Walgreens CEO Roz Brewer was the highest paid female CEO in 2021, report says

According to a newly released Equilar study, Walgreens CEO Roz Brewer was the highest paid female chief executive for the 2021 year as she was awarded $28.3 million in compensation, $20.2 million of which came in the form of stock awards.

The study investigated the 100 largest companies by revenue that had filed 2021 proxy statements by March 31. 

Some companies have not yet submitted their proxy statements, but this analysis still gives an early look into how things look for women who are at the top of their companies. In the group Equilar studied, there were nine female CEOs, which was up from six in the same analyzed period of the year prior.

Still, there were no women among the top 10 highest paid CEOs overall. Last year, the top-paid CEO was Intel’s Patrick Gelsinger, who earned $177.9 million, $170 million of which was paid in stock and option awards. 

Next on the list was Apple CEO Tim Cook, who received $98.7 million in compensation, $82.3 million of which was given in stock awards. Cook was followed by Broadcom’s Hock Tan, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Charter Communications’ Tom Rutledge, and Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon.

Brewer, of Walgreens, fell 14th on the list of paid chief executives. The rest of the women fell in 15th, 24th, 29th, 45th, 64th, 78th, 85th, and 87th. 

“It is discouraging to see how underrepresented women are at the top and how overrepresented they continue to be at the bottom of the income scale,” commented Sarah Anderson, an expert in executive compensation at the more progressive think tank Institute for Policy Studies.

Overall, the new data show that CEO pay came back sharply from pandemic lows as companies tended to reward the leaders who stuck around and drove businesses through pandemic difficulties as workers became frustrated. The value of chief executives’ stock-based pay was additionally boosted by a roaring stock market.