Former Wachtell Lipton partner Sabastian Niles earned $14.1 million in compensation in his first year as chief legal officer of Salesforce, according to a preliminary proxy statement filed late Thursday.
That figure would have placed Niles 13th on last summer’s Corporate Counsel list of highest-paid legal chiefs, ranked by 2022 comp. What makes it even more notable is that Niles didn’t join the CRM giant until July 31, 2023, halfway through its fiscal year, which ended Jan. 31, 2024. No first-year legal chief included in the CC pay survey in recent years has earned so much in such a short span.