Share with your CHRO
Average CHRO compensation at the largest US public companies dropped 16% in 2025 to $3.7 million, down from roughly $4.4 million in 2024, according to new Equilar data on CHRO pay packages. Cash bonuses and base salaries drove the decline while equity awards held steady at around $2 million for a second straight year. The gender pay gap persists sharply: women hold 32 of the top 50 CHRO positions yet average $3.5 million versus $5 million for their 18 male peers. Kelly Tullier of Visa led all earners at $14.5 million.
What this means for your business
The headline number is a 16% cut, but the composition of that cut matters more than the size. Companies didn’t pull back on equity. They pulled back on cash, which means boards still believe the CHRO role is strategically valuable over a multi-year horizon but are less willing to reward short-term operational performance. If you’re a CHRO benchmarking your own package, the signal isn’t that your market rate fell; it’s that the mix is shifting, and a package heavy on base salary is increasingly out of step with how the most influential HR executives are being paid.
The gender pay gap here is harder to explain away than in most functions. HR is the one C-suite role where women hold clear majority representation, which typically predicts narrowing pay gaps over time. It hasn’t happened. Four of the ten highest earners are men who hold 36% of the top-50 seats but collect a disproportionate share of total dollars. That pattern suggests the gap isn’t a pipeline problem or a representation lag; it’s structural, likely baked into the equity grant sizing that happens at hire and refresh cycles, where negotiating norms and sponsor relationships still skew male.
The decision this reframes isn’t whether to pay CHROs more in aggregate. It’s whether your compensation committee is calibrating equity grant size at the individual level or defaulting to a band that quietly advantages whoever negotiated hardest at the offer stage. If your refresh grants are formula-driven without a periodic equity-gap audit, the 2025 data suggests you’re almost certainly widening a gap you probably think you’ve already closed.
Based on reporting from Average CHRO Compensation Sees 16% Decline in 2025 Despite High Executive Pay Packages, ETHRWorldEMEA, originally published 2026-07-23 04:00:00.
