With the fortunes of GSK on the rise after much tumult early in the decade, the company has rewarded CEO Emma Walmsley with a significant pay boost.
Walmsley collected 12.7 million pounds sterling ($16 million) in total pay last year, a 51% increase from her compensation in 2022. GSK revealed (PDF) the latest pay figure in its corporate governance annual report.
It’s a long way from 2021 when Elliott Management was pushing to replace Walmsley, followed by Bluebell Capital Partners, which asked GSK’s board to look for new leadership and require Walmsley to reapply for her job.
Since then, however, Walmsley has executed a spinoff of GSK’s consumer health unit and put the company back on course for growth. In 2023, GSK's global revenue increased by 5%. Excluding sales of COVID products, GSK’s sales were up by 14%.
In addition, the company’s share price rose by 11% in 2023 and is up 14% so far this year.
After striking out in its attempts to develop a COVID shot, the U.K.-based company has reestablished itself as a vaccine powerhouse. Last year, GSK became the first company to score FDA approval for a respiratory syncytial virus vaccine. Its first-to-the-market status with Arexvy helped pave the way for sales of 1.2 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) during its first several months on the market.
GSK’s also saw booming sales for Shingrix, which generated 3.45 billion pounds ($4.4 billion) last year. The figure was an increase of 17% from the previous year.
Of Walmsley’s pay for 2023, 3.8 million pounds ($4.8 million) came in bonuses and 7.3 million pounds ($9.2 million) came in equity awards.
Her bonus was based on GSK doubling its target sales growth of 7% (excluding COVID revenue) and exceeding an internal profit growth goal, GSK explained in its governance report.
Walmsley, 54, came to GSK in 2010 after 17 years at L’Oreal. Following much success leading GSK’s consumer health unit, she took over as CEO in 2017, becoming the first woman to run a major pharmaceutical company.
After years of being one of the lowest-paid pharma chiefs among companies in GSK’s orbit, Walmsley has overtaken many of her European peers. Sanofi revealed earlier this year that its fifth-year CEO Paul Hudson made 10.57 million euros ($11.44 million) in total pay last year.
Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk compensated seven-year CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen with 68.2 million Danish kroner ($9.9 million) in 2023 pay. Roche paid new CEO Thomas Schinecker 9.6 million Swiss francs ($11 million), while Novartis doled out 13.3 million Swiss francs ($15.3 million) to its six-year chief Vas Narasimhan, M.D.
AstraZeneca’s 12-year CEO Pascal Soriot remains the highest-paid chief of the major European drugmakers, as he earned 16.9 million pounds ($21.3 million) last year.