CEO, CFO and COO Salaries at Major ASX Companies: A Practical Remuneration Comparison

CEO, CFO and COO salaries: 10 selected ASX company examples

Executive remuneration at Australia's largest listed companies is more useful as a benchmark when it starts with fixed salary or fixed annual remuneration, rather than a ranking of the executives who received the largest equity payouts. A CEO can receive an unusually high statutory remuneration amount because of the accounting value of long-term incentives without their underlying salary increasing by anything like that amount.

This guide presents fixed-pay examples from 10 major Australian listed businesses within a dated 20-company universe. It identifies published CEO and CFO remuneration and, where relevant, the COO or nearest clearly identified group operations executive, and explains how a remuneration committee can assess the figures before using them as benchmarks.

How were the comparison companies selected?

For a consistent selection universe, this guide starts with the 20 companies named in the September 2026 Solactive Australia 20 constituent announcement: ANZ, Aristocrat, BHP, Brambles, Coles, Commonwealth Bank, CSL, Fortescue, Goodman, Macquarie, NAB, QBE, Rio Tinto, Santos, Telstra, Transurban, Wesfarmers, Westpac, Woodside and Woolworths.

Selection note: This is a dated basket of major ASX-listed companies, rather than a claim that the companies are the exact 20 largest by market capitalisation on 28 October 2026 or that they are the 20 highest-paying employers. Index membership and company rankings change over time. Source: Solactive Australia 20 announcement.

CEO, CFO and COO fixed remuneration: company comparison

Figures below are the specific disclosed fixed-pay measure, in the report's original currency. "Not verified" means that a suitable individual fixed-pay number has not been established from the annual report evidence used for this article; it does not mean the executive earns nothing or that the company does not employ that role. "No group COO figure" means no separately verified, comparable group COO figure is available. The periods and measures deliberately remain visible because treating a 2025 part-year cash salary as equivalent to a 2026 contracted fixed package would be misleading.

Data quality notice: This is a partial verified-disclosure comparison, not a complete normalised 20-company salary database. Some entries are not yet verified and some measures differ (base salary, salary and fees, fixed remuneration, or total fixed remuneration). Do not calculate a defensible market median or percentiles directly from the mixed figures in this table. The periods, currencies and pay definitions must first be standardised, and missing observations addressed.

Why is COO remuneration missing from many annual reports?

A group Chief Operating Officer is not a universal position. Many large listed organisations divide operations among business-unit CEOs or group executives rather than appointing a single group COO. Others may have an operating leader who is not classified as key management personnel, so the annual report does not disclose their individual remuneration.

For example, Coles identifies a Chief Operations and Supply Chain Officer, Fortescue disclosed a Chief Operating Officer, and Woodside disclosed a COO International. Those responsibilities are not necessarily interchangeable: a role managing one region may be smaller than a group-wide COO with responsibility for all operations.

Do not insert a business-unit CEO's salary as a group COO benchmark unless the job scope genuinely matches. Where no suitable disclosed figure exists, a role-specific remuneration survey or other validated market source is more useful than a guessed number.

What the salary comparison reveals

The FY26 figures from Woolworths, Telstra, Coles and Wesfarmers show why even large Australian companies should not be treated as one identical remuneration market. Woolworths reported CEO total fixed remuneration of $2.15 million and CFO total fixed remuneration of $1.30 million. Telstra's June 2026 scheduled fixed amounts were $2.50 million and $1.35 million, while Coles reported base salary of approximately $2.02 million and $1.10 million. Wesfarmers reported statutory cash salary of approximately $2.71 million and $1.50 million.

The differences reflect both business context and how the pay is defined. A comparison that ignores superannuation, annual leave accounting or whether the number is contracted rather than actually received could give the wrong answer.

For international employers, currency is an additional issue. Rio Tinto reports director salaries in GBP, Brambles' executives have GBP-denominated arrangements, and parts of Woodside's disclosures use USD. Any currency conversion should use a documented date and method.

An example of how to benchmark a CEO, CFO and COO

Assume your company has the following current fixed annual remuneration:

The market medians in this example are illustrative, not calculated from the selected-company table. The CEO is positioned furthest below the hypothetical peer median, but that does not automatically mean a 12.5% salary increase is required. Review the total remuneration opportunity, role scope, individual performance, affordability and internal relativities before making a recommendation.

A practical decision paper can offer three alternatives: hold fixed remuneration, make targeted adjustments to positions with well-supported market gaps, or phase changes across review cycles. Show the annual fixed cost and changes to target and maximum variable remuneration for each alternative.

How to make the company data suitable for a real remuneration review

Before using annual-report figures for pay decisions, build one worksheet per financial year and retain the source links. Record the role title and scope, tenure, currency, salary definition, retirement contribution, fixed benefits, target STI, target LTI, statutory total and any exceptional awards.

Then convert all fixed pay to a common definition, such as fixed annual remuneration including defined employer retirement benefits, and decide on a consistent foreign-exchange approach. Exclude partial-year salary from full-year comparisons unless it can be reliably annualised from a disclosed contractual rate.

For the COO role, validate whether the company has a genuine group-wide equivalent; otherwise note that no relevant public comparator is available. When enough comparable observations remain, calculate 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles separately for each role, without mixing base salary and realised equity gains.

Remuneration committee checklist

• Have we selected relevant listed-company peers rather than only the highest earners?
• Do we know which figures are salaries and which are broader fixed remuneration?
• Are our CEO and CFO role scopes comparable to the selected peers?
• Have we checked whether each COO role actually exists and is comparable?
• Have we verified reporting periods, executive transitions and original currencies?
• Have we excluded one-off and realised equity amounts from fixed-pay comparisons?
• Can we reproduce every benchmark using an annual report and documented calculation?
• Do our recommended fixed salaries fit the organisation's overall remuneration strategy?

A practical conclusion

The most useful lesson from Australia's large listed companies is that CEO, CFO and COO salaries cannot be assessed through headline pay rankings alone. A defensible comparison requires the right companies, a consistent remuneration definition and an honest treatment of missing or non-comparable disclosures.

Public annual reports can provide an excellent starting point for CEO and CFO benchmarking, but they are less complete for group COOs. Supplement the data where necessary rather than presenting an incomplete group as a reliable market salary distribution.

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