CEO pay receives most of the ink when it comes to executive compensation. And that’s with good reason: Every public company must disclose pay levels for their CEOs according to SEC regulations. Also, let’s be honest—they make the most.
Beyond the CEO (and CFO, which also must be disclosed per SEC regulations), roles vary within the C-suite and who makes the “top 5,” or the highest-paid named executive officers (NEOs) in the summary compensation table (SCT) for annual proxy statements.
In the past few years, certain roles have gained more prominence. Equilar conducted compensation research on general counsel (GC), chief human resource officers (CHRO) and chief marketing officers (CMO) in 2015 and 2016 to gauge the relative stature of these positions in the C-suite.
Generally, GCs are far and away more common among top 5 executives. Meanwhile, CHROs saw their numbers decrease from 2015 to 2016, though they still outrank CMOs on the whole. However, CMOs are earning more at the median, and while there are a fraction of these individuals reaching the top 5, their median compensation is nearly on par with GCs. At the very top, however, GCs made significantly more than the other roles. In fact, the 10th-highest-paid GC was paid more than the No. 1 CHRO in 2016, and all but the top three CMOs.