PROVIDENCE – The CEO of Citizens Financial Group Inc. received a 20% increase in pay last year, despite a dip in percentage of shareholder support for the financial company's executive compensation packages.
According to its 2025 annual proxy statement released March 10, Bruce Van Saun earned a total compensation of $11,850,000 in 2024. He received a base salary of $1,487,000, $2,590,750 in cash bonuses, and more than $7.7 million in stock awards.
Van Saun’s compensation compared to a median employee at Citizens was 136 to 1, the proxy statement shows.
In 2023, Van Saun received $11.1 million, per the bank's proxy statement issued last year. He received a base salary of $1.5 million, $2 million in bonuses and $7.3 million in stock awards in 2023. It had fallen from $11.7 million compared to his 2022 earnings, which made for the third-straight year Van Saun saw his total compensation drop. In 2021, Van Saun’s total compensation was $12.4 million.
Meanwhile, the proxy statement shows the bank's executive compensation proposal received only 63% shareholder support in 2024, which was a significant drop from the highest support levels of 93% in 2023, when Van Saun was in the midst of his third annual pay decrease in a row.
The parent company of Citizen's Bank says they have since started to respond to the concerns demonstrated by those results, according to the proxy statement.
"This outcome was seriously considered by our Compensation and HR Committee and senior management," the proxy report said, which covers the calendar year of 2024. "During 2024 we continued our long-standing shareholder outreach program ... we expanded our program to hold additional discussions with shareholders following our proxy filing and prior to our annual meeting."
"Our second round of engagement was held during the fall of 2024 with a particular focus on understanding any specific concerns about our compensation program in light of lower say-on-pay support in 2024" per the proxy statement.
Citizens Banks' next annual shareholder meeting will take place on April 24.
In comparison to other national banks, Bank of America paid CEO Brian Moynihan a total of $35 million for 2024 compared to $29 million in 2023. Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase, received $39 million in compensation last year compared to $36 million in 2023. Meanwhile, Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank's total compensation for 2024 was $31 million, a 17% increase when compared to 2023.
Matthew McNulty is a PBN staff writer. He can be reached at McNulty@PBN.com or on X at @MattMcNultyNYC.
