Alberta Executive Compensation Report – 2004

Nov 1, 2004

Should you get your full salary because you only brought in half of what you were supposed to? What we are seeing is that employers are saying “No.” The trend is to pay you according to your results

For the third year, Alberta Venture has conducted an extensive survey on the compensation practices in the provinces corporate suites. We surveyed 722 human resource managers across the province to find out not only what com-panies pay their Alberta-based executive staff but also what compensation policies they have in place to motivate, retain and attract their employees. The survey looks at a wide range of policies, from vacation entitlement and salary review to annual bonuses and stock option plans.

The trends are telling. The upswing in corporate fortunes in Alberta has seen a commensurate jump in the salaries of the provinces senior executives. The increase from 2002 to 2004 in the median salary of the chief executive officer is 11.7%, to $231,300. Compared to 24% in 2003, only 14% of the CEOs in 2004 did not see an increase of any kind. Further, projections for increases within the next fiscal year for the provinces CEOs have gone from 3.9% to 5.9%. The highest projected increase for an executive officer is 11%.

Alberta CEOs are also being offered some very lucrative compensation packages, with incentives such as annual bonuses and exercised stock options clocking in as high as $1,890,000 and $793,000, respectively.

Not surprisingly, public companies with the most employees and the highest annual revenues easily came out ahead in the majority of cases. The industries on the top of pay packet are the ones that have seen the most vibrant growth over the past year the resource sectors, construction and retail.

For highest paid positions other than CEO, chief information/technology officers came out on top, with a median salary of $165,000. COOs had a median pay of $160,000, with CFOs coming in next at $133,700.

More detailed information is included in the charts and analysis on the following pages. If you have any suggestions for next years survey, please send them via e-mail to feedback@albertaventure.com

November 2004 Contents

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