Joe Hinrichs walked away as Jacksonville’s highest-paid public company CEO in 2025, collecting roughly $23.4 million as he exited CSX. The total was powered by an $8.25 million severance tied to his Sept. 27, 2025 separation, with much of the rest coming from grant-date values for stock and option awards disclosed in proxy documents. The timing of his departure and prorated equity payouts nudged his 2025 haul ahead of other local executives.
CSX filings spell out the math
According to the CSX proxy statement, Hinrichs' "Total Compensation Payable" for fiscal 2025 was $23,393,331. That figure includes an $8,250,000 lump-sum severance and about $12.5 million in stock and option awards. The same filing shows a $15.1 million figure in the Summary Compensation Table under a different accounting measure, reflecting the distinction between grant-date values and compensation actually paid. The proxy also lists Stephen F. Angel's 2025 package at roughly $11.7 million after he became CEO in September 2025.
FIS still tops active CEOs
Per the FIS proxy statement, CEO Stephanie Ferris' 2025 total compensation was $22,928,412, including about $18.7 million in stock awards. That equity-heavy mix helps explain why Ferris' package sits close to Hinrichs', even with his sizable severance payment. The FIS filing lays out the grant values and the components that drove the company’s executive totals.
Other Jacksonville CEO paychecks
Fidelity National Financial’s proxy lists CEO Michael J. Nolan’s 2025 total at $11,646,893, and Regency Centers’ filing shows CEO Lisa Palmer’s package at $11,092,432. That places Nolan and Palmer below the top two but still among the highest-paid leaders based in the region. The company filings indicate that one-time items and the timing of equity grants account for much of the variation across executives.
Why equity grants keep totals high
Proxy-season studies show that stock and option awards are the main drivers of rising CEO pay, pushing median packages for large U.S. companies into the high-teens of millions. For example, a Pearl Meyer review of early S&P 500 filers reported a same-incumbent median near $17.7 million, and governance analysts have reached similar conclusions about equity’s outsized role. Those trends help explain why headline pay totals can swing sharply from year to year even when base salaries barely budge.
The Jacksonville Daily Record’s Basch Report compiled the local rankings and flagged Hinrichs’ package as the largest, and we reviewed the same SEC filings cited above to confirm the totals. For more on the charted local pay figures and the proxy documents behind them, see the Jacksonville Daily Record.
