Mark Zuckerberg may be founder and CEO of Facebook, but it is the second-in-command and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg who gets a fatter salary package at the IPO-bound social networking giant.
The base salary of Zuckerbeg, also the most-known face of Facebook, is set to decline further and would remain just a token amount of USD one per year, effecting January 1, 2013.
As per the regulatory filings made by the US-based Facebook for its IPO (initial public offer), Sandberg is the highest paid executive at the world's largest social network and took home a whopping USD 30.87 million in 2011.
Facebook founder, Chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was way behind with a relatively modest pay package of USD 1.49 million in the same year.
Sandberg's compensation included a base salary of USD 295,833, bonus of USD 86,133 and stock awards of USD 30.49 million, Facebook said in its IPO documents.
The company plans to raise USD five billion through the IPO, which could value Facebook at up to USD 100 billion. Some reports have said that the IPO size could even rise even further to USD 10 billion.
In the first quarter of 2011, the compensation committee of Facebook decided to increase the base salaries of its executive officers in order to bring them at par with its peer group companies for similar positions.
Accordingly, the base salary of Facebook CEO was hiked by USD 100,000 and of each other executive officer by USD 25,000. However, despite this hike, Facebook's executive officer salaries were still "below the 25th percentile of the salaries" provided by its peer group companies for executives in similar positions, the company has said.
Zuckerberg had a base salary of USD 483,333 in 2011, but it would decline to just USD 1 next year, on his request.The regulatory filing further noted that Molly Graham,the daughter of Donald E Graham, a member of Facebook's board of directors received a cash compensation, including base salary, bonus and other compensation, of USD 189,168 in 2011.
Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Mark Zuckerberg and employed with Facebook till August 2011, was paid cash compensation of USD 89,536 in 2011. Prior to that, she was paid USD 128,750 and USD 139,578 during 2009 and 2010, respectively.
The total pay of other executive officers like Mike Schroepfer, Vice President of Engineering, stood at USD 24.72 million in 2011, followed by David Abersman, Chief Financial Officer's with USD 18.67 million and Theodore W Ullyot Vice President General Counsel and Secretary (USD 6.95 million).
Facebook's revenue rose to USD 3.71 billion in 2011, up 88 per cent from 2010 and by 377 per cent from 2009. In 2011, its income rose by 65 per cent to USD 1 billion.It derives 85 per cent of its revenues from advertising and the rest from social gaming and other fees.