Fast Company’s CEO Fair Pay report: Meet the 15 'most fairly' paid CEOs in America
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Fast Company’s CEO Fair Pay report: Meet the 15 'most fairly' paid CEOs in America
By Chris Morris
As more states require companies to share information on salary transparency, the question of pay equity between executives and workers is being taken up by unions, shareholder activists, and researchers who question why CEO pay has ballooned in recent years.
But the latest batch of executive compensation disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission also reveal some CEOs who (at first glance, at least) have more reasonable pay packages. Urban Outfitters CEO Richard Hayne, for example, takes a token $1 per year, but earns bonuses and other compensation. Still, his pay is fairly equitable compared with his peers on the Russell 3000 Index. Box’s Aaron Levie is also among the reasonably paid by this metric, and the average salary of a worker at his cloud-based content management company earns a nice salary as well. And then there’s Elon Musk who, in his role as CEO of Tesla, appears to be paid like a man of the people.
Of course, in the case of Musk–and other CEOs on this list–a lot depends on when you look at their pay and how you define your terms. While some activists paint the issue as one that’s black and white, many nuances need to be considered. A tech CEO, for instance, might make a salary that some would consider outrageous, but if their employees are also taking home substantial compensation, their CEO can be described as equitable. (Musk, technically, doesn’t draw a salary, but his total pay last year topped $56 billion. ) Many—9 of the 15 on this list—are also founders, and may have considerable amounts of stock in the company, rendering further large stock grants unnecessary.
Many of the companies on this list have workers that make relatively large salaries. Tech companies, especially, have median salaries near the top of all the companies on our list—where roughly half the companies have a median salary below $75,000. And sometimes the hard numbers are just part of the story. Activision’s Bobby Kotick, for example, wouldn’t have made this list two years ago, but circumstances at his company led to him taking a voluntary pay cut, making his 2022 compensation much more equitable.
The point is: The top people on this list of the most equitably paid public company CEOs (which is based on reported 2022 compensation) are ranked where they are based on a number of factors. And while it’s nice to see executives who don’t draw a salary that’s light years beyond the people who work for them, their inclusion on this list doesn’t necessary mean they’ve made a moral commitment to economic justice. (For comparison, you can also see the list of the 15 least fairly paid CEOs or a searchable list of the data for more than 2,000 companies in total .)
On that note, in the rankings—compiled by SEC compliance and disclosure intelligence company MyLogIQ —we have chosen to leave out CEOs who paid themselves zero or far below the median employee; though these gestures can be impressive, they can make it difficult to fully understand the scope of CEO pay. (You can, however, find a list of CEOs with avant garde pay in the full article on our websit e. )
Ultimately, you’ll have to decide for yourself which CEOs are paid the most reasonably based on a wide variety of factors (which can vary depending on what’s important to you), but here are the 15 CEOs of companies on the Russell 3000 Index who, according to reported numbers, have the smallest ratio between their pay and the earnings of their median worker, based on their 2022 total compensation:
1: Applovin (APP)
CEO: Adam Foroughi
2022 Compensation: $104,355
Median employee salary: $139,502
Pay ratio: 1:1
Foroughi actually makes about $35,000 less per year than the median employee salary at this mobile app technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, a rarity among leaders. While other execs at the company receive a more traditional C-level package, the cofounder keeps his own salary low, as he also owns roughly 36% of the company’s shares (and increased his net worth by selling more than 7 million shares in the past year).
2: Airbnb (ABNB)
CEO: Brian Chesky
2022 Compensation: $311,233
Median employee salary: $236,240
Pay ratio: 1:1
Chesky isn’t just the CEO of Airbnb, he’s likely its biggest customer, living full-time in a rotation of properties last year. (He also listed his home on the site for others to stay at.) Despite that, he only earned about $75,000 more than the average employee. He owns 11% of the company’s shares , but hasn’t sold any in the past year.
3: Doximity (DOCS)
CEO: Jeffrey Tangney
2022 Compensation: $243,726
Median employee salary: $175,129
Pay ratio: 1:1
San Francisco-based Doximity brings medical professionals together, but its CEO and cofounder bridges the wage gap with workers, by taking compensation that’s just a small step above the median. The company made recent cuts that saw 10% of the workforce cut as its revenue slowed due to falling sales to pharmaceutical companies.
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4: Box (BOX)
CEO: Aaron Levie
2022 Compensation: $273,579
Median employee salary: $195,638
Pay ratio: 1:1
Levie is CEO and cofounder of the cloud company, but his 2022 salary was just 40% more than the average worker, though he also owns more than 3 million shares of the company's stock, valued at more than $80 million.
5: Franklin Street Properties (FSP)
CEO: George J. Carter 2022 Compensation: $306,000 Median employee salary: $205,593 Pay ratio: 1:1
The real estate investment trust’s stock has been taking a beating this year, down more than 30% year to date. Investors aren’t likely to call for Carter’s head quite so fast, though, as he took 2022 compensation that was less than $100,000 above that of the average employee—and the overall commercial real estate market has continued to be soft since the end of the pandemic.
6: Take Two Interactive Software (TTWO)
CEO: Strauss Zelnick
2022 Compensation: $115,015
Median employee salary: $75,276
Pay ratio: 2:1
Zelnick's salary from video game company Take-Two was roughly 50% above the median employee salary. But it is worth noting that Zelnick—the former chairman and CEO of 20th Century Fox—also receives compensation from ZMC, a management company he co-owns, which is based on company performance. Zelnick and TTWO president Karl Slatoff, split nearly $72.4 million there last year.
7: Activision Blizzard (ATVI)
CEO: Robert A. Kotick
2022 Compensation: $178,882
Median employee salary: $106,974
Pay ratio: 2:1
Kotick took home a tiny salary for leading a company that posted $8.8 billion in revenue last year. That’s, in part, due to a 99.9% pay cut he pledged to take in 2021, following an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment at the company. And, presuming Activision’s merger with Microsoft closes later this year, he could walk away with a $68.7 billion payday .
8: Apollo Global Management (APO)
CEO: Marc Rowan
2022 Compensation: $310,011
Median employee salary: $170,035
Pay ratio: 2:1
Generally, the executives who run a private equity firm bring in salaries in the millions, but Rowan—who has made billions as a cofounder of Apollo for the last three decades—took in just shy of twice what the average employee makes. It wasn’t an aberration, either. For the previous two years, he has kept his total compensation low , as shares prices have climbed. Year to date, Apollo’s stock is up more than 38%.
For the full list of the 15 CEOs who are among the most fairly paid in our CEO Fair Pay report, click here.
Read our entire CEO Fair Pay Report series:
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1 年Madison McIntyre, the founder of the Parish Seafood Company, comes to mind for me as he stated he earned 20K in order to stay in business. Source: https://youtu.be/bAhxikeeIOQ?t=8115
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1 年A somewhat deceptive report, and often intended for the same purpose by the CEO or C-suite to hide the real compensation spread across other sources not available to regular workers. A low salary looks good, but often with huge bonuses, equity, options, and additional salaries with other names for serving on committees or various internal boards can be deceptive and misleading. Sadly, often the media plays along and pretends all the other sources don't exist. Public companies should disclose all the extras in an addendum or extension document separate from the annual report often buried in pages of complex reporting data designed to hide the true compensation from lay investors and employees. It's not uncommon to learn a reasonable comp for the C-suite adds up to many times more from activities that when done by regular employees earn them nothing. Serving on a company committee for example is just part of the job for everyone else but many top executives receive additional fees or stipends for doing the same thing. Or who receive comp for signing a document or having their name on a subsidiary corporation.