Excessive Exec Pay = 399 to 1

Year after year, senior corporate executives seem to grant themselves generous compensation packages that swamp even the highest paid salaried employee.

Much of this typically includes stock awards, diamond encrusted incentive plans, and exclusive pension terms.

In 2021, the average overall CEO to worker compensation ratio was 254 to 1; in 2022, that grew to a ridiculous 399 to 1.

AT&T CEO John Stankey took home $22,915,526 in 2022. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg earned $19,832,750 in 2022. Frontier President and CEO Nick Jeffrey earned $14,736,293. Prudential Chairman and CEO Charles Lowrey earned $18,504,000 in 2022.

However, Frontier Executive Chairman John Stratton earned a Powerball jackpot sized $34,523,484 in 2022 and $48,462,494 in 2021; Stratton was the highest paid across AT&T, Verizon, Frontier, and Prudential Financial, which manages 41,000 Verizon retirees pension assets.

Other top executives at AT&T, Verizon, Frontier, and Prudential didn’t fare so poorly either.

At AT&T, Senior Executive VP and CFO Pascal Desroches earned $11,752,507 in 2022. AT&T COO Jeff McElfresh earned $13,312,646.

Verizon Executive VP and CFO Matthew Ellis took home $9,379,303 in 2022. Verizon Business Group CEO Kyle Malady earned $8,771,116 in 2022.

In its proxy statement, Verizon included several former executives still receiving handsome golden payouts.

Those include Tami Erwin, former Verizon Business Group CEO leaving at the end of 2022, who took home $13,870,203 in 2022 – a sizeable increase from the $8,8,267,794 she received in 2021 – and Manon Brouillette, former Consumer CEO until December 5, 2022, who earned $9,283,602.

Some Frontier execs took pay cuts in 2022 – which wasn’t unexpected given Frontier’s emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early 2021. Somehow Chairman Stratton still had the hutzpah to take $83 million over two years from a communications firm in bankruptcy.

Scott Beasely, their Executive VP and CFO, earned $5,662,960 in 2022 compared to $6,094,141 in 2021. Executive VP and Chief Legal & Regulatory Officer, Mark Nielsen, made $4,314,291 in 2022, down from $6,197,406 in 2021.

Prudential Executive VP and CFO Kenneth Tanji took home $6,438,00 in 2022. Robert Falzon, Vice Chair of Prudential Financial, made $14,803,000.

The Golden Parachute proposal from our Association of BellTel Retirees would seriously curtail ballooning executive comp practices. It is imperative that fellow retirees and all shareowners push back on such ridiculous self-dealing.