S&P 500 CFOs vs. CEOs: Bigger Bonuses, Smaller Pay Drops

If one were to choose any executive hot seat in the S&P 500 right now, the Chief Financial Officer job might be the way to go. Though they make less overall than their counterparts in the CEO suite, CFOs have proven more resilient in terms of avoiding big pay drops and reaping bigger bonuses in these turbulent times. Equilar’s new study shows that CFOs’ median total pay only fell 3.1 percent (versus 7.9 percent for CEOs) while their bonuses jumped a jaw-dropping 20.9 percent (versus only an 8.5 percent boost for CEOs). The industries with well-paid CFOs include Conglomerates (the highest-paying, with median comp of $4.6 million) and Industrial Goods (which saw the biggest pay jump, rising 9 percent over 2008). Strangely, healthcare, the best-paying industry for small-, mid-, and large-cap CEOs, isn’t much of a hotspot for well-paid CFOs; total pay in that industry declined nearly 25% from 2008 to 2009.

CFOs are also benefiting from the same early-2009 stock grants given to their counterparts, where grant size was often inflated to make up for decreased stock price. Over 85 percent of those options are now in the money. To see all the data, request the report here.