Was HP's CIO the best paid in the country in 2012? Maybe.
Network World took a look at CIO pay last autumn and came up with a list of very handsomely compensated IT executives. Are they the best paid in the land? Quite possibly, but it's not a certainty.
Network World started by looking at proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by the 500 largest companies in the U.S. So, then, for starters, its list is derived only from the pool of publicly traded companies, and a CIO at a privately held company could have been compensated more generously in 2012. The IT news site, one of Computerworld's sister publications, then zeroed in on CIO compensation, but not every proxy statement lists that information. Companies are required only to divulge the compensation of their CEOs, CFOs and their three highest-compensated executive officers. Sometimes those officers included the CIO; sometimes they didn't. It's possible that there are CIOs at publicly traded companies who received more in compensation last year than HP's John Hinshaw, but that information wasn't included in their companies' proxy statements because the CIO was not among the company's three highest-paid executives.
With that caveat out of the way, here is a breakdown on the compensation of the potentially best-paid CIO in the U.S.
John Hinshaw
" Employer: Hewlett-Packard
" Title: Executive vice president of technology and operations
" Compensation: $8.2 million
Hinshaw joined HP in late 2011, filling a newly created position that spans tech and business. He oversees company operations, including global IT, sales, procurement, business shared services, real estate and security. Before joining HP, Hinshaw held a number of senior IT positions, including CIO at Boeing and CIO at Verizon Wireless. His $8.2 million compensation included his $625,415 salary, a $1.5 million signing bonus, a $551,028 performance-based cash bonus, equity awards valued at $5.1 million, and $375,990 in perks and other compensation.
Ask a Premier 100 IT Leader:
Juan Perez
The vice president of information services at UPS answers questions about business education for IT pros and the importance of training.
I will be finishing up my computer science degree over the next few months. I have several technical topics I want to sign up for, but I've been advised that I should give up some of them and take some general business courses instead. What do you think? In my experience, engineers and developers who have an understanding of general business practices and who get close to business processes provide great value to the organization. As you pursue management roles in IT in the future, it will become more critical to have a good understanding of the impact technology has on an organization's results. Having the ability to understand return on investment, total cost of ownership and the levers that help your company succeed can be effective tools in allocating IT investment and managing IT groups. So I think it would be beneficial to take some business courses as you complement your technical education. Accounting, financial management, organizational behavior and operations management are excellent candidates.
My company is stingy with training opportunities. I can come up with many arguments as to why this policy is bad, but I'm not a real good salesman. Any advice on how to present these arguments so they're persuasive and not just confrontational (my usual style, I'm afraid)? No need to be confrontational. As an IT professional, it is imperative that you keep up with your skills, especially in such a dynamic and constantly changing field. And looking at it from a competitive perspective, you can be sure that your competitors are finding ways to develop and recruit top talent to compete with your company. This has been my first argument every time I have requested support for training. I also like to categorize things in the form of return on investment, using the rationale that if I get trained in a particular area, I will be able to return the investment by doing (fill in the blank). And lastly, it is important that you describe clearly the consequences of not providing training for the IT team. And there are many. In the end, your organization may still elect to defer training costs driven by a variety of business factors. But the key is to not give up. Keep asking relentlessly, without being confrontational.
If you have a question for one of our Premier 100 IT Leaders, send it to askaleader@computerworld.com, and watch for this column each month.
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