Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Down to Earth?
I read an interview in yesterday's Wall Street Journal with the CEO of Whole Foods where he talked about the mission and 'branding' of organic, local and sustainable foods and it's spread to other grocers/retailers. It was pretty interesting; the highlight being his coming paycut for 2007; he has offered to reduce his salary from $365,000 per year to $1.00. Quite a statement. I imagine he will still have boatloads of stock options etc etc (his compensation for the moment is noted by the AFL-CIO as 1.6m so I doubt he'll be hurting) but I like the message all the same. Especially when compared with other retail grocers.
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There have been a number of CEOs that have done similar things. I know the owner of the business where I worked in Seattle had a policy of having a salary no more than 5 times that of the lowest paid employee. But, like you said, these are all just gestures at times. The money is in their cut of the profits as well as stock options, all not technically part of the salary.
Jobs (of apple) has been doing that for a decade now. Of course, he was already a billionaire when he came back, and has plenty of stock options, and the job at Pixar, and a seat on the board at disney...
Is what whole foods did for the "branding" of organic good for local/regional farms or did it co-opt them?
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