Salary Surveys

The Top Management and Executive Compensation Survey provides market-based pay data for 51 executive benchmark jobs. Input for the survey is received from both public and private organizations located all over the United States. For the 2023 edition of this survey, 3,524 organizations were surveyed in over 400 U.S. cities.

Two pages of information are reported for each benchmark position in this report. Every position includes a description of responsibilities, as well as estimates for reasonable base salary and annual discretionary variable cash. For top executive positions, survey results for stock and option awards, and payouts pursuant to performance-based cash plans are provided as well.

Compensation Elements

Annual Compensation

• Base Salary
• Discretionary Cash Bonus
• Non-equity Incentives

Long-Term Incentives

• Full-value Stock Awards
• Appreciation Option Awards

Total Direct Compensation

• Annual cash compensation plus the grant-date value of long-term equity imcentives

Revenue Groups

The participants for this survey were separated into four groups according to total revenue. The revenue groups are defined as the following:

• Small Business - Annual revenue less than $25 million
• Medium Business - Annual revenue between $25 million and $250 million
• Large Business - Annual revenue between $250 million and $1 billion
• Enterprise - Annual revenue greater than $1 billion

The survey report may be purchased in any combination of revenue groups.

Survey information is solicited through email and online questionnaires. Each data submission is thoroughly screened by our team of experienced researchers prior to inclusion in a survey. No attempt is made to alter incumbent data as reported other than to normalize collected compensation amounts to a common date. Data collection begins October and ends on March. Survey results are published annually in August, with an effective data date of March 31 of the given survey year.