Abbott's device leader pay climbs with double-digit sales growth

A photo of Lisa Earnhardt, an Abbott EVP and president of the medical devices group.

Abbott EVP and Medical Devices Group President Lisa Earnhardt [Photo courtesy of Abbott]

Abbott EVP and Medical Devices Group President Lisa Earnhardt’s pay package increased more than 20% in 2025 as device sales maintained their double-digit growth.

That’s according to the latest executive compensation disclosure from Abbott, which was the world’s eighth-largest medical device company in Medical Design & Outsourcing‘s Medtech Big 100 ranking by revenue. That ranking only included sales from Abbott’s medical device business, not revenue from its pharmaceutical, nutritional and diagnostic segments.

Abbott’s medical device sales grew for the third consecutive year in 2025, increasing 12% to $21.39 billion. That figure will likely move Abbott up on our 2026 Medtech Big 100 ranking later this year, passing GE HealthCare (which reported $20.6 billion in 2025 revenue) and Royal Phillips ($20.1 billion in 2025 revenue).

Recruiting and retaining top talent — both at the executive and engineering level — is crucial in the medtech industry, but employee compensation is kept secret in most cases. Medical Design & Outsourcing tracks and analyzes these pay figures when disclosed by major device developers and manufacturers.

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Abbott executive pay

A photo of Abbott Chair and CEO Robert Ford.

Abbott Chair and CEO Robert Ford led the medical device business before becoming the company’s chief executive. [Photo courtesy of Abbott]

Abbott Chair and CEO Robert Ford received $24.2 million in total compensation for 2025, up 6% from $22.8 million the year before.

Ford’s 2025 pay package included a $1.5 million salary, $8.8 million in stock awards, $8.8 million in option awards, a $2 million cash performance bonus and a $2.2 million change in pension value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings.

Ford also received $959,798 in other compensation, including $816,580 for earnings on non-qualified defined contribution plans, $75,000 for employer contributions to defined contribution plans and $68,218 for non-business use of corporate aircraft.

An image of Abbott Finance EVP and CFO Phillip Bourdreau.

Abbott Finance EVP and CFO Phil Bourdreau [Photo courtesy of Abbott]

Abbott Finance EVP and CFO Phil Bourdreau received $9.1 million in total compensation for 2025, up 9% from $8.2 million the year before.

Bourdreau’s 2025 pay package included a $974,231 salary, $3 million in stock awards, $3 million in option awards, a $1.1 million cash performance bonus, a $894,302 change in pension value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings and $74,418 in other compensation.

Abbott EVP and Medical Devices Group President Lisa Earnhardt received $8.1 million in total compensation for 2025, up 23% from $6.6 million the year before.

Earnhardt’s pay package included a $924,231 salary, $2.5 million in stock awards, $2.5 million in option awards, a $1.3 million cash performance bonus, a $594,787 change in pension value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings and $178,953 in other compensation.

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An image of former Abbott EVP, General Counsel and Secretary Hubert Allen

Former Abbott EVP, General Counsel and Secretary Hubert Allen [Photo courtesy of Abbott]

Former Abbott EVP, General Counsel and Secretary Hubert Allen received $7 million in total compensation for the year, down 12% from $8 million the year before. He retired in June 2025.

Allen’s 2025 pay package included a $524,019 salary, $2.1 million in stock awards, $2.1 million in option awards, a $447,500 cash performance bonus, a $1.2 million change in pension value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings and $653,224 in other compensation.

Abbott Diabetes Care EVP Chris Scoggins received $6.6 million in total compensation for 2025. Scoggins was promoted to his position in December 2024 after serving as commercial operations and marketing SVP of Abbott’s diabetes business.

An image of Abbott Diabetes Care EVP Christopher Scoggins.

Abbott Diabetes Care EVP Chris Scoggins [Photo courtesy of Abbott]

Scoggins’ 2025 pay package included a $859,502 salary, $1.7 million in stock awards, $1.7 million in option awards, a $1.1 million cash performance bonus, a $1.2 million change in pension value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings and $108,443 in other compensation.

Abbott EVP and Established Pharmaceuticals and Nutritional Products Group President Daniel Salvadori received $6.5 in total compensation for 2025, up 12% from $5.8 million the year before.

An image of Abbott EVP and Established Pharmaceuticals and Nutritional Products Group President Daniel Salvadori.

Abbott EVP and Established Pharmaceuticals and Nutritional Products Group President Daniel Salvadori [Photo courtesy of Abbott]

Salvadori’s 2025 pay package included a $924,231 salary, $2.2 million in stock awards, $2.2 million in option awards, a $388,200 cash performance bonus, a $531,518 change in pension value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings and $212,501 in other compensation.

Except for Ford, executives received reimbursement for use of a corporate car, costs associated with financial planning and health program benefits.

“Abbott and its Compensation Committee have designed a compensation program that balances short- and long-term objectives to focus our executives on actions that create value today, while building for sustainable future success,” Abbott said in the disclosure. “Approximately 86% of our pay is performance-based, directly tying a significant portion of executive compensation to company performance and shareholder returns.”

Abbott’s median worker pay and CEO pay ratio

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires publicly traded companies to calculate the gap between CEO compensation and pay for its median employee.

Abbott estimated its median employee wage at $145,528, up 13% from $128,746 the year before.

That latest median wage and Ford’s $24.2 million pay package puts Abbott’s CEO pay at 166 times more than the median worker, compared to a 177:1 ratio the year before.

But the SEC gives companies some leeway in determining their median wage, and Abbott excluded 5,696 employees from its most recent calculations because they live “in locations where the cost of living, cost of labor, or currency movement against the U.S. dollar was not representative of our global employee compensation arrangements.”

Those excluded employees were in Belarus, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Pakistan and the Philippines.

Abbott said it had 115,065 employees as of October 2025, with global employment up about 1% from 114,092 one year before. The share of U.S. workers in Abbott’s global workforce remained unchanged at 32% in 2025.

Abbott did not identify the median employee by job title or location. At other medtech companies that offer more details about their median workers than required by the SEC pay disclosure rules, those median medtech workers often hold technical roles such as device design or engineering.

Abbott investors will cast advisory “say-on-pay” votes on the company’s executive compensation practices at the April 24, 2026 annual meeting. Shareholders overwhelmingly voted in support of the company’s executive pay the year before.