Home » Business News » The video game CEO who took a 99.9 per cent pay cut until ‘frat boy’ culture was wiped out

The video game CEO who took a 99.9 per cent pay cut until ‘frat boy’ culture was wiped out

By Kris Paterson in Business News, posted April 12, 2022

Bobby Kotick, chief executive of videogame publisher Activision Blizzard, whose titles include Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and Candy Crush, has said he will take a 99.9% pay cut, from $154m to just $62,500, the minimum salary allowed under Californian law, says the Daily Mail. Kotick's usual salary is around $1.5m, with bonuses and equity grants making up the extra.

Kotick says he will not resume taking his regular wage until the company's "frat-boy culture", which has allegedly enabled sexual harassment to go unchecked, is fixed.

The group is facing investigations from multiple state and federal agencies which have yet to be heard.

In other CEO news, Glencore recently said it won't cut the pay of its new chief executive despite a widespread shareholder rebellion, says The Times. In June, Gary Nagle, who took over the mining and commodities giant, will be paid a base salary of $1.8m, plus bonuses and share awards that could take his pay to $10.4m. At the annual meeting in April 2021, more than a quarter of shareholders opposed the deal.

Partners at accounting firm EY received an average of £749,000 each in shared profit in 2021 - 12% more than the previous year. Chairman Hayward Ball said the rise in yields was partly down to the shift to working from home, with savings on travel costs and spending on office premises. Similarly, commodities partners at PwC were paid an average of £868,000 each, while those at Deloitte received about £1m.

Kris Paterson is a writer for WhatJobs.com

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