Key Takeaways
- As private ownership continues to grow across investment markets, publicly disclosed market pay data leaves most benchmarks offering only a partial view of the talent market.
- Boards and HR leaders must look beyond ASX-listed companies KMP roles in their industry to better understand their C-suite talent pool and compete with their peers.
- In a constrained economic environment, showing that remuneration is benchmarked against comprehensive, current data makes decisions defensible to boards, investors and executives themselves.
The number of publicly listed Australian companies is shrinking, with ASX-listed entities falling to roughly 2,052 in 2025[1]. At the same time, private capital under management has grown 161% over the past decade[1], as private equity firms, superannuation funds and management buyouts move more companies out of public view. For boards and HR leaders, this has important consequences for informing executive remuneration. With many benchmarking datasets heavily relying on only disclosed pay data from listed companies, decision makers need to look for alternatives based on research that can offer a more comprehensive view of executive talent rewards.
Public Data on Remuneration is in Decline
This trend is not unique to Australia. In the United States, the number of private-equity-backed companies has grown from 1,900 to 11,200 over the past 20 years[2]. Most executive remuneration benchmarks still draw on disclosed pay for a handful of roles, such as the CEO, CFO, COO and Company Secretary, across the ASX300. As more companies move into private ownership, the amount of this disclosed remuneration data continues to fall.
“With the rise of private equity globally, the availability of public data is in decline,” says Kirsten Ross, Head of Executive Remuneration & Governance at Aon Australia,“to make defensible remuneration decisions, you need to benchmark against a far larger part of the talent market than what is now publicly disclosed.”
When comparing the spend on data with the rewards budget at the executive level, the investment in getting it right is relatively small. The risk of getting it wrong, in attrition or in governance exposure, could result in a far higher cost. “A company with six executive roles, spending an estimated average of $400,000 per role each year, might invest a small fraction of that every second or third year to validate its remuneration decisions externally,” says Ross.
“Validating executive pay against the market every two to three years is a modest investment set against total executive remuneration spend. The cost of getting it wrong, in attrition or in governance exposure, is far higher.” – Kirsten Ross, Head of Executive Remuneration & Governance, Aon
Quality Data Helps to Define and Understand the Market
An incomplete or shallow data set is one emerging challenge for remuneration benchmarking. Understanding which part of the market you are benchmarking against can also be a major obstacle for making realistic comparisons to support remuneration decisions. “Many organisations struggle to articulate who they are actually competing with for executive talent,” says Ross. “ “Defining the comparator market either too narrowly or too broadly can materially distort perceptions of the executive pay levels needed to be competitive.”
The right peer group to use will depend on the role. A Chief Financial Officer (CFO) or Chief People Officer is often comparable across sectors, while a business unit leader or Chief Executive typically needs sector-specific experience. This means the talent search for one C-suite role will be bound to the sector while a CFO role in the same organisation may come from a much larger pool.
Ross explains how this distinction played out for one financial services organisation regulated by APRA, which had a strong technology offer to the wealth and superannuation sector. “Rather than benchmark its entire executive team against financial services peers, the organisation ran two parallel peer groups, financial services and technology, mapped to different roles,” she says. “Their Chief Data Officer roles were benchmarked against technology sector peers while their Chief Risk and Compliance Officer were anchored to remuneration levels for financial services companies operating under similar regulatory obligations.” The result was an executive reward strategy that reflected where each role actually competed for talent, rather than the sector the company was operating within.
Looking Beyond the ASX
Some of the largest competitors for talent in a given sector may not be listed at all. In telecommunications and infrastructure, for example, many of the larger employers in the Australian market are privately or offshore-owned.
“One telecommunications and infrastructure business had historically benchmarked only against other ASX-listed peers because that was the only data they had access to,” says Ross. “When comparing this data with Aon’s Radford McLagan Compensation Database (RMCD), which includes private and foreign-owned competitors, it became clear that the previous dataset excluded a significant part of their sector, making their benchmark for executive talent unrealistic.”
Benchmark against the most comprehensive, current remuneration dataset in Australia
The Aon Radford McLagan Compensation Database (RMCD): a snapshot
- 2000 companies ~85% private as at 31 December 2025
- ~30 executive level roles for ASX Listed companies (on average)
- ~10 executive level roles for private companies (on average)
Benchmarking in a Constrained Economy
A thorough approach to remuneration benchmarking is even more important in the current economic environment. Ongoing inflation, scrutiny of workforce costs and debate about how AI is reshaping roles and rewards all bring more attention to executive pay decisions, from boards and employees alike. For organisations competing with private, foreign-owned or offshore-headquartered peers, the challenge is not only the validity of the data set, but whether it reflects the full market they are competing in.
“It’s no longer just about making the right call on what to pay an executive to compete successfully in your market,” says Ross. “It’s about following a robust, defensible process to reach a decision that can hold up to scrutiny because it’s benchmarked against the highest-quality, most current data set available.”
“Validating executive pay against the market every second or third year is a sound governance practice, regardless of sector,” says Ross. “As more of the Australian economy moves into private ownership, the organisations with the clearest view of the full market will be best placed to attract and retain the leaders they need.”
Using the Radford McLagan Compensation Database (RMCD), Aon’s Executive Remuneration team works with organisations across sectors to build benchmarking approaches suited to the specific roles, and the specific markets, that matter most to them. The RMCD provides the most comprehensive and reliable executive remuneration database in Australia, with more companies and more roles to give boards and HR leaders a true view of their talent market.
[1] ASIC, Australia’s evolving capital markets discussion paper (Feb 2025); ASX listings data via The Investor Standard, Feb 2026
[2] Financial Newswire, Public market shrinkage continues to push pivot to private, Yasmine Raso, 14 October 2024
