As more states require companies to share information on salary transparency, the question of pay equity between executives and workers is being taken up by unions, shareholder activists, and researchers who question why CEO pay has ballooned in recent years.
But the latest batch of executive compensation disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission also reveal some CEOs who (at first glance, at least) have more reasonable pay packages. Urban Outfitters CEO Richard Hayne, for example, takes a token $1 per year, but earns bonuses and other compensation. Still, his pay is fairly equitable compared with his peers on the Russell 3000 Index. Box’s Aaron Levie is also among the reasonably paid by this metric, and the average salary of a worker at his cloud-based content management company earns a nice salary as well. And then there’s Elon Musk who, in his role as CEO of Tesla, appears to be paid like a man of the people.
Of course, in the case of Musk–and other CEOs on this list–a lot depends on when you look at their pay and how you define your terms. While some activists paint the issue as one that’s black and white, many nuances need to be considered. A tech CEO, for instance, might make a salary that some would consider outrageous, but if their employees are also taking home substantial compensation, their CEO can be described as equitable. (Musk, technically, doesn’t draw a salary, but his total pay last year topped $56 billion.) Many—9 of the 15 on this list—are also founders, and may have considerable amounts of stock in the company, rendering further large stock grants unnecessary.
Many of the companies on this list have workers that make relatively large salaries. Tech companies, especially, have median salaries near the top of all the companies on our list—where roughly half the companies have a median salary below $75,000. And sometimes the hard numbers are just part of the story. Activision’s Bobby Kotick, for example, wouldn’t have made this list two years ago, but circumstances at his company led to him taking a voluntary pay cut, making his 2022 compensation much more equitable.
The point is: The top people on this list of the most equitably paid public company CEOs (which is based on reported 2022 compensation) are ranked where they are based on a number of factors. And while it’s nice to see executives who don’t draw a salary that’s light years beyond the people who work for them, their inclusion on this list doesn’t necessary mean they’ve made a moral commitment to economic justice. (For comparison, you can also see the list of the 15 least fairly paid CEOs or a searchable list of the data for more than 2,000 companies in total.)
On that note, in the rankings—compiled by SEC compliance and disclosure intelligence company MyLogIQ—we have chosen to leave out CEOs who paid themselves zero or far below the median employee; though these gestures can be impressive, they can make it difficult to fully understand the scope of CEO pay. (You can, however, find a list of CEOs with avant garde pay at the bottom of this post.)
Ultimately, you’ll have to decide for yourself which CEOs are paid the most reasonably based on a wide variety of factors (which can vary depending on what’s important to you), but here are the 15 CEOs of companies on the Russell 3000 Index who, according to reported numbers, have the smallest ratio between their pay and the earnings of their median worker, based on their 2022 total compensation:
1: Applovin (APP)
CEO: Adam Foroughi
2022 Compensation: $104,355
Median employee salary: $139,502
Pay ratio: 1:1
Foroughi actually makes about $35,000 less per year than the median employee salary at this mobile app technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, a rarity among leaders. While other execs at the company receive a more traditional C-level package, the cofounder keeps his own salary low, as he also owns roughly 36% of the company’s shares (and increased his net worth by selling more than 7 million shares in the past year).
2: Airbnb (ABNB)
CEO: Brian Chesky
2022 Compensation: $311,233
Median employee salary: $236,240
Pay ratio: 1:1
Chesky isn’t just the CEO of Airbnb, he’s likely its biggest customer, living full-time in a rotation of properties last year. (He also listed his home on the site for others to stay at.) Despite that, he only earned about $75,000 more than the average employee. He owns 11% of the company’s shares, but hasn’t sold any in the past year.
3: Doximity (DOCS)
CEO: Jeffrey Tangney
2022 Compensation: $243,726
Median employee salary: $175,129
Pay ratio: 1:1
San Francisco-based Doximity brings medical professionals together, but its CEO and cofounder bridges the wage gap with workers, by taking compensation that’s just a small step above the median. The company made recent cuts that saw 10% of the workforce cut as its revenue slowed due to falling sales to pharmaceutical companies.
4: Box (BOX)
CEO: Aaron Levie
2022 Compensation: $273,579
Median employee salary: $195,638
Pay ratio: 1:1
Levie is CEO and cofounder of the cloud company, but his 2022 salary was just 40% more than the average worker, though he also owns more than 3 million shares of the company's stock, valued at more than $80 million.
5: Franklin Street Properties (FSP)
CEO: George J. Carter
2022 Compensation: $306,000
Median employee salary: $205,593
Pay ratio: 1:1
The real estate investment trust’s stock has been taking a beating this year, down more than 30% year to date. Investors aren’t likely to call for Carter’s head quite so fast, though, as he took 2022 compensation that was less than $100,000 above that of the average employee—and the overall commercial real estate market has continued to be soft since the end of the pandemic.
6: Take Two Interactive Software (TTWO)
CEO: Strauss Zelnick
2022 Compensation: $115,015
Median employee salary: $75,276
Pay ratio: 2:1
Zelnick's salary from video game company Take-Two was roughly 50% above the median employee salary. But it is worth noting that Zelnick—the former chairman and CEO of 20th Century Fox—also receives compensation from ZMC, a management company he co-owns, which is based on company performance. Zelnick and TTWO president Karl Slatoff, split nearly $72.4 million there last year.
7: Activision Blizzard (ATVI)
CEO: Robert A. Kotick
2022 Compensation: $178,882
Median employee salary: $106,974
Pay ratio: 2:1
Kotick took home a tiny salary for leading a company that posted $8.8 billion in revenue last year. That’s, in part, due to a 99.9% pay cut he pledged to take in 2021, following an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment at the company. And, presuming Activision’s merger with Microsoft closes later this year, he could walk away with a $68.7 billion payday.
8: Apollo Global Management (APO)
CEO: Marc Rowan
2022 Compensation: $310,011
Median employee salary: $170,035
Pay ratio: 2:1
Generally, the executives who run a private equity firm bring in salaries in the millions, but Rowan—who has made billions as a cofounder of Apollo for the last three decades—took in just shy of twice what the average employee makes. It wasn’t an aberration, either. For the previous two years, he has kept his total compensation low, as shares prices have climbed. Year to date, Apollo’s stock is up more than 38%.
9: Okta (OKTA)
CEO: Todd McKinnon
2022 Compensation: $412,190
Median employee salary: $233,825
Pay ratio: 2:1
McKinnon founded the cloud security company in 2009, leaving behind a job as vice president at Salesforce. While Okta has grown into a powerhouse and is currently investing in AI, he has kept his salary at a fairly low level for a member of the C-suite, roughly twice that of the median employee salary.
10: Harmony Biosciences Holdings (HRMY)
CEO: John C. Jacobs
2022 Compensation: $514,752
Median employee salary: $242,169
Pay ratio: 2:1
Jacobs led Harmony through an IPO and shepherded its first product through the FDA review and approval process. Last year, though, he only took home a little more than twice that of the average employee. He’s likely to get a big raise in 2023, though, as he left Harmony in January to become CEO of Novavax.
11: Amplitude (AMPL)
CEO: Spenser Skates
2022 Compensation: $450,000
Median employee salary: $205,669
Pay ratio: 2:1
The 35-year-old founder of this cloud analytics company, which is valued at $1.5 billion, took home a little more than twice what his average employee made. He was one of the youngest CEOs to take a company public—and while the stock hasn’t held up especially well (falling 77% since its debut), he has defended the decision to go public, saying Amplitude would be in a “world of hurt” if it hadn’t made the leap.
12: National Research Corp. (NRC)
CEO: Michael D. Hays
2022 Compensation: $181,173
Median employee salary: $79,482
Pay ratio: 2:1
If you’ve ever gotten a phone call after a hospital visit asking about your quality of care, odds are it was NRC on the other end of the line. Hayes founded the company in 1981 and has run it ever since. Despite that long tenure, his compensation last year came in at just over twice the median employee salary.
13: Veeva Systems (VEEV)
CEO: Peter P. Gassner
2022 Compensation: $391,667
Median employee salary: $163,572
Pay ratio: 2:1
Gassner founded this cloud-computing company and has run it since 2007. He owns over 10% of Veeva’s stock (which recently hit a 52-week high), but opts to take a fairly minimal compensation package, which is a little less than 2.5 times that of the median employee salary.
14: Alexanders (ALX)
CEO: Steven Roth
2022 Compensation: $175,188
Median employee salary: $60,964
Pay ratio: 3:1
This New York-based real estate investment trust (REIT) is just one of Steven Roth’s jobs. He’s also the founder and chairman of Vornado Realty Trust and Managing General Partner at Interstate Properties, where he makes nearly $10 million, at a much less charitable ratio of 132 times his average employee. That might be why his Alexanders salary is as low as it is. Roth brings home a fairly token salary from the REIT, about three times the average employee pay.
15: Brightsphere Investment Group (BSIG)
CEO: Suren Rana
2022 Compensation: $700,000
Median employee salary: $243,450
Pay ratio: 3:1
Rana oversees over $100 billion in assets at Brightsphere, but his 2022 compensation was well under $1 million, coming in at about three times that of the median salary of Brightsphere employees. Prior to taking over the company in 2020, Rara served as chief financial officer. The stock price has nearly quadrupled since he assumed the CEO role.
As noted above, some CEOs pay themselves $0, $1, or some other nominal fee for their services (for a variety of reasons, both noble and performative). These are those 14 business leaders.
This story is part of Fast Company's CEO Fair Pay Report; click here to read the whole series.
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