{"id":296494,"date":"2026-01-16T13:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T21:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/?p=296494"},"modified":"2026-01-16T13:55:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T21:55:00","slug":"cfo-compensation-private-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/?p=296494","title":{"rendered":"What do CFOs at private companies make?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">CFOs are invaluable at private companies (AKA startups) \u2014often seen as the #2 alongside the CEO. At later\u2011stage private companies, the CFO isn\u2019t just running finance; they\u2019re co\u2011piloting the business and owning the path to liquidity (which is opening back up). So, what are these key players making? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Using<strong>\u00a0YoY data from the <a href=\"http:\/\/platform.jthelander.com\">Thelander platform<\/a><\/strong> (available through a <a href=\"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/private-company-compensation-data-j-thelander-consulting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">subscription<\/a> or survey participation), median\u00a0CFO total cash has risen from $352K in 2022 to $400K in 2025\u201326 for companies that have raised $90M+.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/cfo-1-700x366.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-296495\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>At the\u00a0<strong>75th percentile<\/strong>, total cash has steadily\u00a0increased from $453,750 (2022)\u00a0to $472,500 in 2025 &#8211; 2026. Meanwhile, the non-founder equity has slightly increased from 1.173% to 1.300% over the last five years while total founder equity has decreased.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/cfo-2-700x367.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-296496\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>If you\u2019re a CFO or private company exec planning key 2026 hires, you can access real\u2011time compensation data for every job title you complete in the Thelander Private Company Compensation Survey\u2014the more you give, the more you get.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--1\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"http:\/\/survey.jthelander.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Click Here to Participate Today<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CFOs are invaluable at private companies (AKA startups) \u2014often seen as the #2 alongside the CEO. At later\u2011stage private companies, the CFO isn\u2019t just running finance; they\u2019re co\u2011piloting the business and owning the path to liquidity (which is opening back up). So, what are these key players making? Using\u00a0YoY data from the Thelander platform (available [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-296494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-data-drops","tag-private-company"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=296494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=296494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=296494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=296494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}