It pays well to be CEO at Volvo. Director Jim Rowan's salary is equivalent to what 100 of the brand's employees earn in a year. However, it's still small money compared to his fellow executives.
As CEO of Volvo Cars, Jim Rowan earns 31,000 kroner a day. That's 11.3 million kroner a year. And that's just the base salary.
If you add bonus schemes on top, Jim Rowan earns the equivalent of 100 of the brand's employees' salaries per year.
This is what Dagens Industri writes.
However, the money that the 60-year-old Briton withdraws from Volvo is still small money compared to competitors, especially in the German automotive industry.
Compared to what the Stellantis Group paid its now former director, Carlos Tavares, Jim Rowan works for practically nothing. Read more about it here .
The Volvo director can, however, take comfort in the fact that he was handpicked for the job and therefore received 7.5 million kroner just for signing the contract. What is also called a sign-on bonus.
However, the director must also accept that much of his salary package is tied directly to shares. Therefore, he received less than 740,000 kroner in bonus all the way through 2024.
The low payout is directly related to the fact that Volvo's share price fell by a whopping 27 percent during the same period. In 2023, Rowan received 3.6 million kroner from the share price. That is, in bonus alone.
For comparison, Dagens Industri writes that the most well-known Volvo director ever, Pehr G. Gyllenhammar, received just under 7 million kroner per year when he was responsible for the car brand between 1971 and 1983.
However, Jim Rowan is far from the only Volvo director who earns well today. Volvo Group, which has nothing to do with Volvo Cars, pays its director 250,000 kroner in salary every single day.
Compared to the conditions at the German competitors, the wages at both Volvo companies are nothing short of amazing.
The Volkswagen Group, for example, pays its CEO, Oliver Blume, 57 million kroner per year. The head of the VW brand, Thomas Schafer, gets just under 30 million kroner per year.
