Mike Baird earns $900,000 in first five months at NAB

The former New South Wales premier Mike Baird was paid almost $900,000 for his first five months in charge of National Australia Bank’s corporate and institutional unit.

NAB’s annual report for the 12 months to 30 September showed that Baird, who took up his role on 21 April, received total remuneration of $886,845, including $763,520 of cash in salary and short-term incentives.

Baird’s salary as NSW premier when he quit in January was $377,780. Baird started his banking career with NAB in 1989 and worked in corporate banking with Deutsche Bank and HSBC before state politics.

NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, was awarded total remuneration of $6.63m, down slightly on $6.71m the previous financial year.

The bank increased its full-year cash profit 2.5% to $6.64bn but Thorburn received only 49% of his maximum short-term incentives – compared with 69% in 2016 – because NAB did not meet its targets for improving customer advocacy.

The next-best-paid executive was the chief technology officer, Patrick Wright, who joined on 26 April and was awarded total remuneration of $4.39m including a staggered cash payment of $2.8m to compensate for forfeited awards from previous employer Barclays.

Total executive remuneration fell from $35.1m to $34.5m.