Explosive CEO Pay Unveiled

CLEVELAND, April 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- According to job expert Jeff Christian, founder of executive search firm CTPartners and CEO of Revenue Beast, a revenue acceleration company, "Companies have done their best to hide exploding CEO income over the past few years by keeping salaries and bonuses low or flat but awarding huge stock options.

"With the weak economy and record corporate profits, companies sought to reward their executives for the incredible financial gains realized but at the same time, do their best to avoid appearing greedy at a time of economic turmoil and pain amongst the general working population."

GovernanceMetrics International's Executive Pay Scorecards show that CEO pay increased 27% in 2010 while Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that worker pay increased only 2%.

Christian notes, "During the recession, companies have kept salaries and bonuses low, some CEO's such as Larry Ellison, have even taken salaries of $1, but have been awarded huge stock options.

For example, in a USA Today analysis of 2010 pay of CEO's of S&P 500 companies, Philippe Dauman of Viacom, saw his total compensation increase by 148.6% receiving salary and bonus totaling $13.9 million and stock and options valued at $70.5 million.

"We are back to the days of skyrocketing CEO pay and there's no way to hide it.  Because of increased profits and stock prices, compensation will no longer be able to be hidden in future stock option wealth.  Income for 2011 will be significantly higher," predicts Christian.

"In some cases we may see CEO compensation growing 30-50% as boards will continue to compete for top CEO talent."

"With our rebound will come a huge surge in the need for CEO's as new fast-growth companies outperform their CEO founders who need to be replaced; mandatory retirement ages are enforced; and other large companies need bigger CEO's," says Christian.

Christian adds, "In addition, over the next two to three years we'll continue to see CEO's being recruited to exciting pre-IPO companies in the areas of social media and clean tech."

About Jeff Christian:

Jeff Christian is the founder of executive search firm CTPartners, The Number 12 Foundation, and Revenue Beast.

About Revenue Beast:

Revenue Beast is the only company that has one single mission:  finding the most innovative ways to increase client revenue.  For information go to www.RevenueBeast.com.

SOURCE Jeff Christian