Dive Brief:
- Tech companies are among the hottest places to work — especially when it comes down to compensation. VPs of sales and chief marketing officers earned the highest compensation between base salaries and bonuses, around $300,000, followed by chief revenue officers, CIOs and CEOs, according to a Comparably study of around 7,000 C-level executives in tech companies. CTOs on average had the lowest average base salary and smallest likelihood of receiving a bonus.
- Across all C-level positions, women earned less than men, with the largest disparity of 30% in the CIO category. The pay disparity was 1% between male and female CTOs.
- Asian/Pacific Islanders and Caucasians swept highest pay in most executive positions. Hispanic/Latino workers, however, were the second-highest paid ethnicity among CIOs and highest paid among COOs. African-Americans were the lowest-paid across positions.
Dive Insight:
While cracking the highest echelons of business leadership is a feat for any worker, not all C-suite positions are created equal. Salaries prove that even the top-dog CEO can fall behind IT, operations and sales executives when it comes to driving change for a business.
New C-suite positions are cropping up every day, and while many won't stick the role of the chief digital officer looks to be staking deep roots in business organization. The growing prominence of CDOs comes alongside a shift in traditional technology leadership and responsibilities.
While CIOs, CTOs and CDOs may hold different titles in five years, the necessity of transformational technology leadership for a business cannot be overstated. Technology capabilities and prowess are a business imperative, and business leaders need to build and fail fast, change norms, embrace automation and support microservices.
These challenges cannot be met by failing to address the glaring disparities in executive leadership. Boards need to prioritize diversity and equality in their composition and compensation. A diverse workforce is shown to be more productive, and businesses that effectively close gender, racial and ethnic divides often lead from the top-down.
