Pay triples for cyber fiasco boss
TALKTALK boss Dido Harding saw her pay almost triple last year, despite failing to prevent the company’s major cyber-attack.
The scandal-hit firm revealed it handed Baroness Harding £2.8million in pay and perks, up from £1.05million the previous year.
Last night one consumer campaigner described it as a ‘reward for failure’ and warned it may trigger more defections from angry customers. The bumper package included a £550,000 basic salary, and a £2million shares windfall under a long-term bonus rewarding her performance between 2012 and 2015.
On top of this she received an annual bonus of £220,000. She would have been eligible for £342,000 under the terms of the bonus plan.
But TalkTalk said it decided to cut Baroness Harding’s bonus in recognition of the damage the cyber-attack wrought on its customers and shareholders. In a further bid to avoid a pay row, Baroness Harding said she had taken the ‘personal decision’ to donate her bonus to the charity Ambitious About Autism.
Despite the gesture, the 48year-old executive still ended up with an annual package of £2.6million for the year to the end of March.
TalkTalk suffered the data breach last October as it emerged the company did not have adequate systems to protect customers’ details.
The firm also triggered outrage by refusing to allow customers to cancel their contracts – offering them a free upgrade instead, which was taken up by half a million customers.
But the negative publicity still sparked a wave of defections, with around 100,000 customers leaving in the final three months of last year.