Jim Cornelius - 2009 CEO Pay

Total Compensation: $18.2 million

Details: Bristol-Myers Squibb CEO Jim Cornelius, who officially retired May 4, didn't fare too badly during his last full year on the job. According to the company's preliminary proxy statement, his pay dropped to $18.2 million from $19.7 million. The biggest drop for Cornelius came in his option awards, which amounted to $5.2 million for 2009, down from $7.15 million in 2008. That's a decline of more than 25 percent. In most other categories, his compensation ticked upward a bit; restricted stock awards, for instance, grew to $5.66 million from $5.12 million.

In determining Cornelius' compensation, a committee considered the successful transformation to a pure biopharmaceutical company through the partial initial public offering and subsequent split-off of the Mead Johnson business unit and the implementation of the "String of Pearls" strategy through the acquisition of Medarex, and the licensing deals with Teijin Pharma, ZymoGenetics and Alder Biopharmaceuticals, according to the company's SEC filing.

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