CEO and executive remuneration is outrageous, why are boards signing off on such packages? As seen in the chart average worker income has risen 26% since 1970, now while corporate profits have soared 250% in the same time frame, executive income has risen 430% during the same period – the numbers don’t stack up. This is shareholder profits, they are the owners of the business and the executive team is putting shareholder earnings at risk. The question is, how do shareholders reverse this alarming trend?
These are really disgusting figures, former Woolworths CEO Paul Simon once famously stated the the highest paid person in the organisation should be paid no more than 30 times the lowest paid person in the organisation. Paul Simon ran Woolworths for two decades up to 1994, he kept a tight hold on executive remuneration – his own included. In his final year as CEO, Paul was pulling $750,000 and second in charge was on $600,000 – unlike now Woolworths was a top performing business. An executive, unlike an entrepreneur takes on no financial risk of their own as they still get paid as the company fortunes decline.
Observations in an undemocratic world 