Looking at the region’s 30 highest-paid CEOs this year at our public companies, there are four women, and three people of color. But there are also five CEOs who have stepped down, one set to step down next week, and one extremely well-compensated CEO (in the No. 1 spot) whose company is planning to move its headquarters to New York. So we may see a different lineup next year. I just hope you haven’t been holding your breath since the last time I said that a year ago.
On average, these CEOs made about $15 million in 2019, after getting an average 77% raise. But by far, most of everyone’s compensation packages were made up of stock. The average dollar value of stock awards was over $7.6 million, with another $5.4 million in average stock options earned. The average salary was just (“just”) $1 million for these folks. They did get an average bonus of $1.2 million, and an average nonequity incentive of $2.7 million (which is like a bonus but forward-looking).
Back to those people I mentioned earlier. The four women include former Lockheed Martin Corp. CEO Marillyn Hewson, new Northrop Grumman Corp. CEO Kathy Warden, General Dynamics Corp. CEO Phebe Novakovic, and the CEO of United Therapeutics Corp., Martine Rothblatt. You may recall last year Rothblatt took a bit of a pay cut for 2018, but that was not the case in 2019.
