NJ's Highest-Paid CEOs: How Much Do They Make?

At least 13 people get tens of millions of dollars for running New Jersey-based companies, and they're among the richest chief executive officers in the United States.

Equilar and the Associated Press have come out with an annual survey of CEO pay, and NJBIZ carved out the 13 highest-paid New Jersey CEOs from the list. Equilar is a California research company.

Since 2011, Equilar has worked with the Associated Press on the CEO pay survey. The 2017 version identifies trends in compensation awards for CEOs who served in that role at an S&P 500 company for at least two years, as of fiscal year end 2016.

The survey also shows a comparison for year-over-year changes to pay awards for these CEOs.

Nationally, industrial goods companies represented the highest median pay packages in this year’s study at $13.2 million, including firms such as 3M, Caterpillar and GE. Meanwhile, the health care sector, which includes biopharma companies, had the second-highest median CEO pay package at $12.9 million. Utilities CEOs were awarded a median $9.7 million, the lowest of the industry sectors in the study.

New Jersey is known for its pharmaceutical companies, and Alex Gorsky, chief executive officer of Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick, once again topped this list, at $21.86 million.

Here is the New Jersey list, based on 2016 compensation, and the change from 2015:

1. Alex Gorsky, Johnson & Johnson (New Brunswick), $21.86 million, up 3 percent
2. Michael Polk, Newell Brands (Hoboken) $21.68 million, up 51 percent
3. David Cote, Honeywell International (Morris Plains), $18.35 million, down 46 percent;
4. John Strangfeld, Prudential Financial (Newark), $17.61 million, up 6 percent;
5. Kenneth Frazier, Merck (Kenilworth), $17.02 million, down 14 percent;
6. Timothy Ring, C.R. Bard (Murray Hill), $11.88 million, up 6 percent;
7. Stephen Holmes, Wyndham Worldwide (Parsippany), $10.54 million, down 30 percent;
8. Stephen Rusckowski, Quest Diagnostics (Madison), $10.25 million, up 6 percent;
9. Juan Alaix, Zoetis, $9.47 million (Parsippany), up 9 percent.
10. Ralph Izzo, Public Service Enterprise Group (Newark), $9.26 million, up 1 percent;
11. Francisco D’Souza, Cognizant Technology Solutions (Teaneck), $8.26 million, down 31 percent;
12. Scott Stephenson, Verisk Analytics (Jersey City), $6.9 million, up 5 percent;
13. Susan Story, American Water Works (Voorhees), $4.1 million, up 25 percent;

Click here for the national list

Click here for the NJBIZ report