XEROX CEO: ONE OF THE HIGHEST PAID WOMEN IN THE U.S.

[Anonymous]

http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/07/28/pepsi-avon-xerox-lead-comp-cx_mk_0728toppaidwomenceo.html
America’s Highest-Paid Female CEOs
Top-dog
pay at America’s 500 largest companies collectively decreased last year
for the first time since 2002, although the 13 female chief executives
in that club are feeling rather flush.

After clocking a juicy
38% collective pay increase in 2006, CEOs of the 500 largest companies
in the U.S.–as measured by a composite ranking of sales, profits,
assets and market value–saw their compensation dwindle an average 15%
in 2007. (Chalk up much of that volatility to performance-based
compensation packages tied to flagging earnings and share prices.)
Meanwhile, those lucky 13 saw their pay jump an average 27%.

Not
that the pay gap between male and (the few) female CEOs doesn’t
persist. The average take, including salary and bonuses, for all 500
CEOs was $12.8 million–double the female average of $6.5 million.

Indra
Nooyi surely isn’t grousing about her paycheck. Topping the list of
highest-paid female CEOs, the PepsiCo chief took home $12.7 million
(including $4.5 million in bonus pay), putting her at No. 139 out of
500 chiefs overall. The Indian-born exec ranked a bit higher on the
Forbes list of the most powerful women in the world, at No. 5.

Impressive
as that sounds, Nooyi’s total compensation was just one-fourteenth that
of the highest-paid man on the list, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who took
home a modest $1 million in salary but realized $182 million from the
exercise of vested stock options last year.

Second on the list
of highest-paid female CEOs is Avon Products’ Andrea Jung, who banked
$4.3 million in salary and bonus and received a total compensation of
$12 million. Xerox Chief Anne Mulcahy came in third with total comp of $11 million, followed by Susan Ivey ($7.2 million) of cig-maker Reynolds American and Western Union’s Christina Gold ($5.7 million).

Compensation
experts won’t hazard a guess as to when, if ever, that pay gap between
male and female CEOs will close. They do, however, suggest that the
ranks of female chief execs will continue to expand as more large
companies look to boost diversity among senior-level management.

In
one study of the largest companies (by sales), Catalyst, a nonprofit
devoted to encouraging diversity in the workplace, found that the
percentage of women holding corporate officer positions has increased
to 15% from 12% in 2000. That means more women will be in a position to
negotiate bigger paydays, says Mike Hodak, founder of management
consulting firm Hodak Value Advisors.

“Boards are typically
going to pay a premium for what they consider to be a brand name,” says
Hodak. “More and more women have a name in the world’s largest
companies. We’re starting to see the benefits of them realizing that.”

But
it’s not just a brand that big companies are looking for. “Often times
they feel that women can bring that out-of-the-box thinking to the
leadership role,” says Hugh Shields, founding principal at C-level
career consultancy Shields Meneley Partners. “They might have the
relationship skills to drive a new culture and strategy through an
organization.”
Next step: translating those skills into serious scratch.

[Author]

August 12, 2008 at 11:53 AM