While chief executives at a lot of Wall Street firms have been making obscene amounts of money this last year, executives at 560 private technology companies had their salaries increase by just 3.3% on average year over year from 2009 to 2010.
This is according to the results of the 11th annual Compensation and Entrepreneurship survey and study that was released today and conducted by J. Robert Scott and Ernst & Young LLP in collaboration with Professor Noam Wasserman at Harvard Business School (for those that have not heard of them, J. Robert Scott is a boutique, retainer-based executive search firm).
Again, we are talking about C-level, non-founder executives at 560 private technology companies, among which nearly 85% have fewer than 75 employees.
The average base salary in 2010 for non-founder chief executives at those firms was $235,000, compared to $230,000 in 2009 (still, not bad work if you can get it).
Bonuses for this set were at a near-historic low for the survey.
Non-founder C-suite executives at technology companies surveyed received only 56% of their target bonus in 2009, with non-founder CEOs specifically receiving an average of $53,000, down from $61,000 in 2008.
That is a 15% decrease year over year on average.
In total, more than 750 privately-held, emerging technology and life sciences companies throughout the United States took part in the survey. I left off the details here from the life sciences side of things (Results are available at the
11th annual Compensation and Entrepreneurship study site online.)
The study focused on compensation, bonus and equity packages of the most senior level positions at these firms, including chief executive officer, president/chief operating officer and chief financial officer.
“While salaries did increase for executives at both technology and life sciences firms in 2010, average increases are lower year over year than we have historically found. In fact, the average annual increase in salary over the past 10 years has been five percent,” said Aaron Lapat in a prepared statement. He is a managing director with J. Robert Scott.
“Although the rate of growth for these salaries has not returned to pre-recession levels, it is substantially higher this year than last, when we saw technology executives on average receive no raise at all," he added.
The results will be discussed in detail today by professionals at J. Robert Scott and Ernst & Young LLP during a webcast today, at 1:30 p.m. EDT.
Webcast participants will discuss how life sciences and technology companies have reacted to the state of the economy and what the future might hold for these venture capital-backed companies.
Click this link:
11th annual Compensation and Entrepreneurship survey and study webcast discussion to register for the webcast or visit the archive afterward.
For additional information visit
J. Robert Scott and
Ernst & Young online.
