Tim Cook, the CEO who took the reigns after Steve Jobs died, was not the top earner at Apple this year. This is a strategy to keep key executives and top employees who helped push Apple to their most recent success. Retaining talent with large compensation packages is seen as a tactic to hold off Samsung and Google who are challenging Apple. For example, Peter Oppenheimer, the Chief Financial Officer, who has the duty to oversee Apple's large cash holdings and investments, earned a total of $68.8 million in compensation.
Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-15/apple-dominates-best-paid-as-board-retains-jobs-deputies.html
2 comments:
I think Apple's strategy to pay its executives increasingly well compared to the rest of the industry is another example of their innovation. Paying the big hitters that could easily move on to other technology giants large sums as incentives to stay seems logical. However I am curious about the huge pay package to the CFO, given that his departure would not damage their fundamental business in the same way the other executives decisions to leave would.
Not only is Apple paying their executives well, but they are doing it in such a way that retains their top executives (ie. stock awards vested over 5 years). But to Chris' point, I am willing to debate that Oppenheimer's desert of pay because he is the most tenured executive of the top 9 having joined in 1996. He has managed to keep Apple's books clean through the introduction of many products that have become wildly successful and others that have tanked. Either way, I think payment of these top minds in the industry is ultimately what the market dictates it to be, and Apple recognizes their worth.
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