Johnson Joins CalPERS Exodus

The director of corporate governance at CalPERS has resigned to become managing director of Shamrock Activist Value Fund.

Dennis Johnson's departure from the nation's largest pension fund comes on the heels of other senior-level departures including CEO Fred Buenrostro and Chief Investment Officer Russell Read. It was the leadership of this triumverate that contributed to CalPERS being designated the most influential player in corporate governance by Directorship

Buenrostro announced in April his intent to explore job opportunities in the private sector and officially left on June 30. Read resigned around the same time to pursue environmental investing.

Patricia Macht, assistant executive officer for public affairs, said yesterday that the priority is to find permanent replacements for Read and Buenrostro before a new governance chief is sought.

The 17-member corporate governance office of CalPERS that Johnson managed for the last three years oversees a $7-billion investment program and publishes the annual "Focus List," which takes to task those companies it views as having exceedingly poor governance practices. Named to succeed Johnson on an interim basis was his second-in-command, Eric Baggesen, senior investment officer of public equities.