Charlie Collier, who joined Roku last fall as president of its newly created media division, had a compensation package worth $53.3 million last year — more than twice as much as his boss, CEO Anthony Wood, took home.
Collier left his post as CEO of Fox Entertainment to head up Roku Media, where he now oversees content and ad sales for the Roku Channel. Roku’s recruitment of the high-profile TV exec — who brought such hits as “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” and “The Walking Dead” to AMC — signaled that the company plans to spend more on original content. That said, Roku has been taking steps to cut costs, including laying off about 400 employees, after its revenue growth slowed dramatically in the last two quarters.
In 2022, Collier’s pay package included $1.075 million in base salary along with a boatload of stock: $23.3 million worth in stock grants and $28.9 million in stock options, according to Roku’s 2023 proxy statement filed Thursday. Collier’s annual salary was set at $6.825 million when he joined Roku in October 2022.
An important note is that Collier’s stock equity awards and options will vest over a period of four years, subject to the exec remaining employed with Roku.
Wood, who is Roku’s founder, chairman and CEO, received 2022 compensation totaling $21 million, which included $1.2 million in salary and $19.8 million worth of stock options.
Gidon Katz, president of consumer experience for Roku, had a pay package worth $13.35 million last year, including a salary of $2.75 million and stock grants worth $10.6 million (which also vest over a four-year period). Katz joined the company in January 2022 and in his current role oversees Roku’s customer group, overseeing product, customer journeys, editorial, customer marketing, payments and merchandising. He previously served as president of direct-to-consumer for NBCUniversal, where he was part of the team that launched Peacock.
The Roku board’s compensation committee “assessed each of Mr. Collier’s and Mr. Katz’s market opportunities and determined that each… new hire equity award grant was competitively necessary,” the company said in the proxy statement.
