Originally Posted by
Raz
I made regional CEO overseas for a fortune 500, just over ten years ago, I was in that role for three years, it was all consuming of my life, now a lot of lower level jobs are like that...time in the end is the currency we all face. I worked so hard to get the opportunity however the role I got was pure luck in the end, right people in right place at the right time really gave me the job over others...so few quality people get the chance. When you have fulfilled that kind of role you drop into such a small group. Boards are risk adverse they simply want someone that has the experience on that scale, so they do have to pay. The salaries now are rather self serving and in party reflect what happens overseas, the key difference is that places like the US you can be fired so quick and that was why they originally paid so high, two to three years was a good run and no guarantee that next job would be around the corner. That really does not apply in Australia or New Zealand, you really need to have a disaster in NZ to lose the job...so really they are now paid the higher income often with a longer tenure.
What has also changed is that you could not cash out your shares while in the role, legally I was able to however culturally it would have been career suicide to do this in the US. That is still the case over there with the people I keep in contact with... given our small capital market it does seem a strange culture and how remuneration is positioned here, smaller market like AIM in the UK are even more strict..rather than the casual approach to it here.