The 2025 Club Benchmarking Executive Compensation whitepaper examines factors that drive total compensation for Executive Team positions in private clubs, drawing on extensive national datasets and proven analytical methods. The intent is to bring clarity and consistency to compensation discussions by grounding decisions in objective, comparable data rather than assumptions or anecdotal norms.
Across the industry, executive compensation remains a recurring point of uncertainty. In Club Benchmarking employee engagement surveys, the statement "I am compensated fairly for my work" consistently receives the lowest average score, highlighting a disconnect between perceptions of fairness and the frameworks used to determine pay. This analysis identifies which measurable variables, most notably overall club size, departmental scale, and certain regional influences, help explain compensation, and how the strength of those relationships varies across roles.
The findings show that executive compensation can be predicted with meaningful reliability, though the degree of predictability differs by position. In general, club size and department size emerge as the most consistent drivers, while demographic factors and cost-of-living measures only contribute marginally. As a result, effective compensation strategies reflect the specific operational realities of each role rather than relying on uniform or tradition-based approaches.
The Core Finding:
Executive compensation structures tend to align with national market forces more than with local practices or intuition. The size and complexity of what a leader manages is consistently the strongest predictor of what they are paid, regardless of geography.