Last year, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda earned $1.9 million in direct compensation from the automaker that bears his family name. By industry standards, that makes him something of a high-level executive, not the chief of one of the world’s largest global brands.
Toyoda earns a mere fraction of what fellow CEOs at large automakers take home – in fact, Bloomberg says that his $1.9 million is less than one tenth of the $21 million Ford CEO Alan Mulally earned in 2012. Despite that relatively low figure, Toyoda actually took home 35 percent more in 2012 than he did the year prior.
Salaries of the five largest automakers’ CEOs (2012 compensation)
– Alan Mulally – Ford Motor Company – $21 million
– Martin Winterkorn – Volkswagen – $19 million
– Dieter Zetsche – Daimler – $14.5 million
– Dan Akerson – General Motors – $11 million
– Akio Toyoda – Toyota – $1.9 million
Data source Bloomberg.
But just because Toyoda is paid the least doesn’t mean the automaker is getting a poor return on its investment. Since taking control of Toyota about four years ago, the executive has countered a weak economy, a surging home currency, natural disasters in Japan and a highly-publicized safety recall of millions of cars.
Despite those setbacks, Toyota’s stock is up 28 percent so far this year and the automaker once again overtook GM as the world’s largest.
The executive has been pushing the Japanese concept of “waku-doki,” a mantra that roughly translates to “raise your pulse” in his effort to transform the automaker’s products into more evocative offerings.