What does NZ’s highest-paid CEO earn?

Which NZ business leader takes home an annual pay package worth more than $4m?

With a total pay package valued at $4.1 million, David Hisco, CEO of ANZ New Zealand, has been revealed at the most handsomely paid boss in the country.
 
Hisco’s remuneration for the 2013 financial year topped the list in the Business Herald's executive pay survey, with his $4.1m package including an increase of 14 per cent on the $3.6m he received in 2012.
 
This pay revelation – which indicates that Hisco earned more than $11,000 a day in the 2013 financial year, taking home an average annual Kiwi salary in just one week – comes as union members at ANZ consider industrial action over the bank’s proposal to place some workers on flexible contracts.
 
Robert Reid, general secretary of the First Union, which represents ANZ staff, said Hisco’s generous remuneration was “beyond belief”.
 
“That kind of pay is just beyond belief for both people that work for those organisations, and also for the general public,” Reid told The NZ Herald.
 
“No one person can be worth that amount of money.”
 
However, he’s not the only CEO in New Zealand to bank a seriously sizeable salary.
 
Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings slid into the number two spot with a remuneration package of $3.5m, while Fletcher Building boss Mark Adamson ranked third with $3.3m.
 
Former Westpac New Zealand chief executive Peter Clare banked $3.1m, and SkyCity Entertainment CEO Nigel Morrison rounded out the top five with a total remuneration just shy of $3m, at $2.98m.
 
Noticeably absent in the top five biggest earners were any women.
 
"I am confident that there are a number of women coming through senior executive ranks across the country but yes, at the moment women are under-represented at a chief executive level,” confirmed Joan Withers, former Fairfax Media chief executive and current Mighty River Power chairwoman.
 
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