It was, broadly speaking, another good year for Houston's highest-paid executives, a list dominated by the leaders of major energy companies.
Despite the large dollar values of the compensation packages given to these executives, many don't have the highest annual salaries. That's because executive compensation packages, which are determined by a company's board of directors, are generally structured to include short and long-term incentives, which help align executive compensation with a company's performance.
"It allows the company to have the pay coincide with how well the company's doing," said Wes Hart, a managing director in Pearl Meyer's Houston office.
For executives whose compensation is loaded with shares of company stock, the ebullient market of 2023 helped make them richer, at least on paper.
"A very simple truism would be executives do a lot better when stock prices are up, because they own a lot of stock," said Hart, adding: "We thought 2023 was going to be a so-so year and it ended up being pretty good."