How Altria Pays
Altria's Tier 1 to Director ladder plus its disclosed Band C, B and A executive salary bands, priced across 12 markets alongside RSUs and PSUs, a 13 to 17 percent profit-sharing contribution, a $24.56M CEO package at 147:1, and a small Richmond-only H-1B wage record.
Band Hierarchy
Altria is far more transparent at the top of its hierarchy than in the middle. The 2026 proxy discloses Salary Bands A, B and C with their salary ranges, annual-incentive targets and equity targets. Filings also prove that the internal system runs at least to Band I, because the Compensation and Talent Development Committee reviews annual-incentive targets for Band I and above, and a disclosed promotion moved an executive from Band D to Band B. Altria has never published the A-through-I title map, so the Tier 1 to Director rungs below Band C in this report are a title-based reconstruction from current Richmond job postings and market salary observations, not internal band labels.
Operations and early-career ladder — intern and hourly roles
Professional ladder — Tier 3 through Director
Executive and board — Vice President through Band A
Disclosed executive layer
Track divergence
Hierarchy qualifications and legacy structures
- Only Bands A, B and C are Altria labels. Tier 1 through Director are analytical rungs built from current Richmond job postings, Glassdoor, Indeed and Levels.fyi observations, and they should never be quoted back as internal Altria grades.
- Altria's own filings prove the internal system reaches at least Band I, so the reconstruction here compresses an unknown number of real bands into eight visible tiers.
- Peer mapping is by title rather than by grade. Tobacco and consumer-staples companies use different grading schemes, so asserting that an Altria Band C equals a specific numbered level elsewhere would be speculative.
- No evidence was found that Altria harmonised and published a band structure through an acquisition. The relevant plan transition is the replacement of the 2020 Performance Incentive Plan by the 2025 plan for new awards, not a grade merger.
- The non-employee director row is a governance package rather than an employment band, and it is excluded from the range chart alongside the three proxy executive cohorts.
Peer-level mapping
| Band | Archetype | Peer mapping | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intern | Intern / co-op | Philip Morris International and Reynolds American internship programmes | The only public figure is a company-wide Glassdoor total-pay median. Altria publishes no intern base rate and no base-to-bonus split.Glassdoor company-wide intern total pay of $49,000 to $85,000 with a $67,000 median; the whole package is shown as cash because no split is published. |
| Ops | Hourly production and skilled trades | Consumer-goods manufacturing operator and craft populations | The Glassdoor technician median sits marginally below the annualized intern figure because interns are annualized from a short paid term while technician pay is a full-year observation.Glassdoor Richmond technician base of $52,000 to $69,000 and total of $57,000 to $78,000. Skilled trades run higher: a current Instrument Electrician posting pays $44.00 to $51.76 an hour, about $91,500 to $107,700 at 2,080 hours. |
| T3 | Entry professional / associate analyst | Consumer-goods analyst, territory sales and junior scientist roles | Base comes from an Altria posting while total comes from third-party submissions, so the gap between them mixes bonus, profit sharing and sampling noise.Base is the midpoint of a company Sales Manager range of $72,900 to $103,900. Total is a Levels.fyi and Glassdoor triangulation; a second bundle reads the same tier lower at a $78,000 base and $87,000 total from Glassdoor's Associate Analyst page. |
| T4 | Scientist II / process engineer | Consumer-goods product scientist and manufacturing engineer roles | Altria publishes no bonus target at this level, so the cash gap above base is an observation rather than a plan design.Base is the union of current Altria postings at $80,800 to $132,750. The total is a benefits-adjusted floor using base plus the disclosed 13 to 17 percent Deferred Profit-Sharing contribution and up to a 3 percent match. |
| T5 | Associate Manager / senior specialist | Senior specialist or first-line manager in consumer goods | This is where Altria's public evidence is strongest below the executive bands, because several current postings share the same $104,900 to $152,150 range.Base is the company-posted Associate Manager range. Total uses Glassdoor's $121,000 to $166,000 observation extended to a $182,580 benefits-adjusted high case. |
| T6 | Manager / principal IC | Manager, principal scientist or principal engineer in consumer goods | Public evidence does not prove that a principal individual contributor and a people manager sit on the same internal salary band; they are parallel title families here.Base is the Principal Toxicologist posting range of $119,600 to $173,450. Total combines Glassdoor manager observations with a $208,140 benefits-adjusted high case. |
| T7 | Senior Manager / lead principal | Senior manager, lead architect or function lead in consumer goods | Current senior-manager postings frequently request ten or more years, but Altria does not attach an internal band label to any of them.Base is a synthesis of current senior-manager postings at $132,500 to $202,100. Total is Glassdoor's current company-wide senior-manager observation of $174,000 to $238,000. |
| Dir | Director / Head | Function director or business director in consumer goods | Two role-specific employer ranges are not a common band range, and Altria publishes no director salary band or bonus target.Base is the midpoint across a Director of Enterprise Architecture posting at $139,100 to $243,500 and a Head of Flavor and Sensory posting at $174,700 to $305,650. Total is an Indeed average with a Glassdoor ceiling of $310,526. |
| VP | Vice President | Business-unit or functional vice president in consumer goods | No current Altria vice-president salary band is public. This row bridges the top disclosed director posting and the Band C minimum, and applies the historical Band F targets on top.A historical proxy Band F example discloses a 50 percent annual incentive target, a cash long-term incentive equal to 35 percent of salary per plan year and a $165,000 annual equity target. The base and total are modeled between the $305,650 director posting ceiling and the $433,600 Band C floor. |
| BandC | Band C — Senior Vice President | Senior vice president or senior functional officer at a listed tobacco peer | The title is high confidence but cross-company grade equivalence is not. Total is the average of the two FY2025 Band C named executives and includes pension-value change.The disclosed Band C salary range is $433,600 to $997,400. Base, incentive, stock and other are the averages of Heather Newman and Charles Whitaker in the FY2025 Summary Compensation Table; other combines the cash long-term incentive payout, pension-value change and all other compensation. |
| BandB | Band B — Executive Vice President | Executive vice president or C-suite functional officer at a listed tobacco peer | The FY2025 Band B average is distorted upward by a $5.15 million pension-value change for the chief operating officer, which is not current-year cash or equity.The disclosed Band B salary range is $561,800 to $1,292,200. Base, incentive, stock and other are the averages of Salvatore Mancuso and Jody Begley in the FY2025 Summary Compensation Table. |
| BandA | Band A — Chief Executive Officer | Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco and Turning Point Brands chief executives | This is William Gifford's FY2025 actual disclosure. The current chief executive's target direct compensation framework is $16.2125 million before aircraft, security, retirement and other benefits.The disclosed Band A salary range is $910,000 to $2,090,000. Other combines a $4,150,000 cash long-term incentive payout, a $4,935,823 pension-value change and $225,278 of all other compensation. |
| Board | Non-employee director | Large-cap United States consumer-staples boards | This is the core annual package. Actual FY2025 director totals ran up to $585,037 for the independent Chair once the additional chair retainers are included.A $110,000 annual cash retainer plus a $185,000 annual stock award under the 2025 Stock Compensation Plan for Non-Employee Directors. Committee chair and member retainers are additional and are not itemised here. |
Critical evidence warning
Altria does not publish salary ranges, minimums or midpoints for any population below Band C, and it publishes no bonus target, no equity grant table and no promotion matrix for ordinary employees. Every figure below the executive rows here is a job posting, a third-party salary observation or a calibrated model around one, and should be used for orientation rather than quoted as an Altria pay band.
Compensation by Band — Richmond
Low / median / high annual values at 1.00× base and 1.00× total-compensation factors versus Richmond. Total equals base plus bonus plus annualized equity.
| Band | Title | Base | Variable | Total TC | Equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intern | Intern / co-op In school, 0 years · reported | $57K – $77K | — | $67K $57K – $77K | — |
| Ops | Hourly production and skilled trades 0 to 8 or more years · reported | $51K – $69K | — | $66K $56K – $76K | — |
| T3 | Entry professional / associate analyst 0 to 3 years · reported | $75K – $102K | — | $109K $92K – $125K | — |
| T4 | Scientist II / process engineer 1 to 5 years · reported | $91K – $123K | — | $124K $105K – $143K | — |
| T5 | Associate Manager / senior specialist 4 to 8 years · reported | $109K – $148K | — | $144K $122K – $165K | — |
| T6 | Manager / principal IC 7 to 12 years · reported | $125K – $169K | — | $160K $136K – $184K | — |
| T7 | Senior Manager / lead principal 10 to 15 or more years · reported | $142K – $192K | — | $206K $175K – $237K | — |
| Dir | Director / Head 12 to 18 or more years · reported | $189K – $256K | — | $244K $207K – $281K | — |
| VP | Vice President 15 to 22 or more years · modeled | $298K – $403K | 50% | $690K $587K – $794K | $165K |
| BandC | Band C — Senior Vice President 18 to 25 or more years · verified | $613K – $829K | 85% | $6.08M $5.16M – $6.99M | $2.46M |
| BandB | Band B — Executive Vice President 20 to 28 or more years · verified | $741K – $1.00M | 100% | $9.23M $7.84M – $10.61M | $2.45M |
| BandA | Band A — Chief Executive Officer 25 or more years · verified | $1.23M – $1.67M | 175% | $24.56M $20.88M – $28.25M | $9.35M |
| Board | Non-employee director Senior enterprise leadership · verified | $94K – $127K | — | $295K $251K – $339K | $185K |
Total Compensation Range by Band
Total compensation in Richmond across the employee bands. Proxy-disclosed executive cohorts are excluded so the employee bands stay readable.
Global Footprint & Pay Arbitrage
Altria is not a globally distributed employer. It reported 5,882 employees in its FY2025 pay-ratio population, of whom 5,741 were calculated to be in the United States and only 141 elsewhere. Richmond is both the headquarters and the pay anchor, and it is the only market where the public record supports a full ladder. Every other market in this catalogue is either an evidenced United States worksite with no published city differential or a disclosed non-US country with no published pay scale at all.
Office and market catalogue — calibration factors versus Richmond
| Location | Likely office profile | Presence | Base | TC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Richmond United States · USD | Headquarters, Philip Morris USA operations, research and development, technology and corporate functions | 2025 Form 10-K principal properties | 1.00× | 1.00× |
Washington United States · USD | Government affairs, public policy and external affairs | Corporate materials; no separate city pay table | 1.00× | 1.00× |
Nashville United States · USD | US Smokeless Tobacco manufacturing, currently transitioning to the Hopkinsville campus | 2025 Form 10-K principal properties | 1.00× | 1.00× |
Hopkinsville United States · USD | Oral tobacco manufacturing consolidation and investment site | 2025 Form 10-K principal properties | 1.00× | 1.00× |
Scottsdale United States · USD | NJOY e-vapor corporate and product activity | Acquired-business materials; headcount not disclosed | 1.00× | 1.00× |
Herndon United States · USD | Northern Virginia technology worksite evidenced only by visa filings | H-1B labour condition applications | 1.09× | 1.09× |
Miami United States · USD | Commercial worksite evidenced only by visa filings | H-1B labour condition applications | 0.85× | 0.85× |
Jersey City United States · USD | Small worksite evidenced only by visa filings at junior wage levels | H-1B labour condition applications | 0.72× | 0.72× |
Canada, city not disclosed Canada · CAD | 39 disclosed employees; Altria publishes no Canadian pay scale, so the anchor is shown unadjusted rather than as an Altria figure | 2026 proxy pay-ratio country breakdown | 1.00× | 1.00× |
Sweden, city not disclosed Sweden · SEK | 89 disclosed employees, the largest non-US population; no Swedish pay scale is published, so the anchor is shown unadjusted | 2026 proxy pay-ratio country breakdown | 1.00× | 1.00× |
United Kingdom, city not disclosed United Kingdom · GBP | 5 disclosed employees covered by a 2024 United Kingdom equity subplan; no local pay scale is published | 2026 proxy pay-ratio country breakdown | 1.00× | 1.00× |
Malaysia, city not disclosed Malaysia · MYR | 8 disclosed employees, the smallest disclosed population; no Malaysian pay scale is published | 2026 proxy pay-ratio country breakdown | 1.00× | 1.00× |
Altria does not publish city-level headcount anywhere, so this catalogue cannot rank offices by employee count. Richmond is identified as the headquarters and a major manufacturing and research site; Nashville and Hopkinsville are identified as oral tobacco facilities, with manufacturing currently transitioning from Nashville to the Hopkinsville campus at about $78 million of pre-tax exit and implementation cost incurred by 30 June 2026.
Richmond anchor medians — the basis of every modeled cell
| Band | Base | Stock | Bonus | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intern | $67K | $0 | $0 | — | $67K |
| Ops | $60K | $0 | $6K | — | $66K |
| T3 | $88K | $0 | $20K | — | $109K |
| T4 | $107K | $0 | $17K | — | $124K |
| T5 | $129K | $0 | $15K | — | $144K |
| T6 | $147K | $0 | $13K | — | $160K |
| T7 | $167K | $0 | $39K | — | $206K |
| Dir | $222K | $0 | $22K | — | $244K |
| BandC | $721K | $2.46M | $885K | $2.01M | $6.08M |
| BandB | $871K | $2.45M | $1.26M | $4.65M | $9.23M |
| BandA | $1.45M | $9.35M | $4.45M | $9.31M | $24.56M |
| Board | $110K | $185K | $0 | — | $295K |
- The Richmond column is the anchor. Tier 3 through Director base medians come from current Altria job postings, and the totals come from Glassdoor, Indeed and Levels.fyi observations of the same title families.
- Altria publishes no city cost-of-living multiplier and no city pay table, so Washington, Nashville, Hopkinsville and Scottsdale carry the Richmond anchor unadjusted with an explicit label rather than an invented differential.
- Herndon, Miami and Jersey City are the only non-Richmond cities with any Altria wage evidence at all, and it comes exclusively from H-1B labour condition applications. Their factors are those city medians divided by the Richmond multi-year median of $113,750.
- Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Malaysia have disclosed employee counts and nothing else. No local salary, benefit or allowance term was located for any of them, so their columns are an evidence boundary rather than a pay model.
- The Band C, Band B and Band A rows are proxy disclosures for a global executive population. They are not a local pay range in any selected city, and they include pension-value changes that are neither cash nor equity.
Model rules
- Every United States cell is the Richmond observation itself, because no Altria city differential is published anywhere in the reviewed sources.
- The three visa-only cities are the single exception: their factors are derived from published H-1B city medians, and those medians are base salary alone.
- A total compensation cell is base plus the observed cash gap above base. Because Altria discloses no non-executive bonus target, that gap mixes annual bonus, Deferred Profit-Sharing and third-party sampling noise, and it is labelled rather than decomposed.
- Non-US columns apply a factor of one only so that the table can render. They are not a claim that an Altria employee in Sweden or Canada is paid the Richmond median, and no local pay value should be quoted from them.
- India, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates appear in both source bundles as explicit evidence-gap states and are omitted here entirely, because Altria discloses no employees in any of them.
Variable Pay & Annual Cash Incentive
Altria discloses its executive annual incentive plan in unusual detail, including the metric weights, the company performance rating and each named executive's individual multiplier, and it discloses essentially nothing about the employee bonus grid. Current job postings advertise an annual performance bonus and an annual merit increase, but no target percentage is published for any band below Band C.
| Band | Target | Mechanism | Recent payout |
|---|---|---|---|
Intern Intern / co-op | Not publicly disclosed | No intern bonus arrangement appears in any reviewed source. | Not publicly disclosed |
Ops Hourly production and skilled trades | Not publicly disclosed | Profit sharing may apply through the Deferred Profit-Sharing Plan; no hourly bonus target is published. | Not publicly disclosed |
T3 Entry professional / associate analyst | Not publicly disclosed | Current postings advertise an annual performance bonus; Glassdoor observes a bonus median near $5,000 plus profit sharing near $4,000 at this level. | Not publicly disclosed |
T4 Scientist II / process engineer | Not publicly disclosed | Annual performance bonus is advertised in the postings; Glassdoor observes a bonus median near $7,000 plus profit sharing near $5,000. | Not publicly disclosed |
T5 Associate Manager / senior specialist | Not publicly disclosed | Annual merit increase and annual performance bonus, with no published target. | Not publicly disclosed |
T6 Manager / principal IC | Not publicly disclosed | Annual performance bonus is advertised; the target percentage is not published. | Not publicly disclosed |
T7 Senior Manager / lead principal | Not publicly disclosed | Annual performance bonus is advertised; the target percentage is not published. | Not publicly disclosed |
Dir Director / Head | Not publicly disclosed | No director bonus target is published by title, and the internal band assigned to a director role is not disclosed. | Not publicly disclosed |
VP Vice President | 50% of base, historical | A historical Band F disclosure shows a 50 percent annual incentive target plus a separate annual cash long-term incentive equal to 35 percent of salary. Current terms are not published. | Not publicly disclosed |
BandC Band C — Senior Vice President | 85% of base | Eligible salary times target times a company performance rating of 0 to 130 percent times an individual multiplier of 0 to 150 percent. | FY2025 outcomes of 135 percent and 152 percent of target |
BandB Band B — Executive Vice President | 100% of base | Eligible salary times target times a company performance rating of 0 to 130 percent times an individual multiplier of 0 to 150 percent. | FY2025 outcomes of 135 percent and 152 percent of target |
BandA Band A — Chief Executive Officer | 175% of base | The same formula with a chief executive individual multiplier that runs to 175 percent rather than 150 percent, giving a theoretical maximum near 398 percent of base. | FY2025 payout of $4.45 million, about 175 percent of target |
Board Non-employee director | No annual incentive | Directors receive cash retainers and an annual stock award instead of a performance bonus. | Not publicly disclosed |
Executive incentive targets — percent of salary
Named-executive outcomes
| Executive | Target | Paid | Attainment |
|---|---|---|---|
| William F. Gifford Jr. | $2,537,500 | $4,450,000 | 117% business rating times a 150% individual multiplier |
| Salvatore Mancuso | $880,417 | $1,351,257 | 117% business rating times a 130% individual multiplier |
| Jody Begley | $862,133 | $1,168,028 | 117% business rating times a 115% individual multiplier |
| Charles N. Whitaker | $628,901 | $961,234 | 117% business rating times a 130% individual multiplier |
| Heather A. Newman | $596,318 | $807,892 | 117% business rating times a 115% individual multiplier |
Employee payout timing and history
Altria publishes no bonus target by band below Band C and no employee-wide payout history. The FY2025 result of 117 percent is a company rating inside the executive plan and should not be read as a companywide multiplier, because target percentages, individual factors and eligibility all vary. The band rows above are marked not publicly disclosed rather than filled with a modeled grid, which is the position both source bundles take.
Sales and special incentives
Altria does not disclose quota structures, commission rates, accelerators or draw arrangements for its field sales organisation. Field Sales Manager postings do disclose a company vehicle, laptop, phone and internet support, which are role-specific perquisites rather than incentive pay and should not be applied to other populations.
Equity — RSUs, PSUs, Options & ESPP
Altria's employee equity is a United States omnibus award plan rather than an Indian-style employee stock ownership trust or a discounted purchase scheme. The shareholder-approved 2025 Performance Incentive Plan can grant restricted stock units, performance share units, options, stock appreciation rights, cash incentives and other awards to any employee, but the only reliable grant-size evidence sits in executive Bands A, B and C and on the board. Altria disclosed no outstanding executive options or stock appreciation rights.
- Approximately 31.134 million shares were reserved across all Altria stock plans at 31 December 2025. That aggregate is not the remaining 2025 plan pool, because it also covers outstanding awards, so a utilisation percentage cannot be derived from it without a full roll-forward.
- A naive utilisation of the 25 million share initial reserve, computed as 172,175 shares no longer available divided by 25 million, is about 0.69 percent. That is a share-counting artefact in the plan's first full year rather than an economic measure of how much equity employees receive.
- Outstanding unvested restricted stock units totalled 3,933,158 at 31 December 2025, and the maximum shares associated with outstanding performance share units totalled 1,373,486.
- Combined future issuance capacity across the 2025 employee plan and the 2025 director plan was 25,827,825 shares at the FY2025 close.
- Altria stated approximately 1.5 percent dilution at the time the 2025 plan was approved, which is a small figure relative to technology-sector equity programmes and consistent with a workforce where most value is delivered in cash and retirement contributions.
Equity plan capacity and grant activity
Vesting — common reported employee schedule
Ordinary executive annual restricted stock unit and performance share unit awards commonly use an approximately three-year service or performance period, and the plan requires at least twelve months of vesting except for a carve-out of up to 5 percent of authorised shares. Two recent awards run much longer: Heather Newman's December 2025 special award of 25,751 restricted stock units vests in November 2030, and Salvatore Mancuso's May 2026 transition award of 40,634 restricted stock units and 37,246 target performance share units cliff-vests on 15 May 2031. Altria publishes no vesting schedule for any non-executive award because it publishes no non-executive award.
Eligibility by hierarchy level
- Legal eligibility and grant practice are different things. Every Altria employee is legally eligible for a 2025 plan award, but the public record does not identify a minimum band at which recurring equity begins, so any claim that all managers or all directors receive restricted stock units would be unsupported.
- The routine equity threshold below Band C is the single largest gap in Altria's compensation disclosure, and both research bundles record it as not publicly disclosed rather than estimating it.
- The award mix is disclosed only for executives: 50 percent restricted stock units and 50 percent performance share units for the chief executive, and 60 percent restricted stock units and 40 percent performance share units for the other named executives.
- Stock ownership requirements scale with the band at twelve times salary for Band A, six times for Band B and five times for Band C. No ownership requirement is published below Band C.
- For most Altria employees the Deferred Profit-Sharing contribution of 13 to 17 percent of base pay plus a match of up to 3 percent is almost certainly worth more than any equity they receive, which inverts the usual technology-sector picture.
Indicative annual grant value by band — Richmond
| Band | Annual value (USD) | Median | Shares at $67.97 |
|---|---|---|---|
| VP | $124K – $206K | $165K | ~1,821–3,034 |
| BandC | $1.84M – $3.07M | $2.46M | ~27,118–45,196 |
| BandB | $1.84M – $3.06M | $2.45M | ~27,035–45,058 |
| BandA | $7.01M – $11.69M | $9.35M | ~103,171–171,952 |
| Board | $139K – $231K | $185K | ~2,041–3,402 |
Annualized planning value (±25%), not the face value of every new-hire grant. Share equivalents use the $67.97 reference price at 25 August 2026 market quote and ignore plan valuation rules and PSU performance. Highlighted rows are disclosed grant-date stock awards.
Named executive target equity
| Executive | Target | Units / structure |
|---|---|---|
Salvatore Mancuso Chief Executive Officer from 14 May 2026 | $8.5M annual equity target | Band A, split 50 percent performance share units and 50 percent restricted stock units, inside a normal range of $5.1 million to $12.75 million. The May 2026 transition award added 40,634 restricted stock units and 37,246 target performance share units cliff-vesting on 15 May 2031, with the performance half settling between 0 and 200 percent on 2026 to 2028 results. |
Heather A. Newman Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer | $2.25M annual equity target | Band B, above the $2.0 million standard Band B target. Her FY2025 stock awards of $2,707,552 were inflated by a December 2025 succession and retention award of 25,751 restricted stock units worth $1.5 million that vests in November 2030. |
William F. Gifford Jr. Chief Executive Officer through May 2026 | $9.35M FY2025 stock awards | The February 2025 annual grant was 81,107 target performance share units against a 162,214 maximum, worth about $4.675 million, plus 84,433 restricted stock units worth about $4.675 million. |
Jody Begley Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer | $2.3M FY2025 stock awards | Band B, granted as 15,962 target performance share units and 24,924 restricted stock units in February 2025 on the standard 40 percent and 60 percent mix. |
Charles N. Whitaker Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer and Chief Compliance Officer | $2.21M FY2025 stock awards | Band C, granted as 8,380 target performance share units and 13,085 restricted stock units plus a special award of 17,168 restricted stock units. He received a further 13,534 restricted stock units in February 2026. |
Executive Compensation
FY2025 Summary Compensation Table values from the 2026 proxy statement. The cash incentive column combines the annual incentive with the three-year cash long-term incentive payout, and the other column combines the change in pension value with all other compensation. Altria's totals are unusually distorted by pension: the change in pension value ranges from $1.11 million to $5.15 million across the five named executives and is neither cash received nor equity granted, which is why the chief operating officer outranks the then chief financial officer on reported total despite a smaller incentive and equity package.
Reading the package
Base salary was about 5.9 percent of the FY2025 chief executive total, the annual cash incentive about 18.1 percent, the three-year cash long-term incentive payout about 16.9 percent, stock awards about 38.1 percent and the change in pension value about 20.1 percent. That mix is characteristic of a mature consumer-staples issuer rather than a technology company: cash long-term incentives and pension carry weight that equity would carry elsewhere, and stock is well under half the package.
Philip Morris International and Turning Point Brands report on the same SEC Summary Compensation Table basis. British American Tobacco reports £6.576 million on a United Kingdom remuneration basis converted at the 25 August 2026 reference rate, and that basis is not identical to a United States table, so the comparison is indicative only. None of these totals is realized pay, and Altria's own figure is lifted by a $4.94 million pension movement that its peers may treat differently.
Named Executive Officers & Board
Altria changed its two most senior roles on 14 May 2026. Salvatore Mancuso moved from Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer to Chief Executive Officer in Band A at a $1,350,000 salary, a 175 percent annual incentive target, an $8.5 million annual equity target and a $4.0 million 2026 to 2028 cash long-term incentive target, for a target direct compensation framework of about $16.2125 million before aircraft allowance, security, retirement effects and other benefits. Heather Newman moved from Senior Vice President to Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in Band B at an $800,000 salary, a 100 percent annual incentive target, a $2.25 million annual equity target and a $1.5 million 2026 to 2028 cash long-term incentive target, for about $5.35 million of target direct compensation.
The current chief executive framework is a target, not a forecast of the FY2026 Summary Compensation Table total, and it excludes a $125,000 personal-aircraft allowance for 14 May to 31 December 2026 and company-provided security and cyber monitoring whose cost is not separately disclosed. Two of the five FY2025 named executives carry special equity beyond their ordinary target: Heather Newman's December 2025 succession award of 25,751 restricted stock units worth $1.5 million and Charles Whitaker's 17,168-unit special award. Named executive salary changes are generally effective 1 March, and the chief executive's salary is reviewed less frequently than the other officers', about every two years under disclosed practice.
Board compensation framework
| Element | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Annual cash retainer | $110,000 | Paid to each non-employee director; an employee director receives no director pay. |
| Annual stock award | $185,000 | Set at a fixed dollar value for 2026. In 2025 the award was 3,219 shares worth about $185,052 on the grant date, fully vested when granted. |
| Independent Board Chair, additional cash | $100,000 | On top of the standard cash retainer for the independent Chair role. |
| Independent Board Chair, additional stock | $150,000 | In 2025 this was 2,609 shares worth about $149,985 to Chair Kathryn McQuade, taking the Chair baseline to $545,000. |
| Committee chair and member retainers | Additional amounts apply | The 2026 proxy confirms that further retainers exist for committee service but this report does not itemise them. |
| Director plan annual limits | $700,000 director / $1.2M Chair | Caps written into the 2025 Stock Compensation Plan for Non-Employee Directors rather than current award levels. |
Actual FY2025 director totals ran from about $295,000 for the core package to $585,037 for the independent Board Chair once the additional chair retainers are included. Directors may defer fees into notional stock-equivalent accounts under the Deferred Fee Plan amended on 29 October 2025.
Regional heads and other officers
Altria publishes no separate compensation figure for a chief technology officer, a company secretary, regional heads or any officer who is not a named executive, and it operates no disclosed regional profit centres that would justify a regional-head table. One disclosed promotion is the only public window into the layers between Band C and the professional tiers: it moved an executive from Band D to Band B, lifting salary from $627,800 after merit to $700,000, about 11.5 percent. That is a single data point and not a promotion matrix.
Insider Trades — SEC Forms 3/4/5
Altria is NYSE-listed, so the governing record is SEC Section 16 Forms 3, 4 and 5 rather than any Indian or Australian exchange filing. Neither SEBI substantial-acquisition rules nor ASX substantial-holder rules apply. A Form 4 price of $0 on a grant or vesting line is a filing convention, not a statement that the award had no value, and a code F line immediately after a vesting is shares surrendered to cover tax rather than a discretionary sale.
| Date | Person | Transaction | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-05-26 | Ellen Strahlman Director | Sale Genuine open-market sale by a non-employee director. | 2,000 | $72.56 | $145K |
| 2026-05-26 | Debra Kelly-Ennis Director | Sale Genuine open-market sale, cross-checked against the Form 4 rollup. | 5,790 | $72.25 | $418K |
| 2026-05-13 | Salvatore Mancuso Chief Executive Officer designate | Award Restricted stock unit portion of the chief executive transition award, cliff-vesting 15 May 2031. A separate grant of 37,246 target performance share units was disclosed the same day; no grant-date accounting value appears in the Form 4. | 40,634 | — | $0 |
| 2026-03-05 | Charles N. Whitaker Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer and Chief Compliance Officer | Sale The largest genuine open-market disposal in the reviewed period. | 27,908 | $67.57 | $1.89M |
| 2026-02-26 | Salvatore Mancuso Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer | Settlement Performance share unit vesting; the $0 transaction field is a filing convention. | 17,166 | — | $0 |
| 2026-02-26 | Salvatore Mancuso Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer | Withholding Shares surrendered to cover tax on the settlement. | 17,385 | $69.70 | $1.21M |
| 2026-02-26 | Jody Begley Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer | Withholding Shares surrendered to cover tax on a same-day vesting. | 17,439 | $69.70 | $1.22M |
| 2026-02-25 | Charles N. Whitaker Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer and Chief Compliance Officer | Award Annual restricted stock unit grant under acquisition code A; the accounting grant-date value is not the $0 Form 4 field. | 13,534 | — | $0 |
| 2025-02-27 | Salvatore Mancuso Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer | Settlement Performance award shares acquired on vesting. | 15,144 | — | $0 |
| 2025-02-27 | Salvatore Mancuso Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer | Withholding Shares surrendered to cover tax; more shares were withheld than were acquired on this line because other awards vested the same day. | 15,361 | $54.85 | $843K |
| 2025-02-27 | Heather A. Newman Senior Vice President | Settlement Performance award shares acquired on vesting. | 10,430 | — | $0 |
| 2025-02-27 | Heather A. Newman Senior Vice President | Withholding Shares surrendered to cover tax on the settlement. | 9,720 | $54.85 | $533K |
Reading guide
Benefits & Perks
Altria's benefit picture is well evidenced in the United States through its careers benefits page and current job postings, and essentially undocumented everywhere else. The headline item is not equity or medical cover but the Deferred Profit-Sharing contribution, which is large enough to change the economics of a mid-level package.
United States
- Retirement — Deferred Profit-Sharing of 13 to 17 percent of eligible base pay. Current postings state the range varies with earnings growth. A separate plan disclosure reports a 10 percent contribution for the relevant year against a general 12 percent cap, so the posted range reflects specific role and plan combinations rather than a universal guarantee. [official]
- Retirement — Dollar-for-dollar match of up to 3 percent. Current postings say matching starts from hire, with plan rules governing eligibility. Legacy defined-benefit pension eligibility is generally grandfathered and is not a broad new-hire benefit. [official]
- Medical — Medical, dental and vision coverage. Providers, plan designs and the employer premium split are not published in any reviewed source, so the employee cost of cover cannot be estimated. [official]
- Leave — 15 days starting paid time off, 13 paid holidays and 2 floating holidays. Salaried postings also state a 37.5-hour workweek. Tenure progression on the paid time off entitlement is not disclosed. [official]
- Family — Up to 12 weeks paid family and medical leave. Paid parental and bonding leave applies in qualifying circumstances, alongside surrogacy, adoption and doula support and adoption assistance of up to $35,000. [official]
- Growth — Student loan support of $100 a month to a $10,000 lifetime cap. Tuition and education refund, conference attendance and certification stipends are also advertised; specific learning platforms are not named publicly. [official]
- Insurance — Life, short-term and long-term disability cover. Coverage multiples are not disclosed. Employee assistance and mental-health resources are advertised without provider names or visit limits. [official]
- Working model — Hybrid, remote and flexible arrangements by role. Field Sales Manager roles may additionally receive a company vehicle, laptop, phone and internet support. These are role-specific and should not be applied to all employees. [official]
Global programs
- Retirement — Deferred Profit-Sharing Plan with an Altria stock investment option. The plan is the largest documented employer-funded component of a non-executive package and offers participants an Altria stock election, which is retirement-plan exposure rather than a grant. [official]
- Equity — 2025 Performance Incentive Plan eligibility. All employees are legally eligible for restricted stock units, performance share units, options, stock appreciation rights and cash awards, but the practical grant threshold below Band C is not publicly disclosed. [official]
- Equity — Employee Stock Purchase Program. Named on the careers benefits page with no governing document located. Discount, lookback, cap and Rule 423 status should not be assumed. [npd]
- Growth — Professional development, conferences and certifications. Advertised in current job postings alongside tuition refund. Named platforms and per-employee budgets are not published. [official]
- Pay equity — Unadjusted pay ratios of 98.4 and 98.5 percent. Altria reported 2025 unadjusted female-to-male pay of 98.4 percent and employees-of-colour-to-white pay of 98.5 percent, with adjusted figures of 99.9 percent for both comparisons. These are self-reported indicators rather than an independent regression. [official]
Benefit fields not publicly quantified
Employer premium splits, plan tiers, insurance multiples, mental-health provider names and visit limits, paid time off progression by tenure and the legacy pension formula for eligible participants are not published in any reviewed source. For Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Malaysia no benefit design at all was located, and neither research bundle would substitute local statutory law for an Altria disclosure. Those cells are recorded as not publicly disclosed rather than estimated.
Performance Review & Pay Progression
Altria's executive review architecture is partially visible and its employee review architecture is not. The annual incentive uses a company performance rating multiplied by an individual factor drawn from a five-point scale, which is more granular than a simple rating. Nothing equivalent is published for the wider workforce beyond a promise of annual merit increases in job postings.
Not publicly disclosed
Modeled promotion planning timeline
| Band | Years to next scope | Promotion hike | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intern | Conversion offer at the end of the programme | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| Ops | Not publicly disclosed | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| T3 | Not publicly disclosed | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| T4 | Not publicly disclosed | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| T5 | Not publicly disclosed | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| T6 | Not publicly disclosed | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| T7 | Not publicly disclosed | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| Dir | Not publicly disclosed | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| VP | Not publicly disclosed | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| BandC | Committee appointment | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| BandB | Committee appointment | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| BandA | Board appointment | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| Board | Annual re-election | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
The one structural signal in Altria's 2026 disclosures is the Optimize and Accelerate programme, which targets at least $600 million of cumulative cost savings by the end of 2029 and had incurred about $130 million of cumulative charges by 31 March 2026, including $43 million of employee-separation costs. That centralises work, outsources transactional activity and automates processes, which changes the shape of internal opportunity. It is not evidence of a pay freeze or a salary cut, and no such action was located in any source.
Pay progression evidence
Modeled progression, not Altria policy: current postings suggest roughly 0 to 3 years at the entry professional tier, 1 to 5 years at Scientist II, 4 to 8 years at Associate Manager, 7 to 12 years at Manager or principal individual contributor, 10 to 15 or more years at Senior Manager and 12 to 18 or more years before Director. Senior manager postings frequently ask for ten or more years directly. Promotion should not be modelled as automatic at the top of a range, because scope, succession, openings and specialist depth all gate it, and Altria publishes no promotion clock. The one disclosed promotion increase was about 11.5 percent, from Band D to Band B, which is a two-band jump and therefore an upper bound rather than a typical step.
H-1B / LCA Visa Footprint — United States
Altria runs a small, concentrated H-1B programme through Altria Client Services LLC, overwhelmingly for Richmond technical roles. The absolute numbers are tiny by large-employer standards, in the low double digits per year, and the third-party aggregators disagree materially on both counts and medians. Labour condition application wages are proffered base salary only and exclude bonus and profit sharing.
Dataset summary
| Dataset | Result | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| H1BData FY2025 Richmond extraction | 9 visible records at a $128,800 median | The sample behind the percentile table below. Minimum $106,800 and maximum $178,200 across nine Richmond technical titles. |
| H1BData FY2025 alternative extraction | 13 records at a $126,000 median | A different extraction date and inclusion rule against the same fiscal year, which is why the count and the median both move. |
| H1BGrader FY2025 | Median $119,269.50 and average $118,361.58 | Minimum $99,600 and maximum $143,700; the aggregator's fiscal-year mapping differs from H1BData's. |
| Ellis FY2025 | 14 labour condition applications at a $111,600 median | All 14 shown as certified. This is the lowest median of the four FY2025 extracts. |
| H1BData FY2024 and FY2023 | 18 records at $123,200 for FY2024 and 17 records at $98,500 for FY2023 | H1BGrader reads FY2024 lower at a $112,500 median and a $118,252.58 average on an $81,900 to $160,400 span. |
| MyVisaJobs employer profile | Employer-level labour condition application and visa statistics, updated 18 August 2026 | May include entity aliases, case types and source-defined periods, which is one reason its counts do not line up with the wage aggregators. |
City-level H-1B wage history
| City | P25 | Median | P75 | Records |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Richmond, Virginia The headquarters worksite and effectively the entire programme. The 9-record FY2025 sample gives these percentiles; a separate multi-year H1BData set of 74 records reads a lower $113,750 median because it spans earlier and cheaper years. | $119K | $128,800 | $152K | 9 |
Herndon, Virginia Two records in the multi-year set and the highest city median outside Richmond. No percentiles are published for a sample this small, so the quartile fields repeat the median. | $124K | $124,000 | $124K | 2 |
Miami, Florida Four records in the multi-year set, at a commercial rather than technical wage level. No published percentiles. | $97K | $96,650 | $97K | 4 |
Jersey City, New Jersey Two records in the multi-year set and the lowest city median in the dataset, which is unusual for the metro and reflects the specific roles filed. No published percentiles. | $82K | $81,900 | $82K | 2 |
All-years aggregates. P25/P75 are rounded reconstruction values marked modeled; medians and record counts are the stronger fields.
Selected title / worksite records
| Title | Worksite | Proffered wage | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior Manager, Enterprise Architecture | Richmond, Virginia, FY2025 | $178,200 | The highest certified FY2025 wage in the Richmond sample, consistent with the Tier 7 posting range of $132,500 to $202,100. |
| Manager, Data Architecture | Richmond, Virginia, FY2025 | $160,400 | Sits above the Tier 6 posted base midpoint of $146,525, which is typical for a specialist data architecture role. |
| Associate Manager, Data Engineering | Richmond, Virginia, FY2025 | $143,700 | Near the top of the company-posted Associate Manager range of $104,900 to $152,150. |
| MES Lead Associate Manager | Richmond, Virginia, FY2025 | $132,700 | A manufacturing execution systems role, showing that the programme reaches operations technology as well as corporate technology. |
| Senior Engineer II | Richmond, Virginia, FY2025 | $128,800 | The exact median of the nine-record sample, and a useful sanity check against the Tier 5 posted range. |
| Senior Engineer I | Richmond, Virginia, FY2025 | $106,800 | The lowest certified wage in the sample, close to the $106,775 Tier 4 posted base midpoint. |
Reading the data correctly
- Labour condition application wages are proffered base salary. They exclude the annual bonus, the 13 to 17 percent Deferred Profit-Sharing contribution and any equity, which together are a material part of an Altria package.
- A labour condition application is a filing, not a hire. Department of Labor certification is also not the same as a USCIS petition approval, and the two populations do not line up.
- The FY2025 quartiles above are computed from nine sorted observations using the medians of the lower and upper four values. With a sample that small, a single filing moves the quartile.
- City medians for Herndon, Miami and Jersey City come from a multi-year set rather than a single fiscal year, so they cannot be compared directly with the FY2025 Richmond figures.
- Several current Altria technical postings state that sponsorship is not available. That is role-specific and does not prove the company filed no applications for other roles or periods.
- The four FY2025 extracts disagree by 15 percent on the median and by more than 50 percent on the record count. This report preserves each figure separately rather than averaging them.
Key Nuances & Insights
Bands A, B and C come with salary ranges, incentive targets, equity targets and ownership requirements. Below that, Altria's own filings prove the system runs at least to Band I but publish no title map, so the Tier 1 to Director rungs here are a reconstruction and should never be quoted as internal Altria grades.
A Deferred Profit-Sharing contribution of 13 to 17 percent of base pay plus a match of up to 3 percent is worth more to most salaried employees than any equity they are likely to receive. That inverts the technology-sector default and is the single most important number in a mid-level Altria offer.
Every employee is legally eligible for a 2025 Performance Incentive Plan award, and the plan permits restricted stock units, performance share units, options and stock appreciation rights. Reliable grant economics exist only for Bands A, B and C and the board. The minimum band at which recurring equity begins is the largest single gap in the disclosure.
Jody Begley's FY2025 reported total of $10.84 million exceeded Salvatore Mancuso's $7.62 million even though Mancuso had a larger incentive and a larger equity award, because Begley's change in pension value was $5.15 million. Peer comparison has to separate recurring direct pay from actuarial pension movement.
Annual cash incentive, a separate three-year cash long-term incentive and restricted and performance share units all coexist at Band C and above. That is unlike companies that deliver nearly all long-term value through equity, and it means an Altria executive's realized pay is far less share-price dependent than a technology peer's.
5,741 of 5,882 employees were in the United States at the FY2025 close. There is no offshore delivery centre, no India or Australia workforce, and no labour arbitrage model, so onshore-versus-offshore and India-versus-United States multipliers are structurally inapplicable rather than merely undisclosed.
Sweden with 89 employees, Canada with 39, Malaysia with 8 and the United Kingdom with 5 are real disclosed populations, and none of them has a published salary band, benefit design or allowance schedule. Their columns in this report are an evidence boundary, not a pay model.
Altria's headquarters generates enough current job postings and salary submissions to build a credible role ladder. No other city has a published differential, and the only non-Richmond wage evidence anywhere is a handful of visa filings in Herndon, Miami and Jersey City.
Glassdoor, Indeed and Levels.fyi define components differently, mix base, bonus, profit sharing and equity, and draw on small samples. Where a company posting gives a base range and a market source gives a total, the gap between them is not a disclosed bonus target and is labelled rather than decomposed here.
Heather Newman's $1.5 million December 2025 succession award of 25,751 restricted stock units and Charles Whitaker's 17,168-unit special award both sit above the ordinary Band C target of $1.05 million. Reading their FY2025 stock columns as a Band C run rate would overstate it materially.
Salvatore Mancuso's $16.2125 million target direct compensation excludes aircraft allowance, security, retirement effects and other benefits, and his transition award is a five-year cliff rather than an ordinary annual grant. A comparable Summary Compensation Table total will only exist in the 2027 proxy.
Optimize and Accelerate targets at least $600 million of savings by the end of 2029 and had already recorded $43 million of employee-separation costs by 31 March 2026, and manufacturing is moving from Nashville to Hopkinsville. Neither research bundle located any company-wide pay freeze, salary cut or hiring-offer revision.
Research control
Altria's FY2025 chief executive pay of $24.56 million sits second among the listed tobacco and nicotine peers reviewed here, below Philip Morris International's $29.07 million and well above British American Tobacco's roughly $8.97 million on a United Kingdom basis and Turning Point Brands' $3.01 million. Its 147:1 ratio is comparatively modest for a large-cap United States issuer, largely because the $166,721 median employee is high: this is a small, senior, almost entirely United States workforce of fewer than 6,000 people rather than a mass-employment operation. On the employee side the reconstructed ladder tracks the Richmond consumer-goods market rather than the national technology market, and the equity share of a non-executive package appears to be effectively zero in every public record.
Evidence classification
| Label | Meaning | Examples and permitted use |
|---|---|---|
| Verified | An Altria SEC filing, an official Altria benefit page, an official Altria job posting or a government rule. | Executive pay, salary bands A to C, incentive targets and formulas, equity plan terms and pools, benefits, headcount and foreign exchange rates. |
| Reported | A named third-party dataset with observable records, chiefly Glassdoor, Indeed, Levels.fyi and the visa aggregators. | The Richmond anchor totals below Band C, the intern and hourly rows, and every H-1B wage distribution. |
| Modeled | Arithmetic on disclosed public inputs, such as a benefits-adjusted floor or a bridge between two disclosed reference points, inside a planning envelope. | The Vice President row, which is built from the historical Band F targets and the gap between the top director posting and the Band C floor. |
| Not publicly disclosed | No source in either research bundle supports a figure. | Recorded as such rather than estimated, including every non-executive bonus target and every non-US pay scale. |
Explicit “Not publicly disclosed” index
Known gaps and diligence before relying on a cell
- 1The two bundles disagree on the entry professional tier. One reads it from a company Sales Manager posting at an $88,400 base median and a $108,605 total; the other reads it from Glassdoor's Associate Analyst page at $78,000 and $87,000. This report uses the posting-derived figures because a company job posting is traceable to Altria, and records the alternative in the band source note.
- 2The bundles disagree on the reference share price, at $67.97 against $68.47 for the same 25 August 2026 date. This report uses $67.97. Neither figure is used for grant valuation, only for share-equivalent illustration.
- 3The bundles use slightly different rupee snapshots, 95.4125 against 95.3594 for 25 August 2026. This report standardises on 95.4125, which comes with a complete multi-currency table.
- 4The bundles disagree on the third FY2025 annual incentive scorecard metric at the same 30 percent weight, one naming an organizational capability index and the other total adjusted operating companies income. Both agree on adjusted diluted earnings per share at 30 percent, discretionary cash flow at 25 percent and strategic initiatives at 15 percent.
- 5The bundles disagree on the Deferred Profit-Sharing rate, with job postings advertising 13 to 17 percent of base and a plan disclosure reporting 10 percent for the relevant year against a 12 percent general cap. Both figures are preserved rather than reconciled.
- 6The bundles differ on Form 4 dates for the February 2025 events, one using the 27 February transaction date and the other the 3 March filing date. Transaction dates are used here.
- 7The FY2025 H-1B record count differs across four aggregators from 9 to 14, and the median differs from $111,600 to $128,800. None of them is treated as authoritative and none is averaged.
- 8Altria discloses no geographic revenue split in any reviewed source, and its operations are almost entirely domestic, so this report omits a regional revenue panel entirely rather than repurposing it.
- 9Only two years of headcount are available in the reviewed sources, 6,184 at FY2024 year-end and 5,882 at FY2025 year-end, so no multi-year workforce trend can be shown and the 4.9 percent decline cannot be attributed to any specific cause.
- 10No company-wide 2026 salary hike percentage, pay freeze, salary cut, campus offer revision or mid-year market correction programme was located in either bundle.
FX rates used — 1 USD equals, snapshot 2026-08-25
Single-date conversion layer for comparability; it ignores payroll-date FX, tax, purchasing power, benefits valuation and hedging. Compensation intelligence, not legal, tax, investment, immigration or employment advice.
Source register — 15 sources
| 10-K FY2025 | Altria Group Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025 · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-02-13. Headcount, human capital metrics, net revenues, principal properties, share reserves across stock plans and outstanding award counts. |
| DEF 14A 2026 | Altria Group 2026 Definitive Proxy Statement · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-04-30. Salary bands A, B and C, named executive compensation, annual incentive formula and outcomes, cash long-term incentive, equity targets and mix, ownership requirements, pay ratio and director compensation. |
| 8-K May 2026 | Altria Group Form 8-K on the chief executive and chief financial officer transition · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-05-13. Mancuso and Newman salaries, incentive targets, equity targets, long-term incentive targets, aircraft allowance and the transition equity award. |
| DEF 14A 2025 | Altria Group 2025 Definitive Proxy Statement including Proposal 4 · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2025-05-15. 2025 Performance Incentive Plan terms, the 25 million share reserve, award types, vesting minimums, change-in-control treatment and the 2025 director stock plan. |
| 10-Q 2026 | Altria Group Forms 10-Q for the first and second quarters of 2026 · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-07-30. Optimize and Accelerate charges and employee-separation costs, and the Nashville to Hopkinsville manufacturing transition costs. |
| Forms 4 | Section 16 filings for Mancuso, Newman, Whitaker, Begley, Strahlman and Kelly-Ennis · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-05-26. Restricted stock unit and performance share unit grants and vestings, tax withholding and open-market sales. |
| Form 11-K | Altria Deferred Profit-Sharing Plan annual report · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2024-06-30. Deferred Profit-Sharing contribution mechanics, the general contribution cap and the Altria stock investment option. |
| UK subplan | United Kingdom subplan to the Altria 2020 Performance Incentive Plan · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2024-10-31. Confirmation that a United Kingdom equity framework exists for eligible participants without establishing grant sizes. |
| Altria careers | Altria careers benefits pages and current Richmond job postings · Altria Group, Inc. · 2026-08-26. Base salary ranges for Scientist II, Senior Analyst, Senior Regulatory Scientist, Associate Manager, Principal Toxicologist, Senior Manager, Director of Enterprise Architecture, Head of Flavor and Sensory and Instrument Electrician, plus retirement, leave, family, education and role perquisite terms. |
| Investor relations | Altria investor relations releases including the August 2026 Philip Morris International arrangement · Altria Group, Inc. · 2026-08-24. Quarterly results context, guidance and the contract-manufacturing arrangement with non-US Philip Morris International affiliates. |
| Glassdoor | Glassdoor Altria salary observations by title and city · Glassdoor · 2026-08-26. Intern, manufacturing technician, associate analyst, analyst, manager, senior manager and director total-pay observations and bonus and profit-sharing components. |
| Indeed and Levels.fyi | Indeed and Levels.fyi Altria salary observations · Indeed and Levels.fyi · 2026-08-26. Director average total pay and entry professional total-pay triangulation. |
| H-1B extracts | H1BData, H1BGrader, Ellis and MyVisaJobs Altria Client Services extracts · Third-party Department of Labor and USCIS aggregators · 2026-08-25. FY2023 to FY2026 wage distributions, the nine-record Richmond title sample, city medians and petition adjudication counts. |
| Peer filings | Philip Morris International 2026 proxy, British American Tobacco 2025 Form 20-F and Turning Point Brands 2026 proxy · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-03-25. Peer chief executive compensation comparison. |
| FX snapshot | European Central Bank reference rates, Reserve Bank of Australia rates and the Reuters rupee close · European Central Bank, Reserve Bank of Australia and Reuters · 2026-08-25. Every local currency conversion in this report. |
Recent News & Workforce Trend
Altria's 2026 has been dominated by a chief executive succession and a multi-year cost programme rather than by any broad compensation action. No company-wide salary hike, freeze or cut was announced in any reviewed source.
Only two comparable year-end figures exist in the reviewed sources, so no multi-year trend can be shown. The 4.9 percent decline can reflect restructuring, attrition, hiring, acquisitions, divestitures or reclassification, and Altria publishes no reconciliation and no attrition rate, so it should be described only as a net headcount change. The company also publishes no city-level headcount, which is why this report cannot rank Richmond against Nashville or Hopkinsville by employee count.
Philip Morris USA entered an operational-efficiency arrangement with non-US Philip Morris International affiliates. Altria said it did not expect a material 2026 financial impact, but the arrangement affects manufacturing capability and therefore the shape of future operations roles.
Altria narrowed its 2026 adjusted diluted earnings per share guidance and continued Optimize and Accelerate reinvestment. Adjusted earnings per share is the largest single weight in the executive annual incentive scorecard at 30 percent.
Pre-tax exit and implementation costs associated with moving US Smokeless Tobacco manufacturing to the Hopkinsville campus. This is a structural footprint change rather than evidence of a compensation reduction.
Ellen Strahlman sold 2,000 shares at $72.559 and Debra Kelly-Ennis sold 5,790 shares at $72.2483. These are genuine disposals rather than tax withholding.
Mancuso moved to Band A at a $1.35 million salary, a 175 percent incentive target and an $8.5 million equity target. Newman moved to Band B at an $800,000 salary, a 100 percent incentive target and a $2.25 million equity target.
40,634 restricted stock units and 37,246 target performance share units, cliff-vesting on 15 May 2031 with the performance half settling between 0 and 200 percent on 2026 to 2028 results. The five-year duration is far longer than an ordinary annual award.
Cumulative pre-tax charges included about $43 million of employee-separation costs and $87 million of implementation costs, against a programme target of at least $600 million of cumulative savings by the end of 2029.
Down 302 from 6,184 at the FY2024 close, with 141 employees outside the United States across Sweden, Canada, Malaysia and the United Kingdom. The filing does not label the change as attrition.
The board announced William Gifford's retirement and the succession path, and Heather Newman received a special succession and retention award of 25,751 restricted stock units worth $1.5 million that vests in November 2030.
The plan reserved 25 million shares, about 1.5 percent stated dilution, and replaced the 2020 plan for new awards from 31 May 2025. A separate 1 million share director stock plan was approved the same day.