The Best-Paid Women Directors
Although few women serve as corporate board directors, the ones who have made it to the top earn more than their male counterparts. Here are the 10 women board directors with the weightiest paychecks
By Zoe Galland
The Corporate Library, a research group studying corporate governance and executive compensation, released its annual director pay survey on Nov. 13. One of their notable findings: Median compensation for female directors is higher than for male ones -- $120,000 for women, and $104,375 for men.
Despite this positive news, fewer than 11% of corporate directors are female. Google stands out among Silicon Valley companies – most of them have no woman in the executive suite or boardroom. Hewlett-Packard is another exception with six women on the board, though none is among the top 10 best compensated.
The study also found male directors earn more in aggregate than female directors at S&P 500 companies, the MidCaps, and the SmallCaps. Still, the study stated, "Being a director is one of the few jobs in the U.S. economy where the pay differential is reversed."
| Director | Board | Total Compensation |
|---|---|---|
| Ann Mather | $1,704,579 | |
| Mather was crowned the highest earning female director in the Corporate Library study, thanks to the high value of stock and award options that Google vested to her in the past year. She has been on Google's Board of Directors since November, 2005. | ||
| Shirley M. Tilghman | $1,319,698 | |
| The first female president of Princeton University is Google's second-highest paid director. The Corporate Library found male directors on Google's board received far lower compensation than Tilghman and Mather-- about $773,264 on average. | ||
| Gayle E. Wilson | Gilead Sciences | $1,058,139 |
| Laurie L. Fajardo | Hologic | $1,021,026 |
| Jacquelyn M. Ward | Bank of America | $982,528 |
| Although Bank of America is currently suffering the effects of subprime mortgage fallout, the two women directors on its board, Ward and Meredith Spengler made just shy of $1 million in compensation in 2006. | ||
| Meredith R. Spangler | Bank of America | $942,774 |
| Lea Anne Ottinger | Bare Escentuals | $938,722 |
| Debra L. Reed | Genentech | $832,734 |
| Reed, the President and Chief Financial Officer of Sempra Energy in San Diego, was elected to Genentech's board in August, 2005. | ||
| Patricia G. McGinnis | Brown Shoe Company | $754,358 |
| Brown Shoe Company's stores and brands include Famous Footwear, Dr. Scholl's, Naturalizer, and the Web site Shoes.com. McGinnis was elected to Brown Shoe's board of directors in 1999. She is also on the steering committee of George Washington University 's Homeland Security Policy Institute. | ||
| Catherine P. Lego | SanDisk Corporation | $723,181 |
| Lego was director of SanDisk from1989 to 2002, and returned to the board in May, 2004. | ||