CEO Pay Watch Life Time Fitness Inc.

Bahram Akradi, chairman, president, CEO

Total compensation: $7,385,858 for the year ended Dec. 31

Salary: $940,000

Non-equity incentive pay: $1,237,655

Other compensation: $84,655

Value realized on vesting shares: $5,123,548

Total return to shareholders: –4.5 percent

Note: Akradi, who founded Life Time Fitness in 1992, took home significantly less than in the previous two years.

In 2011 and 2012, Akradi realized $13.5 million and $14.2 million, respectively, from restricted stock awards that vested during those years. In 2013, he realized only $5.1 million.

Akradi's base salary remained the same as the previous two years, and he earned slightly less in annual bonus as the company fell shy of earnings goals set for 2013.

Last April, Life Time shareholders gave the company's executive compensation plan only a 62.1 percent approval rating for its 2012 compensation, after having achieved 99.5 percent approval the previous year. As a result, the compensation committee directed management to contact its 25 largest shareholders and get more direct feedback.

As a result of those conversations and recommendations from executive compensation consultants, Life Time modified its 2014 executive compensation program. The changes included making more of its time-based and performance-based restricted stock awards subject to forfeiture should goals not be met. The company also added more disclosure around the performance metrics surrounding a May 2012 grant of performance-based restricted stock and adopted a number of governance-related compensation policies.

Patrick Kennedy