How To Manage Your Recommenders

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Highest Paid MBA CEOs

Pop quiz: Which MBA program has the highest paid CEO?

Harvard? Think I’d ask if it were that simple?

Wharton? Nope, it’s not a financial.

Stanford? That’s right. And here’s the best part: This grad’s $32 million dollar compensation package comes from (gasp) an entertainment and cable company.

According to research produced by Equilar and the Associated Press, Jeff Bewkes – Class of 1977 – is the highest paid MBA CEO. Not bad for a Yale philosophy major who started out as an amateur filmmaker. Now, his company produces television and film, with divisions ranging from Warner Brothers to HBO to HBO and the CW. Not bad for a guy who started out as a poet.

Not surprising, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon cracks the #2 spot (though he makes $5 million dollars less than Bewkes). Dimon earned his MBA (and a wife) from Harvard Business School in 1982, where he was a classmate of General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt. Celgene’s Robert Hugin, a 1985 Darden alum, rounds out the Top 3.

Overall, Harvard placed three CEOs in the top 10. Wisconsin was the lowest-ranked school to produce a Top 10, counting Halliburton’s David Lesar (’78) among its alumni.

Here is the Top 10 list:

Source: TopMBA

The Best-Paying Companies

If you’re heading to business school, you’re probably imagining a six-figure payday. And that’s a strong likelihood if you head to the consulting and financial sectors. If those industries don’t suit you, there’s another high-paying option: Tech.

Recently, USA Today reported on the companies where employees make the highest median incomes. And Juniper Networks, a Sunnyvale, California producer of routers, switches, and security solutions, heads the class at a median of $134,721. They were followed by Netflix ($132,220) and Equinix ($125,000). Overall, 11 of the 13 highest-paying companies were based in tech. While many industries are shedding employees and offering small raises to compete financially, many techs are plying their most talented and institutionally savvy employees with higher wages. USA Today reports that such incentives have been good for investors and the bottom line:

“An equal-weighted index of the 13 companies with the highest median pay is up 24.3% over the past year. That easily outperforms the S&P 500’s 8.8% gain during the same time…Longer term, shares of companies paying the most to employees have paid off for investors, too. The 12 companies with the highest median salaries and at least five years of trading history are up an average 163.1% during that time — beating the S&P 500’s 85.2% gain during the same period.”

Here are the employers paying the most according to a USA Today analysis of Glassdoor data:

Source: USA Today