It’s a great honour to be elected (non-executive) chairman of United Way of America, the US super-charity that collects vast sums in corporate and individual donations and parcels them out to a wealth of lesser charities that do not have the muscle to raise large amounts of money, but with all his other troubles, it’s an honour that IBM Corp chairman John Akers could no doubt do without right now: United Way has been in the headlines for the last few days for all the wrong reasons, and on Thursday William Aramony, the charity’s $463,000-a-year president resigned after the New York chapter, United Way of New York City, said that it was withholding $556,000 in annual dues because of allegations of lavish spending and undue patronage by Aramony; among the long list of the Great & the Good on the board of governors under Akers are Robert Allen, chief executive of AT&T Co, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp, and John Clenending, the chief executive of BellSouth Corp.
