10 IoT CEOs Laughing Loudest all the Way to the Bank

By Adam Gabriel

It’s no surprise that Disney CEO Robert Iger commands a multi-million dollar paycheck. After all, not only does he oversee Disney resorts across the world, the company’s famed films, but also the recently added Star Wars franchise—a brand worth billions on its own. It turns out that a galaxy far, far way can be had for $4 billion—what Disney paid to acquire Lucasfilm, which created the iconic movie franchise, in what has been called the deal of the century. So just like Darth Vader, Lord Iger holds dominion over a vast empire. But why mention Disney in an article describing the top-paid Internet of Things CEOs? Read on.

The slideshow below details the ten top-paid CEOs running businesses with significant IoT operations. On the list, you’ll find companies you expected, like GM, with its OnStar system installed in all its cars, or Industrial Internet evangelist GE. But do you know about First Data, and how it relates to the Internet of Things? Or where its CEO, Frank Bisignano, ranks on the list?

To assemble at our slideshow, we relied on publicly available information, such as this list from The New York Times, to which we applied research, and selected only those companies where IoT plays a sizable role in their business. Our resulting list is presented in ascending order and is rife with surprises beyond what we’ve already mentioned. For example, Jeff Immelt makes less than all the rest, despite GE’s huge presence not just in Industrial IoT, but his personal role in developing that business.

So who’s in the top spot? It’s probably not a person you’d expect. And it’s a woman. Yes, there is hope for equal pay.