Chief Executive Officer
Also called CEO, chief executive.
The principal executive officer. CompensationBase maps proxy titles to a CEO role group for company pages and the highest-paid CEOs ranking, and omits a current CEO when the latest filing lists none.
What it is
The chief executive officer is the principal executive officer: the person the board holds responsible for running the company. In the SCT the PEO is always a NEO. CompensationBase’s CEO role group and the highest-paid CEOs ranking use that classification from the latest filing’s titles.
Division CEOs (“CEO of the cloud unit”) are usually other NEOs. Executive chairs, founders with different titles, and co-CEOs require reading the filing. A company can have no current CEO in the latest table during a transition.
Why companies use it
Public companies concentrate operational authority in a CEO so the board has one account. Pay packages for that role are the most scrutinized in the proxy and in the press.
Say-on-pay debates, peer groups, and media rankings almost always start with the CEO’s SCT Total.
Pros
- A single, well-labeled role for cross-company CEO pay comparison.
- Item 402 guarantees a SCT row for the PEO.
- CompensationBase can rank CEOs separately from CFOs.
Cons
- Co-CEOs, executive chairs, and controlling founders break the “one CEO” mental model.
- A new CEO’s new-hire grant dwarfs a long-tenured CEO’s annual grant.
- Title inflation elsewhere in the company does not make someone the PEO.
Examples
Highest-paid CEOs ranking
The ranking sorts S&P 500 CEOs by SCT Total as filed. Unusual-grant-year notes matter here more than anywhere else, because CEO front-loaded awards are common.
Division CEO
“CEO, North America” in a title string is not the principal executive officer. That person is typically grouped with other NEOs.
On CompensationBase
Company pages and the highest-paid CEOs ranking use the CEO role group. Division CEOs are usually classified as other NEOs. A company can have no current CEO in the latest filing.
Related terms
- Named executive officer
The executives Item 402 requires in the SCT, typically the CEO, CFO, and the next three highest-paid executive officers. CompensationBase’s catalog is S&P 500 named executive officers.
- Chief Financial Officer
The principal financial officer, a required named executive officer. CompensationBase has a dedicated highest-paid CFOs ranking using the same SCT Total as CEOs.
- Total compensation
The headline pay figure CompensationBase ranks and displays: the Summary Compensation Table Total column as filed, not a recomputed sum of the component bars.