South Africa’s 40 largest listed companies paid their CEOs a combined R6,7 billion in the 2025 financial year — and the gap between the top and the rest is striking. The JSE Top 40 CEO Remuneration Report tracks executive pay, profit, and the demographic realities of corporate leadership.
The top ten highest-paid CEOs
Source: LRS JSE Top 40 CEO Remuneration Report, FY2025
What the data tells us
The top five earners are all non-South African executives, paid in euros or US dollars. Michel Doukeris (AB InBev) and Fabrício Bloisi (Naspers/Prosus) are in a different universe from the rest of the list – together they account for over R2,8 billion, or roughly 42% of the total top ten remuneration.
The highest-paid South African national CEO is Kenny Fihla at Absa Group, who earned R148 million.
The median CEO remuneration across the JSE Top 40 was R58,5 million – meaning Doukeris earned roughly 29 times the median. In a country that is the most unequal in the world, these figures raise hard questions about how executive compensation is structured, and what it is tied to.
The LRS data shows that while more profitable companies do tend to pay their CEOs more, profit explains only 28% of why one CEO earns more than another — the rest comes down to board discretion, contract terms, and long-term incentive timing.
