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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowLisa Su of Advanced Micro Devices is the first woman ever to top The Associated Press’ annual survey of CEO compensation: Her 2019 pay package was valued at $58.5 million following a strong performance for the company’s stock during her five years as CEO.
The median pay for women on the list was $13.9 million, versus $12.3 million for men. Pay for women was up 2.3% from last year, looking at the median; the median change for men was 5.4%. And, women remained significantly underrepresented as CEOs, heading just 5% percent of S&P 500 companies.
“Women are making incremental progress achieving leadership positions in the C-suite,” said Lorraine Hariton, President & CEO of Catalyst, a nonprofit organization focused on women in the workplace. “However, the fact remains that women CEOs still represent a disproportionately small share of corporate leadership, and women of color aren’t represented at all.”
The 2019 pay figures are from before the coronavirus pandemic upended everything. Hundreds of CEOs have already said they’ll forgo some or all of their salary. And the turmoil in the stock market and the global economy could make it tougher for CEOs to meet performance targets this year.
The analysis of executive pay at companies in the S&P 500 was conducted for the AP by Equilar. The annual review began in 2011. It includes only CEOs who have been in their job for at least two full years, in part to avoid the distortions caused by sign-on bonuses. As a result, a couple of CEOs with packages valued even more highly than Su’s were excluded.
The top-paid CEO in Indiana was David Ricks of Eli Lilly and Co., who made $16.6 million. A list of the highest paid CEOs in each state appears at the bottom of this article.
Su’s compensation was more than four times the value of her pay in the prior year. The gain was driven primarily by rewards for performance, including $53 million in stock awards and $3 million in stock options, which vest over several years. Su was paid a base salary of $1 million and a performance-based bonus of $1.2 million.
Since Su took over as president and CEO at the chipmaking company in 2014, its stock has risen from around $3 to about $55, and AMD was the top performing stock in the S&P 500 in both 2018 and 2019. Overall, 2019 was one of AMD’s strongest years, as revenue, profitability and gross margin all improved and the company built up its portfolio of products.
Su’s compensation was $13 million higher than the highest-paid male CEO in the survey, David Zaslav of Discovery. It was more than double the next two highest-paid women CEOs, Marilyn Hewson of Lockheed Martin, whose pay was valued at $24.4 million, and Mary Barra at General Motors Co., with pay valued at $21.3 million.
While culturally, there’s been a recent spotlight on issues facing women in the workplace and increased pressure from stakeholders on companies to create inclusive work cultures, Hariton said structural challenges remain. She said women continue to face entrenched barriers and stall out in middle management.
A total of 20 women were on the list, versus 309 men. For the analysis, executive data firm Equilar looked at companies in the S&P 500 index that filed proxy statements with federal regulators between Jan. 1 and April 30, 2019.
To calculate CEO pay, Equilar adds salary, bonus, perks, stock awards, stock option awards, deferred compensation and other pay components that include benefits and perks.
Stock awards can either be time-based, or performance-based, meaning the CEO has to meet certain goals before getting them. To determine what stock and option awards are worth, Equilar uses the value of an award on the day it’s granted, as recorded in the proxy statement. For options, this includes an estimate of what the award could be worth in the future. Their actual value in the future can vary widely from what the company estimates.
Here are the top paid CEOs by state for 2019, as calculated by The Associated Press and Equilar, an executive data firm.
The survey considered only publicly traded companies with more than $1 billion in revenue that filed their proxy statements with federal regulators between Jan. 1 and April 30. Not every state has such a company headquartered there. The survey includes only CEOs who have been in place for at least two years, but it does not limit the survey to companies in the S&P 500, as the AP’s general compensation study does.
To calculate CEO pay, Equilar adds salary, bonus, stock awards, stock option awards, deferred compensation and other components that include benefits and perks. For some companies, big raises can occur when CEOs get a stock grant in one year as part of a multi-year grant.
Median pay for S&P 500 CEOs was $12.3 million last year. Median means half made more, and half made less.
Here are the top-paid CEOs in every state:
Alabama: J. Thomas Hill, Vulcan Materials, $8.8 million
Arizona: Richard Adkerson, Freeport-McMoRan, $13.1 million
Arkansas: C. Douglas McMillon, Walmart, $22.1 million
California: Lisa T. Su, Advanced Micro Devices, $58.5 million
Colorado: Gregory Maffei, Liberty Media, $44 million
Connecticut: William C. Stone, SS&C Technologies Holdings, $21.6 million
Delaware: Hervé Hoppenot, Incyte, $15.2 million
Washington, D.C.: Andrew C. Florance, CoStar Group, $19.3 million
Florida: Gary A. Norcross, Fidelity National Information Services, $27.7 million
Georgia: Jeffrey S. Sloan, Global Payments, $20.5 million
Hawaii: Constance Lau, Hawaiian Electric Industries, $4.2 million
Idaho: Darrel Anderson, IDACORP, $4.7 million
Illinois: Miles White , Abbott Laboratories, $24.7 million
Indiana: David Ricks, Eli Lilly, $16.6 million
Iowa: Daniel Houston, Principal Financial Group, $11.5 million
Kansas: Thomas Gentile III, Spirit AeroSystems, $11.1 million
Kentucky: Bruce D. Broussard, Humana, $16.7 million
Louisiana: Paul B. Kusserow, Amedisys, $12.8 million
Maine: Melissa Smith, WEX, $6.5 million
Maryland: David Zaslav, Discovery, $45.8 million
Massachussetts: Marc N. Casper, Thermo Fisher Scientific, $19 million
Michigan: Mary Barra, General Motors, $21.3 million
Minnesota: James Cracchiolo, Ameriprise Financial, $22.3 million
Mississippi: Joe Sanderson, Jr., Sanderson Farms, $4.1 million
Missouri: Michael Neidorff, Centene, $26.4 million
Nebraska: Lance Fritz, Union Pacific, $12 million
Nevada: Sheldon Adelson, Las Vegas Sands, $24.7 million
New Hampshire: Timothy McGrath, PC Connection, $4 million
New Jersey: Kenneth Frazier, Merck, $22.6 million
New Mexico: Patricia Collawn, PNM Resources, $5 million
New York: James P. Gorman, Morgan Stanley, $31.6 million
North Carolina: Brian Moynihan, Bank of America, $25.5 million
North Dakota: David Goodin, MDU Resources Group, $5.4 million
Ohio: Gary Heminger, Marathon Petroleum, $23.2 million
Oklahoma: Robert D. Lawler, Chesapeake Energy, $15.4 million
Oregon: Bryan DeBoer, Lithia Motors, $7.3 million
Pennsylvania: Brian Roberts, Comcast, $36.4 million
Rhode Island: Larry Merlo, CVS Health, $36.5 million
South Carolina: John Williams, Domtar, $6.8 million
South Dakota: Robert C. Rowe, NorthWestern, $3.2 million.
Tennessee: Mark J. Costa, Eastman Chemical, $14 million.
Texas: Randall Stephenson, AT&T, $28.5 million
Utah: Joseph Margolis, Extra Space Storage, $6.3 million
Virginia: Christopher J. Nassetta, Hilton Worldwide Holdings, $21.4 million
Washington: John Legere, T-Mobile US, $27.8 million
Wisconsin: Jeffery Yabuki, Fiserv, $27.4 million
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