Fortunate 50

Post-Gazette's Fortunate 50

You already know the region's top 50 highest compensated public company executives get paid more than you do, but here are the details.

Total compensation for the Pittsburgh region's top 50 highest compensated public company executives rose 11% in 2018, driven primarily by strong corporate profits and meeting other short-term financial goals set by company boards, according to a Post-Gazette analysis of company filings. Even as stock prices fell on global market and trade concerns, companies still performed well enough to justify a 45% increase in short-term incentive pay in 2018. Incentive pay made up about a fifth of the compensation for Pittsburgh-area executives.

1. William S. Demchak
Chairman, president and CEO
PNC Financial Services Inc.

Total compensation: $15.7 million

Mr. Demchak has been the Downtown-based bank’s chairman, president, CEO since April 2014 — adding those three separate titles over a three-year period. His total compensation includes a $4.4 million annual performance bonus, the largest of all the top-paid executives. A mainstay on the Fortunate 50, Mr. Demchak’s total pay in 2018 was up 13% from the year before and up 19% from 2016. He made 232 times the salary of the median PNC worker, a ratio that rose from 201:1 in 2017.

2. Heather Bresch
CEO, Mylan

Total compensation: $13.3 million

Ms. Bresch has served as CEO of the Canonsburg-based pharmaceutical giant since 2012. She has the second-highest guaranteed base salary — $1.3 million — of any executive on the Fortune 50, and she tacked on an annual performance bonus of $2.6 million in 2018. Her pay was up 5% from the previous year but decreased by 3% from 2016. Ms. Bresch made 315 times what the median Mylan worker earned in 2018, about the same ratio as 2017. She is routinely the highest-paid woman on the list each year; in 2018, she made more than double the second-highest-paid woman, Jennifer M. Foyle, a global brand president for American Eagle Outfitters.

3: Roy C. Harvey
President and CEO, Alcoa Corp.

Total compensation: $13.2 million

Mr. Harvey has been with the North Shore-based aluminum producer since 2002, serving as president and CEO since May 2017. Mr. Harvey illustrates the high risk, high reward of a CEO pay package: He earned most of his pay, about $10.7 million, in estimated stock-based awards in 2018. Just two years prior, as an executive managing Alcoa’s Global Primary Products, he earned $1.3 million from stock. His 2018 pay is about 157 times what the median Alcoa worker earned.

4. Ron Keating
President and CEO, Evoqua Water Technologies

Total compensation: $12.3 million

Mr. Keating leapt onto the Fortunate 50 this year for the first time, soaring near the top of the gilded list by accumulating stock-based awards. He earned the most in stock-based awards, with $11.3 million, of any executive on the list. Mr. Keating has been president and CEO of the Downtown-based water technologies firm since November 2014. 

5. Michael McGarry
Chairman and CEO, PPG

Total compensation: $11.8 million

During a year in which annual performance bonuses rose, Mr. McGarry saw his decline, pushing him down from #2 on the Fortunate 50 list last year. Mr. McGarry, who became CEO of the Downtown-based coatings company in September 2015 and added chairman of the board the following year, fell short of short-term financial targets, the company disclosed. His total pay fell 17% from 2017. Still, he made 298 times what the median PPG worker earned in 2018.

Daniel Moore: dmoore@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2743 and Twitter @PGdanielmoore