Compensation for chief info officers is rising by double digits as corporations search out leaders who can exploit tech’s rising enterprise potentialities, a development that solely accelerated throughout the pandemic.
For this yr, common CIO salaries leapt 21% to $287,500 from final yr, in line with information from staffing agency Mondo. Skilled CIOs at giant corporations, nonetheless, can anticipate to earn $350,000 in base wage, up from $300,000 final yr, the info exhibits.
Mondo pulls and analyzes information from 2,500 U.S. placements it makes yearly, after which pairs that information with insights from expertise specialists within the subject.
Mondo estimates that salaries for chief info safety officers rose on the similar fee as these for CIOs—21%—between this yr and final. Against this, it estimates that salaries for chief advertising and marketing officer roles elevated 15% in the identical interval.
Specialists attribute the wage hike to the more and more important position of the CIO inside enterprise. For the reason that onset of Covid-19, company tech leaders have needed to speed up initiatives across the cloud, automation and the availability chain, whereas smoothing the shift to distant and hybrid work.
“Extra corporations are realizing the worth of bringing expertise and deeper expertise into their corporations,” mentioned
Scott Spradley,
government vp and chief expertise and automation officer at
Tyson Meals Inc.
“And they also’re prepared to pay extra as a result of they understand it impacts the underside line.”
Marianna Tessel,
government vp and chief expertise officer of
Intuit Inc.
since 2019, mentioned the pandemic accelerated the development. “Expertise was pushed extra into the highlight,” she mentioned.
Traits round cloud computing have additionally taken the CIO position out of the again workplace and “nearer to the character of the enterprise itself,” mentioned
Edward Stadolnik,
a associate and chief of the North America expertise and digital officer follow at Spencer Stuart.
Milind Wagle,
CIO of digital infrastructure firm
Equinix Inc.,
mentioned that CIOs at present are anticipated to be each tech and enterprise leaders. “There’s a convergence of enterprise and IT technique greater than ever earlier than,” he mentioned.
“Undoubtedly [these]roles have gotten extra strategic,” mentioned Ms. Tessel. That’s as a result of “expertise is changing into a part of all the things we do.”
Though Ms. Tessel’s base wage dropped to $700,000 in fiscal 2021 from $726,923 in fiscal 2020, her whole compensation elevated to $12,692,385 from $11,016,322, largely resulting from a rise in inventory awards, public filings with the Securities and Trade Fee present.
Public corporations are required to report the compensation of their highest-paid executives to the SEC. CIOs and different tech chiefs more and more are showing in these filings, mentioned
Dennis Baden,
world managing associate of the expertise officers follow at
Heidrick & Struggles.
Proxy filings from
Visa Inc.
present whole compensation for
Rajat Taneja,
president of expertise, was $17,131,764 in fiscal 2021, up from $14,322,301 the earlier yr and $11,810,570 in fiscal 2019. His base wage over the 2 years rose to $1,100,019 from $900,047.
“As one of many core pillars of our firm technique, the expertise group is a vital blueprint for Visa’s long-term success,” Mr. Taneja mentioned.
Rajesh Kalathur,
president of John
Deere
Monetary and CIO of Deere & Co., obtained $6,307,975 in whole compensation in fiscal 2021, in line with SEC filings, barely under the $6,512,641 he earned in fiscal 2020, however up from the $5,437,459 he earned in fiscal 2019. His base wage rose to $818,855 in 2021 from $721,732 in 2019.
The corporate mentioned Mr. Kalathur was not obtainable for remark.
Disparities between provide and demand are additionally driving up CIO salaries, recruiters mentioned.
“Candidly, I’ve by no means seen a market just like the one we’re in proper now,” mentioned
Craig Stephenson,
Korn Ferry
senior shopper associate and managing director, North America CIO/CTO Observe, including that CIOs are being provided wage will increase of over 30% to leap from one firm to a different.
Tyson’s Mr. Spradley says the variety of recruiter calls has “gone up considerably.”
Prasad Ramakrishnan,
CIO at software program firm
Freshworks,
mentioned he will get two to a few recruiter calls a month. “A few of them are so persistent,” he mentioned.
When
Tom Peck
left his put up as chief info and digital officer at Ingram Micro Inc. to take up the identical job at
Sysco Corp.
in January 2021, he clinched a base wage of $325,000, in line with SEC filings. His whole compensation final yr was $3,526,544 and included $39,306 in bills for relocation to Houston.
The corporate mentioned Mr. Peck was not obtainable for remark.
Mr. Stephenson mentioned the upper valuation corporations are placing on CIOs is trickling right down to tech expertise all through the group. Salaries for cybersecurity roles and chief info safety officers are rising at charges much like these for CIOs, he mentioned.
In accordance with
Emmeline Kuhn,
who co-leads the operations and IT follow at government search agency Leathwaite, “These roles are undoubtedly changing into extra valued.”
Write to Isabelle Bousquette at [email protected]
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