The Triangle's highest-paid CEOs

Leaders of the Triangle's largest companies saw their compensation levels vary widely in 2022 as the stock market posted its worst year since 2008, according to an Axios analysis of financial disclosures from publicly-traded firms in the region.

State of play: Of the 24 largest publicly-traded companies in the Triangle, 15 of their CEOs saw their total compensation decrease last year.

• The mixed results come a year after a majority of Triangle executives saw multimillion-dollar gains to their total compensation.
• The lion's share of CEO compensation typically comes in the form of stock and option grants, which are tied to the price of a company's stock.

Zoom out: Compensation for the CEOs of companies listed on the S&P 500 was up 21% from 2021, Time Magazine reported.

The big picture: Despite the decreases, CEO salaries still far outweigh the wages of their employees, even though few companies reported pay ratios between CEOs and median workers.

• Advance Auto Parts had the largest gap. CEO Thomas Greco's total compensation was 343 times greater than the median wage of $24,415.
• The smallest gap was at the Durham biotech company G1 Therapeutics, where CEO Jack Bailey made 12 times more than the company's median salary of $243,930.

By the numbers: Ari Bousbib, CEO of the Durham clinical research company IQVIA, was once again the highest-paid leader of a Triangle company. His total compensation grew 5.3% to $30.1 million.

Of note: Many of the Triangle’s largest employers are privately-held companies or satellite offices for firms headquartered elsewhere — making it harder to know how their compensation levels.

• For instance, the salaries for SAS Institute CEO Jim Goodnight and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney — two billionaire founders of private tech companies — are not available to the public.