Astros fans shop for World Series championship apparel at Academy Sports & Outdoors, Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022, in Houston.
Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer
The Academy Sports + Outdoors in Houston’s Meyerland neighborhood, photographed on Dec. 20, 2022.
Erica Grieder/Photo by Erica Grieder
A student finds a pair of shoes she likes during a “Kicks for Class” event at Academy Sports + Outdoors in Houston on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. The event was sponored by Communities in School, Heil Law Firm, Academy Sports + Outdoors and Whataburger.
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
Kingston Rucker, 11, high fives Spring Woods employee Karina Rodriguez after he found the pair of shoes he likes at Academy Sports + Outdoors in Houston on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. The event was sponored by Communities in School, Heil Law Firm, Academy Sports + Outdoors and Whataburger.
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
About 30 of the highest-paid executives in the Houston region earned 100 times more than the median employee at their company, according to a recent analysis by the Houston Chronicle.
For one company, the gap was far larger: Katy-based retailer Academy Sports & Outdoors had a CEO-to-median worker pay ratio of 423-to-1 in 2025.
Under federal law, most public companies are required to disclose the ratio between the compensation received by their CEO compared to their median worker. The Chronicle analyzed these pay ratios at public companies whose CEOs ranked among the region’s highest-paid executives last year. Among the 100 highest-paid executives, the median compensation was $11 million in 2025, according to the Chronicle analysis.
Article continues below this ad
Academy calculated the gross wages earned by all workers employed by the company as of Jan. 31, 2026 – other than CEO Steve Lawrence – including full-time, part-time, temporary and seasonal employees, according to its annual Securities and Exchange Commission report. Among this group, the company found, the median worker was a full-time team member working in one of its stores, who earned $22,584 in 2025. Meanwhile, Lawrence earned compensation of about $9.5 million in 2025, the company reported, ranking as the No. 55 highest-paid executive in the region.
RELATED: Houston’s 100 highest-paid executives, ranked: See who tops the list
Hewlett Packard Enterprise, based in Spring, had the second-largest pay ratio gap, the analysis found. The median worker brought in about $74,000 in 2025, while CEO Antonio Fabio Neri earned about $23 million, making him the region’s No. 5 highest-paid executive and giving the company a pay ratio of 316-to-1.
Article continues below this ad
Baker Hughes ranked just below Hewlett Packard with a pay ratio of 310-to-1. CEO Lorenzo Simonelli earned $21 million in 2025, the 10th highest pay package in the region, while the median worker at the company earned about $69,000. Service Corp. International had the fourth highest pay ratio, 297-to-1. Its median employee earned relatively modest compensation of about $44,500, while CEO Thomas Luke Ryan earned $13 million in 2025.
Some Houston companies reported a vast gap between the compensation of their CEOs and workers, even though their employees made much more than typical Houston workers.
The median Exxon Mobil employee, for example, earned about $183,000 in 2025. That is a comfortable salary by regional standards: the median household income in Texas and the Houston area is about $80,000, according to the Census Bureau.
However, Exxon CEO Darren Woods was the region’s second-highest paid executive last year, with a compensation package worth about $33 million, giving Exxon a CEO-to-median worker pay ratio of 181-to-1.
Oil giant Chevron, similarly, had a CEO-to-median worker pay ratio of 175-to-1. CEO Michael Wirth ranked as the region’s third-highest paid executive last year, with a compensation package worth about $27 million, while the median worker at the company had compensation of about $153,000.
Article continues below this ad
RELATED: Houston’s highest-paid CEO earned $76 million in 2025. His oil company sold no crude.
Not all highly-paid Houston executives were included in the analysis. The highest-paid executive in the region last year was Jim Flores, the CEO of energy company Sable Offshore, who earned $76 million even though the company sold no crude and made no money, reporting a net loss of more than $400 million. But the company was not required to report its median worker pay ratio because it is classified as an emerging growth company under the JOBS act, a 2012 law meant to help small businesses and startups.
CEO-to-median worker pay ratios have received scrutiny from labor advocates given persistent income inequality in the United States. High pay gaps “contribute to economic inequality and can undermine employee morale and productivity,” says the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of labor unions.
Article continues below this ad
In 2025, according to the group’s tracker, the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio at companies in the S&P 500 other than Elon Musk’s Tesla was 312:1, up from 285-to-1 in 2025. (Tesla is often excluded from such analyses due to Musk’s disproportionately high compensation. His compensation package at Tesla was valued at nearly $160 billion for 2025, while the median Tesla worker earns about $57,000, according to the AFL-CIO, giving the company a pay ratio of more than 2.5 million to one.)