Indispensable
Adelphia yesterday asked the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of NY to OK raises and incentives packages for 2 execs the MSO characterizes as "underpaid and overworked." In a brief filed Thurs, Adelphia asked that CFO Vanessa Wittman’s base salary be bumped up to $600K from $490K, and that General Counsel Brad Sonnenberg’s $266K salary be upped to $325K. The company also said that the execs deserved "stay bonuses" of 1-1.5x their salaries if they remain with the company through June, or bonuses of 2x their salaries if the company is sold. "If the Debtors were to lose [either exec] to another company and the emergence process consequently was delayed by even 1 month, the incremental cost to the Debtors’ estate could exceed $20mln," Adelphia said in the motion. How vital is Wittman to the company? Check out the April 11 BusinessWeek, which hits newsstands today, for a profile of the tireless exec that pegs her as future CFO material for Viacom or Microsoft.