I often cite in my seminars that one obvious sign of the ethos gap between Japanese listed companies and the top 350 US companies is that Japanese presidents generally earn a multiple of 10-20 of the average salary in their companies, whereas the multiple for American CEOs is 350 or so.
There are exceptions of course, but even the board directors of the company at the top of Toyo Keizai’s income gap ranking (Toshin) earn an average of just under 60 times the average salary in the company. Many of the other companies at the top of Toyo Keizai’s rankings have non-Japanese executive directors, who are usually paid closer to American levels, such as Takeda Pharma (#3), SoftBank (#5) but there are other companies whose executives are all Japanese, such as Toyota (#6), JT (#15), Itochu (#16), Horiba (#17) and Canon (#20). Even so, only the top 10 have multiples of over 30, and only the top 25 have multiples of over 20. So the ethos gap is still holds.
For more content like this, subscribe to the free Rudlin Consulting Newsletter. 最新の在欧日系企業の状況については無料の月刊Rudlin Consulting ニューズレターにご登録ください。
