Avon elected V. Ann Hailey to its board. Hailey will serve on the board’s audit committee. She is a retired executive of Limited Brands, where she served as executive vice president and later CFO until 2006.

Brett Brewer was appointed to Pacific Sunwear’s board. Brewer is an Internet entrepreneur who has built, operated, and sold Internet media companies. He co-founded Intermix Media, which launched several online businesses including Myspace.com, Skilljam.com, and Alena.com.

Walgreens nominated Mark P. Frissora, chairman and CEO of Hertz Global Holdings, to its board. Frissora previously served as chairman and CEO of Tenneco from 2000 to 2006. Tenneco earned two Automotive Industry Shareholder Awards for delivering the highest shareholder returns.

XOMA appointed John Varian to its board. Varian currently serves as the COO and CFO of Aryx Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of drugs designed to eliminate safety issues with well-established, commercially successful drugs. He previously served as CFO of Genset, where he was a key member of the team negotiating the company’s sale to Serono.

Big Lots, a closeout retailer, announced the appointment of Peter J. Hayes to its board. Hayes’ was COO of Variety Wholesalers and has more than 35 years of senior management experience in the retail industry.

George Shaheen joined Voxify’s board. Shaheen was CEO of Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and helped guide the creation of the CRM market. He also serves on the boards of Network Appliance, 24/7 Customer, PRA International, and newScale.

Visualant elected Yoshitami Arai to its board. Arai has served as a director and senior executive of 7-Eleven, Tokyo Hotels, Systems International, Catalina Marketing, and Sony.

Charles R. Rinehart has been elected to MBIA’s board. Rinehart is former chairman and CEO of H.F. Ahmanson, which was sold to Washington Mutual Bank in 1998. He also is the chairman of the board of Verifone.

Fabian Nunez has been appointed to Zenith National Insurance’s board. Nunez was elected to the California State Assembly in 2002 and served as its speaker from 2004 through November 2008. He is currently a partner and co-chair of Mercury Public Affairs.

BizBash appointed Beverly C. Chell to its board. She currently serves on the board of Primedia, which she co-founded in 1989 and subsequently served as vice chairman, CFO, general counsel, and secretary.

HCC elected Thomas M. Hamilton to its board. Hamilton is co-owner of Medora Investments, a private investment firm, since 2003. He served as chairman, president, CEO of EEX, an oil and gas company, from 1997 until his retirement in 2002.

Options Media Group appointed Ronald Levine to its board. Levine was founder and president of Universal Marketing, a national life and annuity marketing firm.

William K. O’Brien joined Virtusa’s board and will serve on the company’s audit committee. O’Brien was chairman and CEO of Enterasys Networks from April 2002 until March 2006. Prior to that, he served 30 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The review of Compensation Discussion and Analysis (CD&A) reports of Fortune 500 companies by Equilar found an increase in the prevalence of companies that considered accumulated wealth when determining executive pay levels from 8.4 percent in 2006 to 14.5 percent in 2007.

For key board leadership positions, Equilar found that median total board-level compensation for non-executive chairs at Fortune 500 companies increased from $258,500 in 2006 to $264,000 in 2007.

Other findings:

• For lead directors, median total compensation increased from $174,843 to $189,413 over the same period. 
• The prevalence of Fortune 500 companies with independent board leadership positions grew from 78.4 percent to 80.9 percent.
• In 2007, 71.7 percent of non-executive chairs and 45.8 percent of lead directors at Fortune 500 companies received a pay premium over regular board members not holding a leadership role.

Companies that consider accumulated wealth in the study included Halliburton, ManPower, Big Lots, Rockwell Automation, Dillards, and Aetna.