Maria Ramos named the most powerful woman in South Africa – here’s how much she earns
Fortune has published its list of the 50 most powerful women outside the United States – with only one African making the cut.
Barclay’s Africa CEO Maria Ramos climbed four places to feature as the 16th most powerful woman in this year’s list, after placing 20th in last year’s ranking.
“Barclays Africa is a very different bank than it was when Ramos took the reins there in 2009,” Fortune said.
“In her eight years at the firm, the Portuguese-South African economist has skillfully led the company’s transformation, completed earlier this year, from Barclays subsidiary to standalone entity with 11.8 million customers and a presence in 12 countries.”
Though recession in South Africa has tested the bank locally, it added 2.5 million customers and now counts on foreign markets for nearly a quarter of its revenue.
Ramos, the only woman to helm one of the 40 largest companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, earlier this summer joined the prestigious Group of 30 – a select body of economists that includes Ben Bernanke and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, where she is also the only woman.
Other notable women to feature on the list include Ana Botin, CEO of banking group Banco Santander (1), Emma Walmsley, CEO of GSK (2), and Maggie Wei Wu, CFO of Alibaba (16).
How much she earns
In 2016 Ramos’ total salary amounted to R29.51 million.
When looking at the basic salaries of each CEO, Ramos is the highest paid by some margin.
However, as is typical with executive pay, the biggest draw for CEOs comes through short-term and long-term incentive schemes, which pay out cash and share bonuses over a certain period, which often yields massive awards.
These incentive schemes pay out at different times, according to the specific contract with each respective CEO, and the executives are typically given an option to exercise their options, or to defer them to another time.
This means that Ramos actually earns significantly less than her peers in the retail banking sphere, when taking these variable payments into account.
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