Intuitive Surgical CEO Gary Guthart wasn’t the surgical robotics developer’s top paid employee in 2023. [Photo courtesy of Intuitive Surgical]
Sunnyvale, California-based Intuitive reported the 2023 compensation metrics in Securities and Exchange Commission filings ahead of the 2024 annual meeting, where investors overwhelmingly voted in support of its executive compensation packages.
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.
2023 analysis: How does medtech CEO pay stack up to the rank and file?
The Intuitive pay disclosures cover the company’s most recently completed fiscal year, which ended Dec. 31, 2023. Intuitive reported $4.28 billion in sales for the year (up 22% from the year before) and net income of $1.34 billion (up 35%).
That year led up to 2024’s much-anticipated FDA clearance and commercial launch of the next-generation Intuitive da Vinci 5 surgical robotics system.
Related: Intuitive plans to use da Vinci 5 data to drive innovation and improve surgical outcomes
Intuitive CEO Gary Guthart was paid $12.4 million in 2023, up 20% from the year before. Guthart’s pay included a $955,000 salary, $7.4 million in stock awards, $2.4 million in option awards and $1.6 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation.
Intuitive President Dave Rosa [Photo courtesy of Intuitive]
Rosa trained as a mechanical engineer at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo and Stanford University before joining Intuitive in 1996. He climbed the corporate ladder for 28 years, joining the C-suite as EVP and chief commercial officer in 2015, becoming chief business officer in 2019 and then being promoted to president in May 2023. Before that, Guthart was both CEO and president.
Related: Intuitive’s Dave Rosa offers advice for perseverance and surgical robotics
Intuitive SVP and Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer Henry Charlton was the third-highest-paid executive at $5.1 million in 2023, when he was promoted from chief commercial officer. Charlton received a $580,000 salary, $3 million in stock awards, $1 million in option awards and $423,807 in non-equity incentive plan compensation.
Intuitive SVP and CFO Jamie Samath followed at $5 million in 2023, up 51%. Samath had a salary of $555,000, $3 million in stock awards, $1 million in option awards and $386,278 in non-equity incentive plan compensation.
Intuitive EVP and Chief Strategy and Corporate Operations Officer Bob DeSantis received $4.8 million in 2023, down 19% from the year before due to fewer stock and option awards. DeSantis received a $581,500 salary, $2.7 million in stock awards, $888,051 in option awards and $622,562 in non-equity incentive plan compensation.
All five of the executives received payouts for unused vacation time when the company moved to flexible vacation time for all salaried employees in the U.S. Those vacation payouts were $54,767 for Guthart, $65,192 for Samath, $91,538 for Rosa, $59,009 for DeSantis and $70,889 for Charlton. They each also received a $1,500 401(k) plan match.
Intuitive did not disclose pay for other members of the C-suite: EVP and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Myriam Curet, EVP and Chief Digital Officer Brian Miller, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer Gary Loeb, and SVP and Chief Manufacturing and Supply Chain Officer Mark Brosius. The SEC only requires companies to disclose pay for the CEO, CFO and the three other highest-paid executives.
How Intuitive’s CEO pay compares to its median worker
Intuitive Surgical is expanding its manufacturing capacity as it rolls out its fifth-generation da Vinci 5 surgical robotics system. [Image courtesy of Intuitive Surgical]
With that decrease in median employee pay and the increase in Guthart’s total compensation, Intuitive’s CEO pay ratio increased from 81:1 to 111:1 year-over-year. The CEO pay ratio is an SEC-mandated disclosure of what a company pays its CEO compared to its median employee.
Intuitive did not describe its median employee by location or job title. 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.
It’s not likely that a single Intuitive employee took a 12% pay cut from one year to the next. Instead, the lower median worker pay is probably due to Intuitive’s manufacturing expansion. Intuitive grew its manufacturing operations employment in 2023 more than twice as fast as its R&D jobs and three times as fast as its commercial and service operations jobs. Manufacturing employees are growing their share of total employment at Intuitive, while the percentage of total Intuitive jobs held by R&D employees is shrinking.
Previously: Intuitive eyes sole-source suppliers as it expands capacity
Intuitive’s full-time employment grew from 12,120 at the end of 2022 to 13,676 at the end of 2023, a 13% increase, according to the company’s annual reports for those years.
Intuitive said its turnover rate was 9.1% in 2023, down from 10.9% the year before.
Here’s how Intuitive’s workforce breaks down by function (note that percentages do not add up to 100% due to rounding):
- Intuitive manufacturing operations employees: 5,846 (43% of total Intuitive workforce) in 2023, up 21% from 4,843 (40% of total workforce) in 2022
- Intuitive commercial and service operations employees: 4,098 (30% of total Intuitive workforce) in 2023, up 7% from 3,834 (32% of total workforce) in 2022
- Intuitive administrative activities employees: 1,937 (14% of total Intuitive workforce) in 2023, up 8% from 1,792 (15% of total workforce) in 2022
- Intuitive R&D employees: 1,795 (13% of total Intuitive workforce) in 2023, up 9% from 1,651 (14% of total workforce) in 2022
The company’s global footprint expanded from 29 countries in 2022 to 30 countries in 2023.
Related: How surgical robotics leader Intuitive is growing in China
