Private Company CEOs’ Cash Compensation Up 24% on Average

The average bonus increased 26.4% to $294,536 while the average salary increased by 22.0% to $367,868.

“Averages are important but can be a bit misleading because top quartile performers skew the averages.”

“Averages are important but can be a bit misleading,” cautions co-author Wayne Cooper, “because top quartile performers skew the averages. The median CEO cash compensation was a more modest $343,000, which represented a 5% increase over the prior year.”

Overall compensation, as well as specific components, varied by industry, company size and company type. For example, median compensation packages for CEOs of companies with revenue from $1 billion to $10 billion was more than seven times that of CEOs for companies with revenue <$2 million.

Financial/Insurance companies generated the highest median total compensation package for companies with revenue <$10 million, followed by Health/Pharma, Manufacturing-Industrial Goods, Technology and Manufacturing-Consumer Goods, respectively.

Technology firm CEOs moved up in rank as revenue size increased, ultimately leading in CEO median compensation for companies with >$100 million in revenue. Tech CEOs for the largest mid-market firms made nearly eight times as much as tech CEOs in the smallest firms.

“CEOs of private-equity-owned companies had the highest compensation packages, followed by employee-owned and partnership-modeled companies.”

Consumer goods manufacturers with <$10 million in revenue lagged behind their larger industrial goods manufacturing counterparts. But as company revenue increased, so did the compensation packages at consumer goods manufacturers. For all but companies of $10 million or less, CEOs from consumer goods manufacturers made more than those of industrial good manufacturers, with the gap between the two tapping out at 6.3%.

CEOs of private-equity-owned companies had the highest compensation packages, followed by employee-owned and partnership-modeled companies. Private-equity owned firms paid their CEOs double that of CEOs for companies that were sole proprietorships on average.

Click here for more information about Chief Executive’s 2014-2015 CEO & Senior Executive Compensation Report for Private Companies.

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