Alan Mulally – FordJoeDuck

These CEO’s are taking a pay pounding, some for the good of the company, some because of shareholder and board pressure and some because of lower stock options. These figures are based on information published by the companies, some relate to pay going forward and others for last year. It’s clear that some CEOs are leading the way forward out the of the current economic problems whilst others are being pushed into the pay cuts. Overall, according to Forbes, chief executives of the 500 biggest American companies took an average 11% reduction in overall compensation in 2008.

CEO Pay Cut List 2009

Ford CEO Alan Mulally – 37% Cut of $8.1 million
The ex-Boeing exec takes a big cut but continues to lead Ford through the financial problems.
Source: Auto Blog

Chevron CEO David O’Reilly – 39% Cut of $12.3 million
This drop was mainly down to stock awards, which dropped a massive 58% from 2007.
Source: Mercury News

Macquarie Group CEO Nicholas Moore – 99% Cut of $19.7 million
This Australian CEO saw his pay cut to $A290,756 from $A27 million.
Source: Tradingmarkets

Inverness Medical Innovations CEO Ron Zwanziger – 64% Cut of $3.83 million
Pay was cut in 2008 despite a more than doubling of the company’s revenue, although the company still runs at net loss.
Source: Bizjournals

Constellation Energy CEO Shattuck – 49% Cut of $7.5 million
In the year Constellation lost 80% of it’s stock value its CEO takes a cut of 49%.
Source: Bizjournals

Veolia Environment CEO Henri Proglio – 36% Cut of $1.2 million
This European water company CEO earned 1.62 million euros in 2008 compared with 2.52 million euros in 2007.
Source: Daily Herald

Cognex’s CEO Robert Shillman – 100% Cut of $1.8 million
Faced with laying people off Shillman asked senior managers to slice 10% of their pay. He backed it up with a larger cut to his pay. “And I decided to take a 100 percent cut.”, Shillman said.
Source: Tradingmarkets

United Health CEO Stephen Hemsley – 36% Cut of $1.8 million
United Health said the CEO declined a bonus increase last year due to the challenges in 2008. The proxy said “the challenging economic circumstances” was the issue.
Source: Kare11

Former General Motors Chairman & CEO Wagoner – 50% Cut of $2.2 million
Although Wagoner has now left GM he was due for a 50 percent pay cut. Additionally Vice Chairmen John Devine, Bob Lutz and Fritz Henderson have salary cuts of 30%.
Source: CBSNews

Elan CEO Kelly Martin – 56% Cut of $1 million
According to BNet Kelly Martin earned $830,496 last year, compared to $1.9m the year before.
Source: Bnet

Biosphere Medical CEO Richard Faleschini – 35% Cut of $0.61 million
Losses at this company which makes blood-clotting technologies, grew to $6.07 million in 2008.
Source: Bizjournals

Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd – 20% Cut of $0.28 million
The 20% is misleading as this based (in this case) on base salary only. Last year Hurd’s compensation was $42 million so a drop of $280,000 isn’t going to cause concern.
Source: Siliconbeat

Manpower CEO Jeffrey Joerres – 65% Cut of $2.5 million
This dramatic drop of pay is a sign of the economic times.
Source: Bizjournals

Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly – 10% Cut of $0.065 million
Base pay cut only. This is interesting as the Southwest CEO only had a base level salary rise last July.
Source: Reuters