The first medical cannabis company to be listed on a US exchange, Tilray, ended 2018 on a positive note with a humongous 315% gain, thus making its CEO, Brendan Kennedy, the second-highest paid executive in the world, according to Bloomberg Pay Index.
47-year-old Brendan Kennedy reportedly had a compensation of $256 million only behind Tesla’s Elon Musk whose pay package was worth $513 million.
In an interview with Bloomberg in the year 2012 — the same year when Kennedy founded Tilray — he had said that this decision would either be “a career suicide or the smartest decision we’ve ever made in our lives”. Seems, his bet finally paid off!
Notably, Tilray’s shares were listed publicly in July, 2018.
Other prominent names following Kennedy on the index are:
- Walt Disney’s Bob Iger ($147 million)
- Apple CEO Tim Cook ($142 million)
- Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks ($131 million)
This happens to be the first time that Brendan Kennedy’s name has featured on this list, unlike his top-5 peers.
Other entrepreneurs who have had the opportunity to receive such massive packages after successful initial public offerings (IPO), include Snap’s Evan Spiegel, who earned around $500 million in 2017, and Go Pro’s Nick Woodman, who topped the list in 2014 with earnings of $285 million.
The details about compensations are acquired by Bloomberg from the US regulators where companies submit the data. They are inclusive of employee stock options and restricted shares; however, the index only takes into consideration equity awards until the end of the fiscal, for easier comparison.
