By: Tami Luhby

June 27, 2005, Newsday

Andrea Jung is one of the few and fortunate.

The Avon chief executive pulled in $22 million last year, earning her the No. 25 spot among the 100 highest-paid executives in New York City. Just over half her pay package came from a $12.1-million restricted stock grant, her first award since 2000.

Only five other women took home enough to make Newsday's Top 100 list, all but one having to rise to the highest echelon in their companies to earn their spot.

Sometimes, a onetime reward can push an executive into the ranks of the best-compensated. For instance, Marie Toulantis, chief executive of barnesandnoble.com, received $4.6 million in extra pay for merging the online bookstore with its parent company, Barnes & Noble, last year.

One reason there aren't more women among the Top 100 is that they often don't make it far enough up the corporate ladder, said Deborah Kolb, professor of negotiations at Boston's Simmons School of Management, which offers an MBA program just for women. Only the five highest-paid executives are listed in a company's federal filings.

While women have made up about half of mid-level managers since the early 1990s, they have had trouble breaking into the executive suite.

"The challenge is, how do you get women into those top positions?" Kolb said. "There is a glass ceiling in many industries."

Still, the percentage of top female executives in New York City - 6 percent - is higher than the national average of 5.2 percent, according to Catalyst's 2002 survey, the most recent available. Catalyst is an advocacy and research group for women in business.

That New York City has slightly more highly paid corporate women doesn't surprise Betty Spence, president of the Manhattan-based National Association for Female Executives. The city is headquarters for some of the largest companies in the nation, and big corporations often have more women in top spots.

Nationwide, however, the gap between men's and women's compensation in general isn't closing, Spence said. While both begin their careers earning roughly the same, men start to take home larger paychecks after about five years. It's hard to tell whether this is because many women take time off to care for families or because they face discrimination, experts said.

But women who get to a corner office often earn as much as men, said Scott Schaefer, professor of management policy at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

"Women who make it to the top of an organization are people who have been devoted to their careers, and therefore their compensation is similar to their male peers'," he said.

New York City's highest-paid women

Rank Company name Executive name 2004 title Total compensation Rank in overall list:

1 Avon Products Andrea Jung Chairman and CEO $22,067,114 25

2 Goldman Sachs Group Suzanne Nora Johnson Vice chairman $17,517,331 35

3 Morgan Stanley Zoe Cruz Head of fixed income division $17,492,164 37

4 Barnes & Noble Marie Toulantis CEO of Barnes & Noble.com $15,035,931 57

5 Pfizer Karen Katen Vice chairman and president, Pfizer Human Health $12,417,245 76

6 Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Susan Lyne President and CEO $10,205,626 88

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.