By JACLYN TROPFEB. 10, 2014  Mary T. Barra, chief executive of General Motors, will earn as much as $14.4 million in compensation during her first year on the job, the company said on Monday.  The automaker made her compensation package public two months ahead of schedule in response to criticism from politicians and media commentators in recent weeks that Ms. Barra, the first female chief executive of any automaker, would be paid less than her predecessor, Daniel F. Akerson.  The announcement came less than two weeks after President Obama made studies showing that women earn 77 percent of what men make a central issue in his State of the Union address.  “The company released the full figures ahead of its proxy filing in April to correct misperceptions created by comparisons that used only a portion of Barra’s overall compensation,” G.M. said in a statement on Monday.  The amount of compensation revealed in January — $1.6 million in salary and $2.8 million as part of the company’s short-term incentive plan — will most likely be a small part of Ms. Barra’s earnings, but it was used by media outlets as a baseline comparison to the about $9 million Mr. Akerson earned in compensation last year.  The total package Ms. Barra stands to receive in her first year as chief executive represents a 60 percent increase over what Mr. Akerson earned in his final year on the job.  Executive compensation at G.M. was capped by the Treasury Department until the government sold its remaining stake in the automaker in December.  “While one never knows what conversations/decisions take place in the boardroom, the absence of government ownership makes G.M. a different company now than when other recent C.E.O.s were appointed,” both in terms of governance as well as compensation, Steven Hall, principal at the executive compensation firm Steven Hall & Partners, said in an email.  About $10 million in Ms. Barra’s long-term compensation will be voted on by G.M. stockholders at the company’s annual meeting in June, the company said, but that vote is not binding.  “As a new C.E.O., Mary’s total compensation is in line with her peer group and properly weighted so that most is at-risk,” G.M.’s chairman, Theodore M. Solso, said in a statement on Monday. “The company’s performance will ultimately determine how much she is paid.”  Ms. Barra, who most recently served as the company’s vice president for global product development, became chief executive on Jan. 15.  Compensation for G.M.’s five highest-ranking executives will be released in G.M.’s proxy filing in April.  An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the day on which General Motors released Mary Barra’s compensation details. It was Monday, not Friday.  A version of this article appears in print on February 11, 2014, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: G.M. Reveals C.E.O.’s Pay Details to Counter Gender-Bias Criticism. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
The automaker released Mary T. Barra’s compensation figures two months early to refute accusations that she was being paid less than her male predecessor.