Topic
Levels, structures and disclosure of pay for chief executives at large listed companies.
Glass Lewis proposes to replace its single benchmark voting policy with four perspectives from the 2028 US proxy season, Pay Governance reports. One pay program could draw different Say on Pay recommendations, so boards will need to tailor engagement to key shareholders.
Reality
FW Cook identified six companies whose 2026 proxy statements disclose moves to longer-horizon RSUs for executives. ISS's November 2025 policy change gave compensation committees more room to weight equity toward time-based awards.
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In 2026 proxy filings, the median CEO was paid $17.5 million in the S&P 500 and $7.1 million in the Russell 3000, up 6% and 7% on a year earlier. Equity carries most of the growth since 2021. The report puts investor scrutiny on exceptional awards, above-target payouts and executive security.
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Dario Amodei made $18 million in 2025, mostly in stock and options, Anthropic's IPO filing shows, ahead of a listing that could value it above $2 trillion. The co-founders' stakes are not yet disclosed, so the new stock units are the best guide investors have to what keeps them there.
Perspective Coverage
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Skydance has made former Mattel chief Ynon Kreiz co-CEO, expected to find $6 billion in savings over three years, Business Insider reports. David Ellison keeps the studio and talent deals, leaving Kreiz the cuts and the layoffs expected with them.
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Women general counsel at the Equilar 500 out-earned men by about 16% in 2025, Equilar and BarkerGilmore found, mostly through bigger stock awards. Companies are paying more for women in the top legal job while giving the job to slightly fewer of them.
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Shareholders approved about 80% of 2026 Texas reincorporation proposals, Pay Governance found, though ISS and Glass Lewis opposed nearly all of them. Support varied by company, so a board weighing the move needs a case built on its own ownership and pay record.
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Goldman's board has discussed naming John Waldron, holder of an $80 million retention bonus, CEO as soon as next year, the Wall Street Journal reported. The cost still open is keeping four senior executives who would be passed over.
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Oracle's $988 million of options for Larry Ellison and his two co-CEOs carry strikes of $280 and $308, against a share price of $137. The 53% fall tracks a build that consumed $55.7 billion of capital and left free cash flow at minus $23.7 billion.
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Pay Governance found just 19% of S&P 500 pay plans opposed by both ISS and Glass Lewis failed in 2026, down from 50% in 2022. The weight now sits with the five largest asset managers, whose own voting frameworks backed pay 95.6% of the time.
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A Compensia review of Form 10-K filings from January 2024 through June 2026 found 118 companies running restatement-triggered recovery analyses, and 19 of them disclosed an actual clawback of executive pay.
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Sean Gray takes over the $22.3 billion-asset Massachusetts bank a year after its merger of equals. The promised $52 million of after-tax cost savings was booked in July, and the shares still fell more than 6.7% on Monday.
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Average pay at risk for S&P 1500 chief executives reached 78% in 2023, up from 46% in 1993, while target pay converged on the industry median. Compensation Actually Paid is the first figure that lets a committee check whether that design pays for performance.
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The reciprocal deals, effective September 10, would cost Automattic $8.15 million now that Matt Mullenweg has fired both men. The company's new lawyers are deciding whether to pay out or contest the documents.
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A memorandum from the pay consultancy FW Cook argues that the shareholder conversations able to influence next year's incentive design happen months before the proxy is filed, and that stewardship teams can tell when a company has left it late.
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Metaplanet's board pulled back grant terms that expanded with every equity raise, cutting the potential share pool by about 41 percent and lifting bitcoin per fully diluted share 8.8 percent without buying a coin.
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Namyang's shareholders never lawfully approved director pay, the Seoul Central District Court found, so Hong Won-sik has no right to severance after 47 years and must return part of what the company already paid him.
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A 17% two-day selloff got Metaplanet's board to take 131.27 million potential shares out of its contested option pool in four days, and to add a new CFO, a Hong Kong arm and a December capital vote.
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The board froze an option pool that had grown nearly sevenfold to 319 million rights and cut the plan by 41%, a reduction worth about $123m that leaves management with a claim on roughly 13% of the diluted company.
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Median pay for technology titles reached $2.6mn, up 45.4% since 2021, though one year supplied a 28.9% move on its own, and the largest single award in the data had lost 41% of its value before any of it vested.
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Invest · September 2, 2026 · Confirmed11 publishers
Leadership · August 17, 2026 · One report1 publisher