The appointment of Qantas Group CFO Vanessa Hudson as the carrier’s next CEO post-Alan Joyce answered a major question, but now comes a fresh batch of queries — specifically regarding her salary and whatever additional financial bonuses she could soon be enjoying.
As per The Sydney Morning Herald, the incoming chief executive will be taking home a base salary of $1.6 million from November onwards with the potential to unlock total annual compensation somewhere in the airspace of $5.8 million (depending on whether Qantas hits certain operational and share price targets).
Hudson will also be entitled to four long-haul and 12 short-haul trips each calendar year.
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For comparison, Vanessa Hudson’s base salary will be 25% less than the $2.2 million Alan Joyce is currently being paid; while her target total remuneration figure currently sits at about 30% lower than her predecessor’s $8.4 million. Although this is by no means an anomaly.
Similar to Hudson, Joyce received 24% less than his own predecessor, Geoff Dixon, when he first took the reins of Qantas back in 2008. And if you find yourself feeling sorry for the bloke, let’s stop you right there.
Given Joycey deferred his long-term incentives for the past three years, he’ll be collecting a juicy $15.2 million sum at the conclusion of this financial year with the possibility of another $4.5 million in short-term bonuses pending the Qantas board’s assessment come August.
“He will also receive 698,000 Qantas shares, worth more than $4 million, which will vest on June 30 under the airline’s 2022-23 recovery retention plan. Joyce looks set to cash in a further 1,349,000 shares under the airline’s 2021-23 long-term incentive scheme,” notes Amelia McGuire of the SMH.
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Vanessa Hudson won’t just mark the 13th Qantas CEO in 103 years, but the first-ever female chief executive. When the long-awaited announcement was finally made, chairman Richard Goyder had the following to say:
“A lot of thought has gone into this succession and the Board had a number of high-quality candidates to consider, both internally and externally. Vanessa has a deep understanding of this business after almost three decades in a range of roles both onshore and offshore across commercial, customer and finance. She has a huge amount of airline experience and she’s an outstanding leader.”
Now check out the companies that are paying Aussie graduates the big bucks (and the ones that aren’t) as outlined in the article here.
