Despite many CEOs cutting their base salaries last year due to the pandemic, those moves had little effect on overall CEO pay, according to an annual report from the nonprofit shareholder advocacy group As You Sow.
For its report, As You Sow evaluated CEO pay at S&P 500 companies. The nonprofit used data to compute what CEO pay would be assuming such pay is related to cumulative shareholder return. In its methodology, a ranking of companies by excess CEO pay and by shareholder votes on CEO pay are each weighted at 40 percent. The final ranking based on CEO-to-worker pay ratio is weighted at 20 percent.
As You Sow notes some CEOs may no longer hold the positions listed below, as the rankings were calculated using data made available before June 30, 2021.
Here are the 17 healthcare CEOs who made As You Sow's list:
Leonard Schleifer, MD, PhD (Regeneron Pharmaceuticals)
Pay: $135.35 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 933:1
Excess pay: $121.68 million
Javier Rodriguez (DaVita)
Pay: $73.43 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 1,137:1
Excess pay: $59.8 million
Alex Gorsky (Johnson & Johnson)
Pay: $29.58 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 365:1
Excess pay: $15.95 million
Michael Neidorff (Centene)
Pay: $24.96 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 362:1
Excess pay: $10.94 million
Ari Bousbib (IQVIA Holdings)
Pay: $25.58 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 266:1
Excess pay: $10.64 million
Stefano Pessina (Walgreens Boots Alliance)
Pay: $17.48 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 524:1
Excess pay: $4.82 million
Marc Casper (Thermo Fisher Scientific)
Pay: $26.39 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 367:1
Excess pay: $11.57 million
David Wichmann (UnitedHealth Group)
Pay: $17.87 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 321:1
Excess pay: $3.25 million
Larry Merlo (CVS Health)
Pay: $23.04 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 414:1
Excess pay: $9.99 million
Alan Miller (Universal Health Services)
Pay: $13.25 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 305:1
Excess pay: $65,412
Samuel Hazen (HCA Healthcare)
Pay: $30.4 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 556:1
Excess pay: $15.93 million
Steven Collis (AmerisourceBergen)
Pay: $14.3 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 241:1
Excess pay: $649,253
Michael Kaufmann (Cardinal Health)
Pay: $14.22 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 261:1
Excess pay: $1.35 million
Michel Vounatsos (Biogen)
Pay: $18.66 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 120:1
Excess pay: $5.03 million
Robert Ford (Abbott Laboratories)
Pay: $20.45 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 266:1
Excess pay: $5.74 million
David Cordani (Cigna)
Pay: $19.93 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 304:1
Excess pay: $6.04 million
Brian Tyler (McKesson)
Pay: $14.84 million
CEO-to-worker pay ratio: 334:1
Excess pay: $1.7 million