Other people might have trouble saving for their retirement years, but that's definitely not the case for CEOs of major companies.
In fact, the money that companies sock away for those CEOs is so large that it requires companies to explain themselves to their stockholders.
According to research from the Conference Board, CEOs made out like bandits—with eight out of the top 25 most highly paid coming from the media and entertainment industry.
Recommended For You
While some of that cash came from companies' performance, so much of it came from contributions to their eventual pensions that companies have to provide additional disclosures in proxy statements to account for it.
The Conference Board collaborated with Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. on the report "CEO and Executive Compensation Practices: 2015 Edition," which looked at pensions and, incidentally, revealed those top 25 moneymakers among the elite.
Their pay, by the way, increased by such massive percentages that the rest of us can only drool with envy. Oh, and only two women made the top 25.
Curious about the top 10? We thought you might be. Here they are, along with their total compensation for 2014 and the companies they work for.
1. David M. Zaslav, Discovery Communications, Inc.
Zaslav topped the report's list, coming in with the amazing paycheck for 2014 of $156,078,000. This is a lot more than he made in 2013, which was a paltry $33,350,000—meaning that he got a raise of 368 percent. Nice, huh? The total, by the way, included a bonus, stock awards, stock options and "perquisites and other compensation"—that last of which amounted to $1,936,000.
2. Mario J. Gabelli, Gamco Investors, Inc.
There's really a large gap between first and second place on this list. Gabelli only raked in $88,518,000. No bonus, stock awards or options, and actually no base salary either: total compensation was classes in that "perquisites" category. And that was only up 4.1 percent from 2013.
3. Satya Nadella, Microsoft Corp.
Nadella came in at $84,309,000. His bonus and stock awards were considerably larger than his perquisites (which actually went down last year), and even larger than his base salary—but then that seems to be more the rule than the exception up in the stratosphere where these folks work.
4. Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle Corp.
Ellison's total compensation was $67,261,000 for 2014, and believe it or not, that represents a 14 percent cut. Stock options were down by 15.5 percent and perquisites were down a fraction of a percent. Of course, for the rest of us, 0.4 percent of that much could stand in for a year's salary…
5. Jon Feltheimer, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.
No Hunger Games here. Not at $66,328,000. So-so salary—only $1,465,000—but nice bonus ($8,750,000) and stock awards and options ($55,916,000). Perquisites on the small side—well under a million. What's the world coming to?
6. Steven M. Mollenkopf, Qualcomm Inc./DE.
Apparently the movie business pays better than wireless. Mollenkopf made $60,741,000 in 2014, most of that coming in stock awards. Perks were down hugely, though—only $121,000, which is 84.1 percent less than he got in perks in 2013. Oh, well. Easy come, easy go.
7. David T. Hamamoto, Northstar Realty Finance Corp.
Hamamoto made $60,334,000 in 2014, of which just $604,000 was base salary—a cut of 42.5 percent from the year before. The rest of his compensation came from an annual bonus of $11,020,000 and stock awards of $48,700,000, as well as a few perks that only amounted to $10,000. But before you start feeling too bad over Hamamoto's salary cut, you might like to know that the stock awards represented an increase of 520 percent over the stock he was given in 2013.
8. Leslie Moonves, CBS Corp.
A total of $57,176,000 was how much Moonves brought home last year. Just $3,513,000 of that was actual salary, with the other categories making up the balance. By the way, so far, the "change in pension value" category was filled in as NA for the seven CEOs we've looked at so far. Not so for Moonves; his pension value rose by 106.3 percent from 2013 to 2014.
9. Philippe P. Dauman, Viacom, Inc.
Dauman, on the other hand, saw his pension value fall by a shocking 325.4 percent. How can that even happen? Particularly with a total compensation package of $44,335,000, most of which came from categories other than base salary and perquisites.
10. Robert A. Iger, Walt Disney Co.
Nope, no women in the top 10. Iger rounds them out with total compensation of $46,497,000 and NA in "change in pension value." Once again, base salary didn't amount to much (note the tongue in cheek when you hit the word "much") at just $2,500,000. The other categories made up the balance, with most coming from Iger's annual bonus.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
