Why CEOs Make So Much Money

1. What are the responsibilities of a CEO?
The CEO is the main responsible of the company financial performance and the most important decision maker of a company in everything related with processes, staff or future orientation and objectives of the business.

2. Why should they be paid a lot? Is this fair?
Theoretically the CEO is the most important factor of the company success but, as said in the article, the impact of a CEO on company performance is not measurable. If the performance of the company is positive and big, it is fair that all the people who are working on it to have a good reward to make it possible. In an ideal world this reward will be linked to the contribution made by each one of their contributors. But we do not live in an ideal world and in the real one usually CEOs earn an enormous amount of money for their job (not always related to the proportional performance of the company where they work) and the other members of the staff do not receive any compensation. It is unfair.

3. Would you like to become the CEO of a company one day? If so, what kind of top boss would you be like? If not, for what reasons?
No, I wouldn’t like to become the CEO of a company. Never. For me this kind of job is linked to a “political” way of working (dinner with this person, go lunch with the other, smile to someone that you really don’t like) and to a numerical way of thinking (companies are based on numbers, for many CEOs the people on the company staff, workers, are numbers and they do not have any problem to forget that they are persons with different stories and needs in their backs. They don’t have any problem to cut the staff if it is needed). I prefer to be more human, less-political and work in the subject that I love, focused on the work to do, not on the numbers to achieve.

4. Do you agree or disagree that CEOs are the most important factor of success of a company hence, they should be paid the highest?
The CEO is a very important piece in a company and an important factor of the success or failure of the company. Perhaps not the most important (because a CEO can’t do the workers work wich is what the companies “sell”) but usually, is the main decision maker and the first responsible of every step of the company. For this reason, I agree that the CEO, who leads the company, should be well paid and could have a bonus linked to the company performance BUT a salary with common sense, proportional to the CEO contribution to the company and comprensible for the rest of the staff and population in general!

5. What do you know about the CEO of your company?
I only know the CEO of the Barcelona’s office. I work in a huge WorldWide Advertising Agency and I know the name of the Global CEO, the EMEA CEO but I only have read memo’s from them and have seen them in webinars. My local CEO is a warm and close person. I talk to him daily. He’s not the “typical” CEO but, as many others, he knows how to be really diplomatic with every client, he are always in touch with all clients and prospects and, if the numbers went wrong, he has the coldness/capacity to decide where to cut!