What top IT executives earn
New research about directors’ remuneration for 2009 by Mabili pointed to “difficult market conditions” which resulted in reasonably low executive pay increases in comparison to previous years. This however does not mean that CEOs are starving.
According to Mabili the average CEO package increased 11.6% from R4.7-million to R5.3-million, while the average executive chairpersons enjoyed a rise of 11.6% to 4.3 million rand. The total packages for chief financial officers and other senior executives saw only a marginal increase to 2.9 million rand and 2.6 million rand respectively.
Mabili said: “The severe economic downturn is not the only factor that is keeping remuneration practitioners busy; South Africa has had a considerable amount of industrial action over the past couple of months. There appears to be a sentiment in the market that it is politically driven, following the promises made leading up to this year’s election.”
IT salaries
The Mabili report shows that Information Technology executives had the lowest guaranteed and total packages at R3.6-million per year. Some telecoms and IT executives however did particularly well.
Two of the highest earning executives were joint Blue Label Telecoms CEOs Brett Levy and Mark Levy, earning R50.4-million and R49.5-million respectively. It should be noted that their total pay packages were boosted primarily by a shared R80-million payment “in lieu of their prelisting contractual bonuses entitlements”.
Total pay packages for IT and telecoms execs
The following table provides an overview of some of the more prominent IT companies’ executive salaries. This includes salary packages from Sentech and SITA CEOs, and is based on the annual executive emoluments (salary, bonuses and benefits) disclosed in their latest annual reports.
| Name | Company & Position | Total Renumeration |
| Shameel Joosub | Vodacom SA MD | R 22 276 840 |
| Phuthuma Nhleko | MTN CEO | R 19 958 000 |
| Brett Dawson | Dimension Data CEO | R 14 317 043 |
| Reuben September | Telkom CEO | R 12 827 648 |
| Pieter Uys | Vodacom CEO | R 10 468 444 |
| Craig Venter | Altech CEO | R 10 114 000 |
| Robert Venter | Altron CEO | R 10 084 000 |
| Robert Gumede | Gijima Chairman | R 7 177 000 |
| Gerrit Pretorius | Reunert CEO | R 6 792 000 |
| Brett Levy | Blue Label Telecoms CEO | R 6 160 000 |
| Mark Levy | Blue Label Telecoms CEO | R 6 160 000 |
| Ahmed Mahomed | Datacentrix CEO | R 4 264 000 |
| Jonas Bogoshi | Gijima CEO | R 3 696 000 |
| Benjamin Mophatlane | Business Connexion CEO | R 3 556 328 |
| Jene Palmer | Spescom CEO | R 2 581 965 |
| Douglas Reed | Vox Telecom MD | R 2 522 000 |
| Jens Montanana | Datatec CEO | R 2 158 168 |
| Dr Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane | Sentech CEO | R 2 013 000 |
| Mavuso Msimang | SITA CEO | R 1 754 525 |
| Simon Tomlinson | Faritec CEO | R 1 704 000 |
| Anton Potgieter | Huge Group CEO | R 1 602 700 |
| Mario Pretorius | Telemasters CEO | R 1 509 228 |
IT executive salaries – discussion
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