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MPWMost Powerful Women

This Is the Highest-Paid Exec on Fortune’s 2016 Most Powerful Women List

Kristen Bellstrom
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Kristen Bellstrom
Kristen Bellstrom
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Kristen Bellstrom
By
Kristen Bellstrom
Kristen Bellstrom
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September 14, 2016, 1:39 PM ET

No one says being a woman at the top of corporate America is easy, but there are some—very, very big—perks.

For the 33 executives on the 2016 Fortune Most Powerful Women list whose data is publicly available, the median pay package in 2015 was $10.7 million, according to executive data provider Equilar. Together, the top five best-paid women made a total of $161.3 million.

Coming in at the top of that pay pyramid is Oracle (ORCL) co-CEO Safra Catz, who took home a whopping $53.2 million in 2015. She is trailed by Alphabet (GOOG) CFO Ruth Porat—who also bears the distinction of being the highest-paid non-chief executive on our list ($31.1 million), and GM (GM) CEO Mary Barra ($28.6 million).

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Catz has been a fixture on lists of the highest-paid female executives for years. Her 2015 comp rose to the top thanks in large part to her stock and option awards, which totaled $52.3 million—far exceeding those of any other woman on the list.

Interestingly, Oracle shareholders have not been happy about the company’s executive compensation strategy recently—they have voted against against the pay packages four consecutive times.

Breaking down the executives’ total pay into its various components reveals a couple other notable details. When it comes to base salary, GM’s Barra comes in at No. 1 with a base of $1.8 million. PepsiCo (PEP) chief Indra Nooyi rules when it comes to performance-based bonuses, raking in $13.9 million in 2015.

This year’s Most Powerful Women actually made slightly less overall than the 2015 class, who had a median comp of $12.1 million. Much of that shift can be marked to changes for two executives.

Apple (AAPL) retail boss Angela Ahrendts, who took home the best-paid title last year, dropped to No. 4 overall— $25.8 million. That’s a big difference from the $73.4 million she took home in 2014, when Apple offered her a deluxe deal to lure her away from her previous post as CEO of Burberry.

Then there’s Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Marissa Mayer, who was the runner-up in pay last year with $42.1 billion. Mayer dropped off the MPW list this year, so her reported 2015 pay of nearly $36 million isn’t there to buttress the media figure.

Here’s the full list, which includes every MPW whose 2015 comp data is publicly available:

mpw-highest-paid

 

 

About the Author
Kristen Bellstrom
By Kristen Bellstrom
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