Who Are the Highest-Paid DAX CEOs?

Key Takeaways

• SAP’s Christian Klein ranks first in total pay among DAX CEOs because 85.5% of his pay in 2025 was variable pay, which depends on company targets.
• Only Klein and Deutsche Bank’s Christian Sewing earned over €10 million in 2025. That is above the highest CEO pay that Germany’s shareholder association DSW considers acceptable.
• DAX CEOs earned about one-fifth of what CEOs of large US companies in the Dow Jones index earned. The main reason is that US CEOs received almost nine times as much long-term variable pay, which is often linked to the company’s share price.
• DAX CEOs earn less than CEOs of large companies in other countries that use the euro, mainly because of long-term pay. Those CEOs received about twice as much long-term pay as DAX CEOs.

Top 20 DAX CEOs Ranked by Total Pay

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Learn something new about Germany every week and make informed decisions with confidence.

SAP’s Christian Klein Ranks First in DAX CEO Pay Despite Below-Average Fixed Pay

SAP CEO Christian Klein ranks first in total pay among the 40 DAX CEOs. The DAX is Germany’s main stock market index of 40 large companies.

Klein earned €10.85 million in 2025. That is about 1.8 times the €6.14 million average for DAX CEOs.

DSW (Deutsche Schutzvereinigung für Wertpapierbesitz) is an association that represents people who own company shares. DSW sees €10 million as the highest CEO pay that is still justifiable to the public and to a company’s own staff. Klein and Deutsche Bank’s Christian Sewing were the only DAX CEOs above it in 2025.

DAX CEO pay has three parts:

• Fixed pay: a set amount paid no matter how the company performs, including salary and pension contributions
• Short-term bonus: a payment tied to targets for one financial year
• Long-term variable pay: a payment tied to targets measured over several years, often linked to the company’s share price

The short-term bonus and long-term variable pay make up variable pay. Variable pay grows when the company meets its targets and shrinks when it misses them.

Klein’s fixed pay of €1.58 million was below the €1.86 million average for DAX CEOs. Klein still ranks first in total pay among DAX CEOs because variable pay made up 85.5% of his total pay in 2025. Long-term variable pay alone made up 55% of his total pay.

Klein receives his long-term variable pay as SAP share awards. Their final value depends on SAP’s results from 2025 to 2027, including total revenue, operating profit, and how SAP’s shares perform against companies in the US Nasdaq-100 index.

At SAP, the supervisory board sets the CEO’s pay targets. The supervisory board oversees the company’s management.

SAP beat some of its 2025 bonus targets and missed others. Overall, Klein’s short-term bonus reached 99% of its target amount.

Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden and Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing each had fixed pay about 2.4 times Klein’s, but their variable pay was smaller. As a result, both earned less than Klein overall.

Fixed pay does not decide the top-ranked DAX CEOs. Variable pay does.

DAX CEOs Earn About One-Fifth of What US Dow Jones CEOs Earn

DAX CEOs earned about one-fifth of Dow Jones CEO pay in 2025. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a US stock index of 30 large companies.

The gap is smaller against the Euro Stoxx 50, a stock index of 50 large companies across the eurozone, the group of EU countries that use the euro.

Average CEO pay in 2025 was much lower in the DAX than in both indexes:

• Dow Jones CEOs: €30.5 million
• Euro Stoxx 50 CEOs outside Germany: €9.5 million
• DAX CEOs: €6.1 million

Long-term variable pay explains about 87% of the pay gap between Dow Jones CEOs and DAX CEOs. By contrast, fixed pay explains only about 3% of that gap. Dow Jones CEOs received almost nine times as much long-term variable pay as DAX CEOs.

Eurozone CEOs outside Germany received almost the same fixed pay as DAX CEOs, but about twice as much long-term variable pay.

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Research on CEO pay across countries links higher US pay to three factors:

• Size: US companies tend to be larger, and larger companies pay their CEOs more
• Shares: US CEOs receive more of their pay in company shares
• Owners: large investment funds own more of US companies, and their ownership is linked to higher CEO pay

Once researchers account for these three factors, most of the extra pay for US CEOs disappears.

Between countries, long-term variable pay explains most of the gap in CEO pay.