July 2021
CRemuneration
Executive Summary
CEO Remuneration: From COVID to Collaboration
1602 - 8842 Vol. 1 No. 265
Contents
What The Report Covered.
CRemuneration
Executive Summary
www.proshareng.com [email protected] @proshareProshare NigeriaprosharengProshareNGProshare Nigeria
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Executive Summary – Governance meets New World.
Introduction – Breaking into New Ideas and Fresh Realities.
Top 10 CEOs – How the Top Half Get Compensated.
Gender Collaboration – Women and the Corporate Suite.
CEO Remuneration: According to the Trading Board.
Key Findings - Understanding the COVID-19 Work-Life Balance.
The Many Sides of CEO Compensation – Selected Sectoral Analysis of Executive
Rewards.
Conclusion – Work and the Productivity Promise.
Advice to Users of This Report.
Contact
CEO Remuneration: From COVID to Collaboration
Executive Summary
CEO Remuneration: From COVID to Collaboration CRemuneration
Executive Summary
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“Working from home makes it much harder to delineate work time from personal time. I encourage all
of our employees to have a disciplined schedule for when you will work, and when you will not, and to
stick to that schedule.” – Dan Springer, CEO of DocuSign
With COVID-19 still bearing down on several global economies the whole concepts of work, purpose,
collaboration and CEO remuneration are taking on new dimensions requiring fresh insights, new
strategies, and critical rethinking. As DocuSign chief executive officer (CEO), Dan Springer, noted in the
quotation above, the emerging flexible work culture may require some work.
Not only is the workplace in need of a do-over but also corporate structures and management approaches
may need a remake. Organisations are scooting along the transition tarmac from pyramid structures to
flatter engagements with fluid collaborative teams and defined goals. This has been called 'holacracy' or
a working system where teams engage, disengage, and reengage to achieve specific corporate goals and
responsibilities are shared across employees according to required needs to meet specific objectives (see
illustration 1 below).
Governance Meets New World
Illustration 1: From Hierarchy to Holacracy
Holacracy Vs Hierarchy
Source: Mckinsey, Proshare Research, EcographicsCRemuneration
Holacracy takes powers traditionally reserved forexecutives and managers and spreads them acrossall employees.
In a traditional hierarchy, layers of managementestablish how products are approved and monitored.
UPPERMANAGEMENT
MIDDLEMANAGEMENT
STAFF
SUPERVISORS
CEO
SUPER-CIRCLE
One that containssub-circles. This couldbe Marketing.
SUB-CIRCLE
Each is dedicated toa function. This couldbe Digital Advertising.
ROLE
A task related to afunction. This could beSocial Media Producer.
words, continuously improving UX/UI).
In going forward from 2021 several local companies will have to come to terms with the pains of making
the transition from hierarchical organizational structures to organizational structures that are flatter but
significantly more agile and responsive to a setting sprinkled with uncertainty. To cope with the
transition, corporate boards will have to make some key decisions that would involve:
Bringing technology into the organizational mix to facilitate swift responses to changing
customer expectations.
company's products or services by way of experiencing concentric cycles of excellence (in other
Establishing fast feedback loops to guarantee that customers engage interactively with the
Creating moments of continuous corporate adjustments prompted by machine learning (ML)
and artificial intelligence (AI) which become central to corporate performance.
The domestic Nigerian corporation from 2021 would have to rethink, reimagine and restrategize. The
days of the laidback corporate behemoths imposing themselves on consumers are over, companies that
aim for sustainability in today's environment must be nimble, competitive, and imaginative. The absence
of imagination or creativity means being buried in the graveyard of yesterday's giants. In the coming
technological storm, the only shelters for organizations that want to see their logos on corporate
buildings are consumer sensitivity, corporate agility, and market awareness ( ). see illustration 2 below
Supporting workers with learning new ways and unlearning old ones.
The post-COVID-19 age will usher a period where organizations must be agile to survive, hierarchical
structure will have their place but to respond swiftly to the moving corporate and economic pieces
companies will need to work in small and large cohesive clusters to meet either physical production
targets or service delivery standards. Organisations must increasingly become what long-time Royal
Dutch Shell strategist, Aries de Gues called the 'living company'. According to Peter Senge who wrote the
forward to the book of the same title, “Seeing a company as a machine implies that it will run down
unless it is rebuilt by management. Seeing a company as a living being means that it is capable of
regenerating itself, of continuity as an identifiable entity beyond its present members”.
It is this sustainability that the holacracy-structured company attempts to achieve as it reshapes itself for
assignments and targets to ensure that customers' needs and expectations are exceeded or at least met.
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Illustration The Hard Work of Change
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The Hard Work of Change
Source: Proshare Research, Ecographics CRemuneration
Learn and relearn
Supporting workers
to learn and unlearn
will be critical in
going through 2021
Technology
Technology will be
a major separator
of the good, the
bad, and the
uncertain in 2021
Feedback as a strategy
Companies that will
thrive in 2021 and
beyond will have to
go through multiple
iterations of
consumer
expectations.
Bringing Artificial Intelligence (AI)
and machine learning to the fore
Machine learning
(ML) and Artificial
Intelligence (AI) will
become central to
corporate sensitivity
to markets and
consumer actions
between
2021 & 2025.
Illustration 2 - The Hard Work of Change
In the new age of the company, sustainability will mean more than products and services it would mean
regular process and product iterations that are set to meeting specific but changing or changeable
consumer needs. Environment, social and governance (ESG) considerations will become majorly
important to the corporate service or product delivery processes, as companies move in lockstep with
social and consumer signaling. In this ecosystem, gone will be the enterprise high on corporate influence
and low on consumer satisfaction, and in will be the business that is high on consumer aspirations and
low on product or service history. Indeed for the sustainable company, tomorrow does not wait, it is
already here.
Tomorrow’s markets like people can be cranky. The uncertainty of consumer preferences remains a
fundamental part of the changing dynamics of product and service markets. Unlike 40 years ago
consumers in the 2000s expect to be served by companies in a manner that emphasizes precision, speed,
and empathy. The contemporary consumer is impatient and quickly pivots to alternative products or
services as soon as expectations are not met. The new consumer is not a taker but a demander, she or he
insists that service or product promise be fulfilled or ‘canceled’ meaning that the product gets dropped
from the consumer’s scale of preferences and this could become viral as the consumer’s experience is
narrated on multiple social media platforms.
The Ways of Tomorrow's Markets
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A recent example of how consumers influence product or service demand was a recent press conference
where Christiano Ronaldo of Juventus in Italian Serie ‘A’ knocked two bottles of Coca Cola together and
picked up a bottle of water and exclaimed ‘agua!’ or ‘water!’ the market value of the Cocoa Cola company
fell by US$4bn on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) hours after the press briefing.
The incident demonstrates the rising power of millennial consumers and the environmental, social, and
governance concerns of contemporary buyers. The aspirational company will have to align itself with the
greener and health-conscious views of millennial and post-millennial consumers or they would go the
way of the digital imaging company, , which fizzled from being a prominent Fortune 100 Rank Xerox
company in 1998 to filing bankruptcy within a decade.
Corporate sustainability should not be about the past but about the future, analysts observe that
companies aiming for longevity must dream dreams and see visions rather than stay stuck in historical
time warps. Nigeria’s corporate giants of the past are largely resting peacefully in the scrapyard of
yesterday’s greats as new companies emerge as corporate champions ( ).see illustration 3 below
Illustration 3 - Corporate Nigeria in Transition
Source: Proshare Research, EcographicsCRemuneration
2000-2021Companies
MTN Ardova
Dangote
Berger Paints Proshare
BUA Cement
GLO Chams
FBN Holdings DAAR Communication
Access Bank e-Tranzact Int’lPWC
Eko CorpAirtel
May & Baker
Eterna
Interswitch
Evans Media
Zenith
Leadway Insurance Glaxosmithkline
Jaiz Bank
Branch IFS Learn Africa Plc
FintechNGR
Med-View Airline Paxful MRS Oil
Mutual Benefits Assurance
Jumia
Omatek Ventures Transcorp Hotels
Vitafoam
Mouka Foam
GTB UACN
UBA
Trans-National Express
Konga
SAHCO
11 Plc Royal Exchange
Afromedia
FDC
Channels Television Arise TV
Mutual Benefits Assurance
SAHCO
May & Baker
Flutterwave
TVC
MBA
Top Companies
Unilever British American Tobacco UAC P&G
PZ
TotalCadbury
Julius Berger
Nestle
FBN
Schlumberger Oil & Gas
National BankLafarge Savanah
Nigeria Breweries ACBNew Nigeria Bank
Eleganza
Afribank Bata
IMB
Lennards
Pacific
Costain
Agip
RCC Gcappa UnipetrolABB
African PetroleumABC Transport
Okomu Oil
National Oil
Okitipupa Oil Companies
Oluwaglass
NBCOwunka Higtech
7UP
Global Soap
Sahara Energy Oil
Okin Biscuit
Ericsson
Premier Breweries
FCMB
British Layland Consolidated Breweries
Afprint
UNTL
NICHEMTEX
1980-1999 Companies
Unilever
Agip
ACB
Guiness
Lagos Marriot Hotel
Raddison Hotel
VS
1980 - 1999 2000 - 2021
If a company is to navigate the complexities and uncertainties that will dominate business decisions between 2021 and 2025 must be prepared to address the following five issues:
The new shape of the workplace. The required future skills of the new knowledge worker. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into the corporate
business model and culture.
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Illustration 4 - From Trapped to Agile: Corporate Transitions
The need for an ESG framework that supports corporate sustainability.
The need for big data and analytics as tools for corporate decision-making.
The Age of Data
Corporations in 2021 will see big data as an increasingly important part of their business strategy. The
use of consumer and customer-related data to refine corporate approaches to markets and business
segments would define the state of market play. Digital laggards will see their businesses shrink to a
modest pile of dust as digital vanguards grow their market share and deepen customer engagement
through faster service and product delivery nodes and customized value chain engagement.
The agile data-driven enterprise will weave past consumer resistance and match consumer expectations
as it supports rising aspirations. Firms stuck along traditional channels of consumer interaction are
likely to eat chaff for breakfast as they stay trapped in the past ( ). see illustration 4 below
From Trapped to Agile: Corporate Transitions
Trapped Transitionary Agile
These companies are known for being:
Prone to fighting fires
Rigidity
Working in departmental silos
Political in-fighting
Committed to structure
These companies are known for:
Formality
Boundaries
Shifting focus
Risk averseness
Quasi-flat structure
These companies are known for being:
Disruptive
Imaginative
Creative
Resilient
Iterative learning
Nimble-adaptive
Decentralized
Source: Proshare Research, Ecographics CRemuneration
The agile corporation will make data and analytics a central part of the business management processes
as the daily flow of information is filtered to provide strategic insights and business-sensitive triggers to
consumer changes. However, companies may fail to achieve the optimal results desired from data-
inspired executive decision-making, if the process of data-titration, interpretation, and presentation is
left to the company's information and technology (IT) department.
This is a common mistake of several local Nigerian businesses. The IT manager is seen as an ombudsman
that waves a magic wand over the company's strategic problems and they all disappear. This is fantasy
gone wild. The IT department can only work with the data it is given and even at that, it is unlikely to
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Corporate Playbook
Companies designed for sustainability would require data-savvy chief executive offices (CEOs) who
would lead the charge for a frontal response to the messages received from data analytics.
understand the context and nuances of the interpretation of the data it processes, this requires deeper
thinking and greater technical ability by way of analytics.
The CEO must bring all managers up to speed with the relevant corporate market data and align the data
with budget plans. The different corporate teams would adjust business actions to goals required to meet
customer and investor expectations. The IT department of companies, therefore, provides the platform
but not the levers for data application.
The suitably agile company would likely adopt a task-defined team arrangement with representatives
from different departments in the company that provide different perspectives and context to the data
that requires interpretation and forms the basis of scenario-dependent recommendations.
Technology is not simply an add-on for the company of the future but a plug-in. The company that hopes
to remain sustainable over the next decade cannot afford to simply attach technology to the old ways of
operating; it must tear up the old playbook and write a new script with the customer as the primary focus
of engagement. Data analytics and artificial intelligence will become the hub of a new way of engineering
products and services that meet consumer needs and encourage spending decisions.
Corporate analysts have noted that if companies want to adopt analytics and artificial intelligence to
build business sustainability, they cannot simply buy off-the-shelf solutions and add them to existing
operations, things, unfortunately, are not that simple.
In a recent on the use of analytics and artificial intelligence in the biopharma business, McKinsey article
Consulting writers Stephanie Bayer, Sulay Sandy, Ulf Schrader, and Matthias Spiegl note six key
principles in ensuring that adoption is successful or at least beneficial ( ). see illustration 5 below
Illustration 5 - Six Principles of Leveraging Digital and Analytics
Six Principles of Leveraging Digital and Analytics
Source: Mckinsey, Proshare Research, EcographicsCRemuneration
“In God we Trust, Everybody
else must bring Data”
Start with a leadership-backed
impact-driven strategy and
road map
Accelerate transformation with experienced leaders,
skilled staff, and multifunctional
teams
Implement a strategy architecture
and governance for data
Build a tried and tested delivery
methodology for digital and analytics
solutions
Construct a fit-for-purpose
technology stack Drive adoption and business
change by engaging with the front line
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The authors note that companies that intend to use AI to leverage corporate strategy must first Start
with a leadership-backed, impact-driven strategy and roadmap. In other words, the AI strategy must be
driven from the top of the company and must be designed to achieve high-impact results along a
collectively agreed path. Why AI?
The second consideration in the clever use of AI according to the writers involves accelerating
transformation with experienced leaders, skilled staff, and multifunctional teams. In their study of the
biopharma sector, they note that “As part of the people and leadership strategy, it is also important for
companies to identify the skills they need, including those that can be filled internally with training and
development; investing in their talent will be vital for companies to establish digital as a competitive
advantage. For external sourcing, we have seen pharma and biopharma companies form successful
partnerships with research and academia. These partnerships have given them firsthand knowledge of
technology advancements and enabled them to bring those advancements to the shop floor”. Despite
the importance of technology, the people required to implement its adoption as part of the business
process are just as important as the mathematical algorithms and code scripts they use to gain a deeper
understanding of their customers.
A third consideration for the strategic use of AI is the implementation of a strategy, architecture, and
governance framework for data use. This would see to it that companies take advantage of big data to
shape their products and services and provide organizational support structures that are focused on
delivering value to consumers or users of the company’s outputs.
The writers note that the fourth stop in the transition from a trapped to agile AI-enhanced corporation is
the building of a tried-and-tested delivery methodology for digital and analytic solutions. They noted
that “Delivering digital-and-analytics solutions is a complex process that requires an intense
commitment of time and resources. It’s not a one-time effort, but a new way of working that is essential
for high-performing organizations”.
According to the McKinsey researchers AI adoption “can drive the next wave of business optimization
by transforming operational performance, shortening time to market, improving quality and yield,
reducing supply chain volatility, and accelerating technology transfers” outcomes that most
companies would cherish considering the impact that the recent COVID-19 pandemic has had on their
2020 operations.
According to the authors of the report “Success requires a delivery protocol that codifies technology-
enabled best practices for delivering digital-and-analytics solutions tried and tested by practitioners.
This protocol helps ensure predictability, output quality, and uniformity in solution delivery. It’s
essential for scaling solutions that have been successfully piloted. Just as you wouldn’t institute a new
change-over process without standard operating procedures, you should not embark on a digital-and-
analytics transformation without a delivery protocol”.
The delivery protocol involves a look at processes, people, and technology enablers. By creating,
clarifying, and implementing a delivery protocol a company stands a better chance of ensuring that its
digital transformation endures, and the organization is properly prepared to face future disruptions.
Constructing a fit-for-purpose technology stack is the fifth element of the digital master plan of a
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To wrap up the AI transformation initiative companies will need to tackle the people problem. To drive
adoption and change the C-suite executives must engage with their frontline. The last mile adoption and
culture change needed for corporate agility remains one of the most difficult stages in building an
organization that is nimble enough to withstand a event like COVID-19 (black swan see illustration 6
below).
sustainable business operation. But what does a fit-for-purpose technology stack mean? What this,
means is that companies that want to build defensive shields against business disruptions between 2021
and 2030 must ensure that they put in place operating technology (OT) and information technology (IT)
that allow differentiated performance across teams and service or product lines. For example, a Nigerian
Zenith Bank could decide that the operating technology needed for consumer retail banking should be a
shade or two different from the OT of investment or wholesale banking. Take FBNH, Nigeria’s oldest
financial Holdco, for example, the operating technology for its agency banking success is different from
the operating technology that drives the operations of its FBNQuest investment banking arm.
Outside the banking and finance sector, the same principle would apply. Nimble companies would need
to develop technology stacks suited to products or services. In reviewing OT and IT companies need to
carefully consider their platforms and how it connects to data sources. Mining data and the production of
actionable reports would be critical in the new economy as companies elbow one another to provide
consumers with exceptional product and service journeys.
McKinsey’s researchers noted that “The rollout of new digital solutions should be accompanied by
division-wide change management. Your change management plan should include ways to get senior-
leadership support, formalize new incentives, engage with employees, and empower key influencers”.
Illustration 6 Nigerian Businesses:
The Search for Agility
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The Search For Corporate Agility
Source: Proshare Research, Ecographics CRemuneration
FragileLoose corporate structureWeak internal processesLight governance standardHigh creativityEarly-stage lack of focus
Start-up Corporation
Nimble CreativeFlexible structureHigh governance standardQuick decision-makingResilientAdaptable
Agile Corporation
Dominant structure with contesting silos of authorityCorporate battles on several fronts.In-group, out-group peer strugglesTurf warsRigidity
Trapped Corporation
Strong corporate structureRigid operational activitiesTop-down hierarchical management style (chain of command).Slow response to external disruption.Risk-aversion (risk intolerance)Cascaded decision-making
Bureaucratic Corporation
Dy
na
mic
Ca
pa
bil
ity
Str
on
gW
ea
k
Weak Strong
Stable Backbone
Illustration 6 - Nigerian Businesses: The Search for Agility
Hal Gregersen, senior lecturer MIT Sloan recently observed that companies “…make enormous
investments into the technical side of digital transitions and comparatively minimal
investments in actually helping the individuals navigate the challenging transition”.
This imbalance in resource commitment could reduce the effectiveness of the overall digital/AI strategy
as human resource limitations restrict the scaling of businesses.
As businesses absorb AI into their operations to improve productivity and customer product or service
experience, they must equally be prepared to improve the skills of their workers and ensure that the right
balance is achieved between AI adoption and worker adaptation. The frontline worker is just as
important as the backline techie.
As AI and ML become integral parts of the modern business process worker compensation in the new
tech-inspired environment has begun to raise fresh issues centered on adequate work compensation for
both C-suite executives and line managers. Indeed, even factory and shop floor workers are beginning to
look towards a realignment of work and pay.
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CEO Incomes in the New Age of Tech
How do workers get compensated in an age of flexible work? Should incomes remain the same as in the
pre-COVID period or should they be tweaked to accommodate changes in work/lifestyle choices?
The experience in Nigeria suggests that employers believe that there is no need to adjust worker
compensation for the change in operational location. Most employers argue that the same volume of
work gets done whether the worker works from home or the office because deliverables remain
unchanged. Working from home (WFH) has its benefits but also poses some challenges resulting in
some companies rescinding or modifying the flexible work arrangement.
Most companies that adopt flexible work practices require their staff to be in the office physically from
between one to three days a week. A few companies have adopted a rotational system where coming to
work physically occurs on alternate weeks with departments requiring teams to come in after a full week
of physical absence.
Remote work may not be gender-neutral. Some analysts believe that remote work
adversely affects women more than men as they argue that women would be increasingly
predisposed to committing added time to family chores and taking care of the children while they
are at home. Besides, even where women are not married, their ability to assert their professional
worth is weakened by their physical absence at the workplace.
The Flip Side
Watering down of shared purpose. Workers that sit together express shared purposes and
show deeper commitment to targets than workers that work remotely.
Improving computer skills and upskilling social interaction online through platforms such as
Microsoft Teams can bring about improved productivity in an environment of holacracy. This flat
organizational structure fully supports an agile approach to service and product delivery through
remote collaborations.
It appears that several companies are in a 'touch and feel' mode where they experiment with the best
arrangement that achieves optimal performance. However, a few corporate analysts are beginning to
rethink remote work and believe it comes with some drawbacks that have not been properly assessed, the
problems of WFH according to these observers include but are not limited to the following:
Remote work could create a sense of isolation. The absence of human-t0-human physical
stimulation could engender a sense of being 'alone' leading to mental health issues.
Remote work has tentatively been seen to increase worker concentration as room for distraction
becomes less than where a worker is required to be physically present at the office.
Remote work or work from home (WFH) has resonated well with a tech-savvy younger
generation of workers. It has given them work flexibility and opportunities to improve their skills
by saving commute time and freeing up time for learning. In Nigeria large companies are
increasingly permitting workers to work from home on alternate weeks or choose days of the
week they would work in the office and the other days they can work from home. Does this mean
shorter working hours? No. WFH has seen workers stick to the grind of their assignment
completion with a greater commitment to timeliness and deadlines. Workers tend to put in more
hours through WFH than when they were physically present at the office to the eternal surprise of
previously skeptical CEOs.
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CEO pay in a fast-paced world of change would depend on how adaptable companies prove to be, slow
companies will see the salaries and other compensations of their CEOs tank as the revenues fall on the
back of shrinking patronage. As the demography of customers change sustainable companies must learn
how to ride the varying waves of consumer expectations ( )see illustration 7 below
Sustainability will increasingly require a more aggressive approach towards consumer satisfaction,
process optimization, and corporate agility.
Strategic thinking and corporate positioning and repositing will become premium
considerations going forward. Former longtime Shell Dutch corporate strategist Aries de
Geus's 'living company' must be a thinking company with tremendous resources
committed to thinking and the translation of thought to pre-emptive corporate action
supported by data analytics, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI).
Workers could find that they could more easily generate extra incomes from a bit of moonlighting on
digital projects. For CEOs, this could mean in-house mentorship on remote digital and mobile platforms
and digital podcasts that help other C-suite executives get a grasp of glacial business changes and how to
cope with the disruption. Indeed documenting digital learning moments and using them as resource
materials for corporate guidance could prove invaluable as it provides carefully curated decision making
insights to help corporate managers navigate problems ranging from black swan events like the COVID-
19 Pandemic through to grey swan events like commodity price declines and then onto the less difficult
white swans events like rising domestic interest rates as the federal government competes with the
private sector to compete for funds needed to fill the widening FGN annual budget deficit.
The jury is still out on how much remote work adds to worker productivity and improved corporate
earnings but what is clear is that workers' salaries and compensations may not change significantly
because of the new work mode, but what could be a fair game for change is the new streams of earning
opportunities resulting from remote work.
Does the new work environment suggest a different ecosystem for labour compensation?
Should the CEOs pay somehow reflect his or her new digital reality?
Illustration 7 - Generation in Transition
CEO Remuneration: From COVID to Collaboration CRemuneration
Executive Summary
Illustration 7 - Generation in Transition
Generation in Transition
Source: McKinsey and Proshare Research, Ecographics CRemuneration
Section 2 takes a tour of the many sides of CEO remunerations in 2020. It does a rundown of CEO
Section 1 of the report delves into fleshing out the contours of the new digital reality of work and
corporate service and product delivery. The section reviews the new ideas that dominate corporate
conversations around corporate sustainability, environment, social, and governance (ESG) issues that
shape the corporate interface with customers. The younger and increasingly dominant customer cluster
around generation Y and Z were born between 1980 and 2010. This young demography is communal,
digital, and high on ethics (contrary to the perception of baby boomers and their forerunners that
generation Y and Z are unfocused drugged-up vagabonds). The section draws the outlines of the new
local realities of corporate Nigeria.
CEOs who want to protect their compensation and perhaps see them grow must develop a
deeper corporate understanding of the customer of the future and design goods and
services around the expected preferences. CEOs may need to worry less about yesterday
as they muse over tomorrow.
Today’s young people differ from yesterday
Baby boomer1940-59
Gen X1960-79
Gen Y (millennial)1980-94
Gen Z1995-2010
B X Y Z
CONTEXT
BEHAVIOUR
CONSUMPTION
PostwarDictatorship and repression in Brazil
Political transitionCapitalism and meritocracy dominate
GlobalizationEconomic stabilityEmergent of Internet
Mobility and multiplerealitiesSocial networksDigital natives
IdealismRevolutionaryCollectivist
MaterialisticCompetitiveIndividualistic
GlobalistQuestioningOriented to self
Undefined ID“Communaholic”“Dialoguer”Realistic
IdeologyVinyl and movies
StatusBrands and CarsLuxury Articles
ExperienceFestivals and travelFlagships
UniquenessUnlimitedEthical
CEO Remuneration: From COVID to Collaboration CRemuneration
Executive Summary
Advice To Users Of This Report
compensation and scrubs the data for unique perspectives. The report drives through corporate sectors
to see how the compensation of CEOs differed from industry to industry. ICT sector (MTN) and the Oil
&Gas sector (Seplat Energy) were top of the log of executive compensation for companies listed on the
Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX). However, the ICT only had two companies in the list of top ten most
highly paid executives in Nigeria while the Consumer Goods sector had three executives.
Disruption is here and all CEOs must have a hang of technology and how adoption or adaptation will plug
into corporate strategy and sustainability.
Section 4 does a deep dive into how executive compensation relates to company performance. It
benchmarks executive compensation against corporate earnings and changes in staff cost. For example,
in Seplat executive compensation rose while the company posted a yearly loss, but a quick explanation
would be that the planned increase in staff cost was before the onset of COVID-19 and a downward spiral
in oil prices as a result of the Q1 2020 disagreement between Russia and Saudi Arabia over the quantity of
oil considered optimal to stabilize prices against sagging global demand.
Section 3 pivots towards a slightly broader look at top executive compensations and assess total
compensation considering bonuses, dividends, and any other ancillary benefit from running the
business. It was noted that no Insurance company on the NGX paid a dividend in 2020. This depressed
the total compensation of their top executives. Top executives in Dangote and MTN while they appear in
the top ten executive incomes in corporate Nigeria, they do not hold shares in the companies they run.
Surprisingly, Herbert Wigwe of Access Bank is not in the top ten earners list based on his basic
compensation despite the relative sparkling performance of the bank in 2020 which defied COVID-19
pains. However, when expected dividends are thrown into the mix Wigwe rises to the third position of
top-earning CEOs of companies listed on the NGX.
Section 5 looks at the executive pay packet at tries to shake tea leaves to gain an understanding of the
underlying drivers. Does the CEO’s pay tie in with profitability or revenue growth? Is the CEO’s
remuneration a reflection of his or her superior managerial skill or talent? Prey what in heavens name
lurks behind those C-suite salaries? Like coconut water, the top Nigerian CEO’s income is a mystery.
The final section of the report, Section 6, takes a shot at explaining work and productivity in an age of
rampant technology. The CEO must rise beyond being a boss to being a visioner, a thinker, and a tech
denizen, the CEO may not be a tech wizard but must have sufficient knowledge of how emerging
technology could disrupt or enhance business. Leaving the understanding of technology to the in-house
nerds could prove dangerous, particularly since such nerds rarely have an appreciation of the overall way
in which things hang together within the broader context of medium to long-term corporate objectives.
Head, Research Managing Editor
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This report was put together by Teslim SHITTA-BEY, Managing Editor, Proshare Content, Adaeze
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CEO Remuneration: From COVID to Collaboration