Pinned straw:
Some people might be surprised to find out that Australia's highest paid boss (CEO/MD) of all listed Aussie companies is actually a Woman, the CEO & MD of MQG, Shemara Wikramanayake.
That's the Good news. The Bad news is that the other 9 on that list above are all men, and that she wasn't even the highest paid executive at Macquarie last year, just the highest paid MD/CEO, as explained below.
Her large payout is in part in thanks to the Macquarie Group’s profit share arrangement, which richly rewards executives when the company does well.
And the listed financial group did do well in 2022, securing net profit of A$4,706 million, 56% up on the year before.
Founded in 1969, Macquarie provides clients with asset management, banking, leasing, advisory and risk and capital solutions. The Sydney-headquartered firm employs more than 18,000 people and has offices in 33 markets globally and A$871 billion assets under management.
Driving the financial group’s success since 2018, Shemara has a three-decade-long career at Macquarie Group, most recently serving as Head of Macquarie Asset Management before taking the CEO role in 2018.
Since joining Macquarie Capital in Sydney in 1987, aged 25, she has worked in six countries and across various business lines, establishing and leading Macquarie’s corporate advisory offices in New Zealand, Hong Kong and Malaysia, and pushing the emerging asset management division of the business to become the bank’s most profitable venture.
Shemara, who is UK-born and of Sri Lankan descent, is the first Asian-Australian woman to head an ASX 200 company and has been instrumental in driving diversity at Macquarie, where at least half of female employees identify as coming from a culturally diverse background, while globally, more than a third of Macquarie female directors identified as ethnically diverse.
Despite this, the firm remains male-dominated, with less than 30% of the senior management ranks female.
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Source: https://businesschief.asia/corporate-finance/these-six-ceos-are-australias-highest-earning-heres-why [27-July-2023]
That top 10 list (of highest paid CEOs/MDs from 2022) above is based on the ASX100 Index, so Australia's largest 100 companies, generally speaking. If you expand that out to the full ASX300 Index, and look at the top 50, Shemara is still at #1, but the Bad news is she is still the only woman on the following list. Well there are two others, Liz Gaines (FMG) who quit that role late last year, and Jeanne Johns from Incitec Pivot (IPL) who left in June this year.
Jeanne Johns was replaced by Paul Victor as an interim CEO at IPL (and he's still in that role today), while the changes at FMG were a little more complicated. Liz was offered a new role as an executive director and global ambassador for Fortescue, and is paid around $1.3 million p.a. for that, and her old CEO job was split into two - Metals and FFI - with the CEO of Fortescue Metals job going to Fiona Hick who left after only 6 months and was replaced by Dino Otranto who had been their head of operations. The other CEO role at FMG was called CEO of FFI (Fortescue Future Industries) and is now called CEO of Fortescue Energy - which includes:
- Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) - Green energy technology and production;
- Fortescue WAE (Williams Advanced Engineering) - Battery and fleet technology development and manufacturing; and
- Fortescue Hydrogen Systems - Electrolyser and hydrogen production systems development and manufacturing.
...and that role was given to Mark Hutchinson.
So while there are three women on the following list of the 50 highest paid CEOs from Australia's largest 300 listed companies (i.e. from the ASX300 Index), only one of those three, Shamara Wikramanayake, is still a CEO or MD today (Shamara is both).
Source: https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/revealed-australia-s-50-highest-paid-ceos-in-2022-20221205-p5c3o6 [9-Dec-2022]
Well done to Shemara obviously - she has done very well - however - while it's great that she tops these lists, it's not too great that all the other CEOs and MDs are men. At least the well paid ones seem to be dominating these lists, and despite a fair amount of progress getting better representation on company Boards, women are not getting anywhere near equal representation in very senior roles within Australian listed companies. I'm am seeing more women CFOs these days and heaps of women are in senior HR, "People" and "Safety" roles, but we do need to see more women CEOs and MDs. I find that many women tend to have superior multi-tasking skills, they are more willing to listen and take other ideas on board and work collaboratively (maybe that's a testosterone and/or ego issue with many men), they tend to have less anger management issues, and from my limited experience with middle-management, they tend to deal with stress more appropriately and effectively. And the good ones also know bullsh!t when they hear or see it and don't accept it. Being a strong, decisive and effective leader doesn't mean you automatically have to be a dick - or have one.
Macquarie chief Shemara Wikramanayake topped the ranks of CEO pay again in 2022. Bloomberg
Further Reading: https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/it-s-despicable-kim-jackson-calls-out-lack-of-funding-for-women-led-companies-20190701-p52333.html
Venture capitalist Kim Jackson wins business award (afr.com)
How I made it podcast: Carolyn Creswell and Carman’s, from checkout chick to $170m empire (afr.com)
Manning Cartell co-founder Gabrielle Manning on how to create a successful fashion brand (afr.com)
Topic | Female Founders | Australian Financial Review (afr.com)
Interesting to see you don’t need to be a profitable business for your CEO to make the list. It would be also interesting to see that list published relative to company profits.