Who is the 'Salary King' Among CEOs of Major US Corporations?

Average Annual Salary of US Large Corporation CEOs Approximately 15.2 Billion KRW

▲Lisa Su, CEO of AMD [Image source=AP News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jaehee] Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, has been found to receive the highest annual salary among CEOs of large US corporations.

On the 27th (local time), the Associated Press reported that according to a survey conducted by corporate information research firm Equilar on the compensation of CEOs from 329 publicly listed companies included in the S&P 500 index last year, CEO Lisa Su received a total annual salary of $58.5 million (approximately 72.4 billion KRW).

Following her, David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery Communications, ranked second with $45.8 million (approximately 5.67 billion KRW) last year.

Robert Iger of Walt Disney, Shantanu Narayen of Adobe, Reed Hastings of Netflix, and Larry Merlo of CVS Health also received compensation ranging from $30 million to $40 million, placing them in the 'Top 5' male CEO salaries.

Among female CEOs, Marilyn Hewson of defense contractor Lockheed Martin, Mary Barra of GM, Virginia Rometty of IBM, and Phebe Novakovic of General Dynamics also earned around $20 million, ranking within the 'Top 5'.

The average salary of US large corporation CEOs last year was approximately $12.3 million (about 15.2 billion KRW). This represents a 4.1% increase compared to the previous year.

This amount includes bonuses, stocks, and stock options.

However, the rate of increase has slowed. In 2018, the CEO compensation growth rate was 7.2%.

Due to ongoing criticism from shareholders about excessive CEO pay at publicly listed companies, the rate of increase has been steadily declining in recent years.

In contrast, the wages of employees working at these companies increased by only 3.2% last year, meaning it would take an astonishing 169 years of work to reach the CEO level.

Meanwhile, this survey targeted CEOs who have served for more than two years to eliminate distortions caused by signing bonuses in their first year, and companies that submitted business reports from January to April.

Companies like Alphabet and Intel pay high salaries to their CEOs but were excluded from the survey as they are not included in the S&P 500 index.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.