Rounding out the top five is Stephen Avera, CLO at Thomasville-based Flowers Foods Inc. Last year, Avera took home $744,658 in total cash. That's a $475,000 salary combined with $269,658 in nonequity incentives.

It's a big raise for Avera, who made 18 percent more last year than in the previous year. In 2017, Avera also received nearly $680,000 in stock awards—a figure that also was slightly up from the previous year's $637,870 in stock.

Avera has been with some iteration of Flowers Foods since 1986. Up until 1998, he was associate GC and assistant GC at Flowers Industries. He then served as VP and GC at Flowers Bakeries from 1998 to 2002. Following that, he held in-house roles of increasing responsibility at Flowers Foods, culminating with his appointment as CLO in May 2017.