Tomorrow's Business Today
The wrong time for higher CEO pay
The usual, predictable debate about CEO pay is being stirred up as the bosses try to persuade us they are worth a lot more money.
The argument goes like this: top level pay is so much lower than it is in America. So, we’re underpaid.
Moreover, we can’t attract the best global talent to work here since they might only get £5 million a year. This is bad for the economy; bad for the rest of you.
How selfless they are; just thinking of us.
In reality, they have it upside down. If these UK CEOs are so good, why aren’t they being poached by those better paying US organisations?
That’s what would happen if it really were a global war for talent/if they really were worth £20m not £5m.
The context here makes this argument seem particularly tone deaf. Ordinary folk, even those in quite good jobs, are struggling.
Moreover, since the banking crash and then the pandemic, businesses have been reliant on the government to get through.
The CEOs have been managers, not entrepreneurs.
An FT column has the CEOs adjusting to “the age of anxiety”.
The killer line is: “Business may complain vehemently in public about tariffs, populism and the risks of industrial policy, but in private leaders know that in future government will play a much bigger role in how companies are run.”
Even the CEOs don’t believe in their own supposed omnipotence, they know that they will be ever more reliant on the state for success.
And that all that stuff about talent in global markets doesn’t really apply.
So why do they need more pay?
I think the dilemma for flaks is how much they want to be seen fighting for this stuff.
Defending the indefensible might be an interesting exercise, I suppose.
But perhaps the senior flak does what she has done for her CEO many times in the past.
Whispered in the ear: don’t take that massive bonus just now.
It will look, really, really bad.
Press release of the day
Most banks are likely to be fined for regulatory failures as they fall behind in their digital transformation, says Gresham Technologies.
Its report is based on US banks but is likely to apply equally here.
Data integrity, privacy, is plainly going to one of the biggest problems banks face.
With its old, overlapping systems at the mercy of clever hackers.
Digital transformation really isn’t as good as we were promised, in almost any field.
4) Old voters gain power across the world. WSJ
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