Our latest list of best-paid general counsel reveals that New York is the place to be, with four of the top 10 in the nation hailing from the Empire State. These GCs, who are ranked by cash compensation, which includes salary, bonuses and nonequity compensation, took home some hefty chunks of change.
In the No. 3 spot nationally (No. 1 on the New York list) was Gerson Zweifach from 21st Century Fox, who raked in a base salary of $3 million—the best base salary in the rankings—plus a $1 million bonus and $2,325,000 in nonequity compensation (which basically amounts to a bonus, but it’s a bonus for a reason). All of this brought his total take-home cash amount to $6,325,000, the highest amount for NY GCs. Right below Zweifach, at No. 4, was American Express Co.’s Laureen Seeger, whose total cash take-home came to $5,298,200. In the No. 7 spot was Lawrence Tu from CBS with $3.9 million. And rounding out the top 10 was The Blackstone Group LP’s John Finley, who went home with $3,634,157.