Investor-owned utilities paid their CEOs over $1 billion between 2017 and 2019, according to recently filed corporate data reviewed by the Energy and Policy Institute.
The companies offered their CEOs nearly $450 million in compensation in 2019, a raise of nearly 26% over the previous year. The average compensation for the CEOs was approximately $11 million in 2019. Southern Company’s CEO, Tom Fanning, received approximately $28 million in executive compensation in 2019, making him the highest paid utility CEO last year.
As the first part of a two-part series exploring how the investor-owned electric utilities pay their executives, EPI collected data showing the executive compensation for 41 utility CEOs, presented in the table below.
This list of companies includes all investor-owned electric utility companies that are members of the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association for U.S. investor-owned utilities, and that have reported compensation data to the Securities and Exchange Commission as of April 27, 2020.
In Part II of this series, EPI will examine further compensation data, as well as the incentive structures that are built into utility executives’ compensation plans.
Data are from Summary Compensation Tables published in companies’ 14A or 10-K forms, filed with the Securities and Exchanges Commission. EPI did not include companies that were recently acquired, or subsidiaries of larger companies that operate mostly internationally. (EPI will add any companies that have not yet filed data with the SEC as they file data.)
The table lists the person who was CEO during 2019; in most cases, that person was also CEO in 2017 and 2018. In cases where a different person was CEO in 2017 and/or 2018, the data in earlier years are the compensation received by the former CEO; those figures are in italics and are explained in the notes below the table. When two people were CEO for portions of a single year, we include compensation for the person who was CEO for most of that year. Former CEOs are noted in the table when a company has announced a new CEO since 2019.
Notes for compensation figures received by former CEOs in 2017 and/or 2018:
William Johnson became CEO of PG&E in May 2019, and the 2019 figure is compensation he received. The 2017 and 2018 figures are compensation received by former CEO Geisha Williams.
Kevin Fletcher became CEO of WEC Energy in February 2019, and the 2019 figure is compensation he received. The 2018 figure is compensation received by former CEO Gale Klappa. The 2017 figure is compensation received by former CEO Allen Leverett.
John Larsen became CEO of Alliant in July 2019, and the 2019 figure is compensation he received. The 2017 and 2018 figures are compensation received by former CEO Patricia Kampling.
Maria Pope became CEO of Portland General Electric in January 2018, and figures for 2018 and 2019 are compensation she received. The 2017 figure is compensation received by former CEO Jim Piro.
Thomas Meissner became CEO of Unitil in February 2018, and figures for 2018 and 2019 are compensation he received. The 2017 figure is compensation received by former CEO Robert Schoenberger.
Notes for CEOs that have recently been replaced:
Gerard Anderson was CEO of DTE Energy until July 2019, when Gerardo Norcia became CEO.
Donald Brandt was CEO of Pinnacle West until November 2019, when Jeff Guldner became CEO.
Alan Hodnik was CEO of Allete until February 2020, when . Bethany Owen became CEO.
Scott Morris was CEO of Avista until October 2019, when Dennis Vermillion became CEO.
David Emery was CEO of Black Hills until December 2018, when Linden Evans became CEO. Emery “continues his full-time employment with the Company as Executive Chairman of the Board, through May 1, 2020,” so all figures are compensation he received.
Note on missing data
Berkshire Hathaway Energy did not publish compensation received by Gregory Abel in 2017, and a spokesperson said the company would not provide it.
