Securities and Exchange Commissioner Luis Aguilar said Monday accountability may be lacking in corporate governance.

“A strange thing has been happening: Many executives have been enjoying the benefits of the pay-for-performance boom, without necessarily delivering increased performance. In fact, the development of the golden parachute has often meant that, in practice, executives have been rewarded handsomely for failure,” the commissioner said, noting many executives have been shown the door with severance payments in the millions and tens of millions.

On the positive side, he said early results from the Dodd-Frank mandate that public companies hold advisory shareholder votes on executive compensation at least once every three years indicate that some companies have begun to re-evaluate compensation packages when pay outstrips performance.

Aguilar said executive compensation accountability will be a stronger force for shareholders when the commission enacts rules for large investment managers to disclose their “say on pay” votes.

To bring more active engagement with retail investors, he said, the SEC should see if its rules should be changed to promote mom-and-pop involvement with electronic shareholder forums for individual companies on the SEC’s Web site.

His comments came in the prepared text of a speech at the Emory University School of Law in Atlanta.