Earning the big bucks

According to a report by Sedlak & Sedlak, a Kraków-based personnel consulting firm, in 2007 the average monthly salary of top positions in bourse-listed companies stood at zł.37,000. Compared to 2006's average this represented an 11-percent rise, considerably less than the 27-percent salary increase recorded between 2005 and 2006.

Not surprisingly, bank managers had the highest remuneration - the median annual salary in this sector was zł.1.58 million. The wood and paper industry was in second place. The IT sector was 12th on the list, with a median salary of zł.433,000, although it should be noted that most IT companies on the WSE are small.

Among stock-listed firms, the highest-earning manager in 2007 was Marek Józefiak, former CEO of Telekomunikacja Polska. Despite leaving the company in 2006, his severance package and a one-year non-compete clause earned him a zł.6.4-million salary last year.

ComArch's CEO Janusz Filipiak was second, earning zł.6.1-million. He was followed by Sławomir Lachowski of BRE Bank (zł.5.23-million) and Józef Wancer of Bank BPH (zł.5.21-million).

"When we compare the base salaries of Polish and American CEOs, executives in Poland are often ahead of their American counterparts by a few hundred percent. Some American CEOs earn a symbolic dollar salary," said Tomasz Dziekanowski, manager of the salary analysis section at Hewitt Associates. "We have to remember that their total salary is based on their company's performance. Very often their salary easily exceeds that of Polish CEOs by far," he noted.

Dziekanowski also observed that regional differences in Polish CEOs' salaries were fading.

Surprisingly, the average salary of a deputy CEO in 2007 was lower than that of a regular board member. Proxies were the lowest-paid members of management.