Retail Chief Angela Ahrendts Was Apple's Highest-Paid Exec In 2015

If you happen to run into Angela Ahrendts, retail chief at Apple, while you are at lunch or the mall or something, be sure to give her a "keep up the great work" nod, since in 2015, she was once again the highest paid executive at the company. She did this by taking home a total of almost $25.8 million over the course of the year.

Despite her staying at home in this coveted number one spot at Apple, Ahrendts' 2015 haul was significantly lower than her take-home in 2014, which was in the neighborhood of $73.4 million instead. Her exceptionally lucrative year in 2014 can largely be attributed to $37 million worth of stock grants from the company to reimburse her for her stock at her old job at Burberry, as well as some new-hire stock, worth about $33 million.

(Ilya S. Savenok / Getty Images)

As figures illustrate, a high-ranking executive job at a company like Apple doesn't mean taking home a simple base salary and a few stray benefits, a trend that continued for Ahrendts all through 2015. Her $25.8 million take-home pay in 2015 included a base salary of just $1 million, with the rest coming from a stock grant worth $20 million, a bonus worth $4 million, and a relocation expense package valued at $474,981.

As for Ahrendts' corporate cohorts at Apple, the company's head of internet software, Eddy Cue, and Chief Financial Officer, Luca Maestri, both took home comparable sums at $25 million and $25.3 million, respectively. Somewhat surprisingly, the bottom of the Apple corporate earnings totem pole in 2015 was held up by CEO Tim Cook, who brought home a relatively modest $10.3 million last year. Don't feel too bad for Cook, though, he's got Apple stock worth well over half a billion dollars when it reaches its maximum potential value in the next five years – plus, he's planning to give almost all of his money away, anyway.