take big risks, going further than what President Obama wanted to curb excessive salaries and bonuses on Wall Street. Lawmakers, including Republicans who opposed the proposal because they said it went too far, said they were under tremendous pressure from constituents. “Politically, it was very difficult for my members to stand up and fight this legislation,’’ said Representative Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the top...

By Andreae Downs, Globe Correspondent The Brookline Teen Center will soon have a full-time executive director as it moves toward breaking ground on its first facility at 40 Aspinwall Ave. The board of directors this week announced that Matthew Cooney, Brookline High School Class of 1991, will start on June 18 at the $82,500/year job. Cooney, who lives in town with his wife, Jean, and three children—ages 9, 6 and 3—said...

The same anesthetic that caused the overdose death of pop star Michael Jackson is now the drug of choice for executions in Missouri, causing a stir among critics who question how the state can guarantee a drug untested for lethal injection won't cause pain and suffering for the condemned. Last week the Missouri Department of Corrections announced it was switching from its longstanding three-drug method to use of a single drug, propofol. Missouri would be the first state ever to use propofol as an execution drug.

A San Francisco-based federal appeals court ruled in 2002 that every aspect of an execution should be open to witnesses, from the moment the condemned enters into the death chamber to his final heartbeat. The ruling established what was expected of the nine Western states within the court's jurisdiction. A decade later, five of the states have kept part of each execution away from public view, according to an Associated Press review and death penalty experts. Idaho, Arizona, Washington, Montana and Nevada have conducted 15 lethal injections since the...

America's executions have changed dramatically over the years, morphing from daylong events in the town square to somber and tightly controlled affairs held deep inside prisons. Driving the change was the quest for a less gruesome — even less painful — method of execution. Along the way, the public saw less of what happens when the state puts an inmate to death. Today, nearly all of the 34 states that use lethal injection restrict access to half of every execution, shielding from view the portion when the condemned enters the death chamber...

Less than a week after Facebook's troubled debut as a public company, Sheryl Sandberg, the social network's chief operating officer and a Harvard Business School alumna, returned to Cambridge Wednesday to deliver the keynote address for the school's graduating students. In her speech, Sandberg barely mentioned Facebook's recent $16 billion initial public offering, which is drawing scrutiny from federal regulators and investors. Instead, she spoke about gender roles in the workplace and her own path to becoming second-in-command at the...

Brookstone has tapped Stephen Bebis, founder of Golf Town, as the new chief executive of the New Hampshire electronics chain. Bebis spent 14 years as founder, president, and chief executive of Golf Town, the largest specialty golf retailer in Canada with 57 locations. It recently announced plans to acquire US rival Golfsmith. "We were impressed by Stephen's track record as an entrepreneur, his hands-on experience as a manager and mentor at the highest levels in the retail industry, and his ability to drive growth and achieve market leadership," Jackson Tai,...

Financially battered Olympus Corp. is suing 19 former and current executives for damages that the Japanese camera and medical equipment maker says it has suffered over a massive cover-up of investment losses. The lawsuit, filed Sunday by auditors on behalf of the company in Tokyo District Court, targets former CEO Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, current President Shuichi Takayama and 17 other executives that the company says participated in or knew about the fraudulent activity. The scheme — which first came to light after former President Michael Woodford blew the whistle — has raised...

Online brokerage TD Ameritrade chose the executive who has led its institutional investing business to oversee the retail side of the company. TD Ameritrade said Monday that Tom Bradley will replace John Bunch as president of retail distribution. Bunch is leaving the Omaha company to join an unnamed investment advisory firm. Bradley has been president of TD Ameritrade Institutional, which caters to registered investment advisers. He has been with TD Ameritrade for 20 years.

The Associated Press and 16 other organizations sued the state of Idaho on Tuesday to force officials to let witnesses watch executions from start to finish, arguing that the media has a First Amendment right to view all steps of a lethal injection execution. The group asked a U.S. District Court judge to require the state to increase witness access to its executions, starting with the upcoming execution of Richard A. Leavitt, a convicted killer scheduled to be put to death on June 12. The AP was joined in the lawsuit by the Idaho Press Club, Idahoans for Openness in Government,...