There’s no doubt that CEOs earn hefty salaries, but where do they earn the most? According to George Erb of The Seattle Times, CEOS in the Northwest received the highest salaries in 2015.
CEOs in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho were compared to the rest of the U.S. in The 2016 Seattle Times/Equilar CEO Compensation Study. The study found that the median pay for a public company CEO in the Northwest increased 34% in 2015 to $2.1 million. This was an impressive raise considering that, in most states, the pay for CEOs leveled off or even fell.
In fact, the two best-paid CEOs live in Seattle’s largest suburb. Dara Khosrowashahi, the CEO of Expedia, earned the most with $94.6 million in 2015. Coming in second was Jon Legere, the CEO of T-Mobile US, who earned $24.4 million in 2015.
While there’s no apparent reason that Northwest CEOs make more, it may be because there are such a wide variety of corporations that call the three-state region home. Seattle, Portland, and Boise are home to many tech companies and, in particular, the biotech sector is well represented. CEOs in these industries tend to be more richly compensated than their counterparts. In fact, out of the 20 Northwest CEOs with the largest pay increases in 2015, 12 headed tech companies.
Another factor could be the average age of Northwest public companies. “We’re a younger place in general,” Bill Conerly, an economist based in Lake Oswego, told the Seattle Times. “I think there are more new companies in the Northwest. That’s the impression I get.” The reality is that young companies can more easily gain traction to expand and offer bigger rewards for executives.
Compared to the rest of the U.S., the pay for CEOs in the Northwest is surprising. According to a different study by Equilar, for the 200 highest-paid CEOs nationwide, average pay fell by 14.6% last year and the overall growth in median pay for CEOs of S&P 500 companies has slowed since 2014.