How Apollo Global Management Pays
Apollo's A0 to A8 research bands from Summer Analyst to Managing Director, Partner and the C-suite, priced across 16 markets alongside One Apollo stock for every employee, restricted stock units and carried interest on an 8 percent hurdle, a $913,367 CEO package at 5:1, and 47 FY2025 H-1B filings.
Band Hierarchy
Apollo publishes no numbered grade architecture and no mapping that applies identically across investment teams, corporate and technology functions and Athene. Public materials show titles such as Analyst, Associate, Associate Director, Principal, Director, Managing Director, Partner, Operating Partner, Co-President and executive officer. The A0 to A8 bands here are a research normalization layer built from those titles; only the named executive officer and non-employee director rows carry an Apollo disclosure.
Professional ladder — A0 through A5
Partner ladder — A6 and A7
Named executive officers and board
Disclosed executive layer
Track divergence
Hierarchy qualifications and legacy structures
- A0 through A8 is a research normalization layer built from public titles and job postings. Apollo has never published a numbered grade chart, so these labels should never be quoted back as Apollo internal bands.
- The crosswalk is most reliable for investment and corporate roles in New York, London and Mumbai and least reliable in markets where no title-level observation exists at all.
- Athene and Retirement Services titles do not map cleanly onto asset-management economics. An Athene Vice President in West Des Moines and an Apollo Principal in New York can share a research band without sharing pay mechanics.
- No evidence was found that a predecessor grade system was publicly harmonised after the 2022 Apollo and Athene combination. The surviving compensation structures remain economically distinct.
- Non-employee directors are not employees. Their row is a governance retainer package and is excluded from the range chart.
Peer-level mapping
| Band | Archetype | Peer mapping | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| A0 | Intern / Summer Analyst / Trainee | Blackstone and KKR Summer Analyst, Ares and Carlyle Summer Analyst | Internship pay is normally quoted as an annualized rate in postings and is annualized here.New York analyst-pipeline postings around $90,000 to $110,000 annualized and Glassdoor summer-analyst totals of $97,000 to $146,000. |
| A1 | Analyst / Entry-level IC | Blackstone and KKR Analyst, Ares and Carlyle Analyst, corporate Analyst | A0 to A8 is a research normalization layer, not Apollo nomenclature; Apollo publishes no numbered grade architecture.New York postings of $90,000 to $150,000, a $117,500 labour condition application median across 20 positions and Glassdoor totals of $110,000 to $167,000. |
| A2 | Associate / Experienced IC | Blackstone and KKR Associate, Ares and Carlyle Associate | The Associate label covers front-office deal roles and corporate roles whose pay differs by more than $250,000 at the same title.Employer postings of $110,000 to $200,000, a $175,000 labour condition application median across 77 positions and Glassdoor totals of $143,000 to $235,000 across 71 submissions. |
| A3 | Senior Associate / Associate Director / Manager | Blackstone and KKR Senior Associate or Vice President, Ares Associate or VP | Public Associate Director totals are non-monotonic against Associate totals because the datasets mix job families on small samples.A $190,000 labour condition application median across 20 Associate Director positions and Glassdoor totals of $220,000 to $353,000. |
| A4 | Principal / Vice President / Lead IC | Blackstone and KKR Principal or Vice President, Ares Principal | Principal is used as a senior investment title at Apollo, so the row sits above the corporate Vice President population it shares a band with.Principal postings of roughly $280,000 to $320,000, a $300,000 labour condition application median across 25 positions and Glassdoor totals of $296,000 to $509,000. |
| A5 | Director / Senior Vice President / Domain Head | Blackstone and KKR Director or Principal, Ares Director, insurance SVP | Carry participation begins to dominate for investment-track Directors and is absent from every salary dataset used here.Director postings of roughly $190,000 to $265,000, a $235,000 labour condition application median across 22 positions and Glassdoor totals of $266,000 to $426,000. |
| A6 | Managing Director / Partner | Blackstone and KKR Managing Director or Partner, Ares Managing Director | Salary datasets record base and annual bonus but not carried interest, which is the decisive component at this level.Managing Director posting examples of $450,000 to $500,000 base, a $500,000 Operating Partner labour condition application median and Glassdoor totals of $355,000 to $626,000 on a small sample. |
| A7 | Senior Partner / EVP / Business Head | Blackstone and KKR Partner or Co-Head, Ares Partner | No representative public firm-wide total range exists for this layer; the row bridges Managing Director observations and disclosed named-executive pay.Modeled from the gap between Managing Director observations and the disclosed 2025 named-executive table; Apollo publishes no Senior Partner range. |
| CFO | Chief Financial Officer | Ares, Carlyle, Blackstone and KKR chief financial officers | 2025 Summary Compensation Table values are grant-date accounting amounts, not cash received.Martin Kelly's 2025 proxy row: $1,000,000 salary, $9,455,510 stock awards and $3,373,437 of all other compensation. No separate bonus column is disclosed. |
| CLO | Chief Legal Officer | Ares, Carlyle, Blackstone and KKR chief legal officers | The 2025 stock figure includes retention-oriented awards that cannot be delivered before 2029.Whitney Chatterjee's 2025 proxy row: $650,000 salary, $11,802,179 stock awards and $1,832,908 of all other compensation. |
| CoPres | Co-President, Apollo Asset Management | Blackstone and KKR co-presidents and business heads | The stock and other columns are dominated by a performance-fee programme rather than a routine annual grant.John Zito's 2025 proxy row: $100,000 salary, $27,085,004 stock awards and $22,943,660 of all other compensation against a disclosed $50,128,663 total. |
| ExChr | Executive Chairman and CIO, Athene | Large-cap United States insurance and annuity chief investment officers | All other compensation is dominated by distributions from a vested founder partnership interest, not by an annual incentive.James Belardi's 2025 proxy row: $1,875,000 salary, $3,377,969 stock awards and $65,909,181 of all other compensation. |
| CEO | Chief Executive Officer | Ares, Carlyle, Blackstone and KKR chief executives | The table total excludes a separate performance-fee allocation with a $10 million annual target, so it understates the long-run economics.Marc Rowan's 2025 proxy row: a $100,000 salary, no stock award and $813,367 of all other compensation. |
| Board | Non-employee Director | Large-cap United States alternative-asset-manager boards | The standard cash and equity retainers only; committee and lead-independent roles add materially and employee directors receive nothing.2025 policy: a $150,000 board cash retainer plus a $200,000 annual equity retainer. Actual 2025 totals ran from $345,780 to $525,292. |
Critical evidence warning
Apollo does not publish salary ranges, band minimums or midpoints for ordinary employees, a global performance-rating scale, an annual grant-size schedule or a company-wide bonus payout history. Every non-executive figure here is a third-party observation, an employer-posted range, a labour condition application wage or a calibrated model around one, and should be used for orientation rather than as a quote of an Apollo pay band.
Compensation by Band — New York
Low / median / high annual values at 1.00× base and 1.00× total-compensation factors versus New York. Total equals base plus bonus plus annualized equity.
| Band | Title | Base | Variable | Total TC | Equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A0 | Intern / Summer Analyst / Trainee 0 years · reported | $81K – $109K | 20% | $125K $106K – $144K | $3K |
| A1 | Analyst / Entry-level IC 0–3 years · reported | $102K – $138K | 25% | $140K $119K – $161K | $3K |
| A2 | Associate / Experienced IC 2–6 years · reported | $149K – $201K | 50% | $235K $200K – $270K | $9K |
| A3 | Senior Associate / Associate Director / Manager 4–9 years · reported | $166K – $224K | 70% | $300K $255K – $345K | $19K |
| A4 | Principal / Vice President / Lead IC 6–13 years · reported | $234K – $316K | 110% | $450K $383K – $518K | $38K |
| A5 | Director / Senior Vice President / Domain Head 9–17 years · reported | $255K – $345K | 150% | $550K $468K – $633K | $65K |
| A6 | Managing Director / Partner 12–22 years · reported | $361K – $489K | 250% | $1.00M $850K – $1.15M | $184K |
| A7 | Senior Partner / EVP / Business Head 15–25 years · modeled | $765K – $1.03M | 350% | $4.00M $3.40M – $4.60M | $1.24M |
| CFO | Chief Financial Officer 25+ years · verified | $850K – $1.15M | — | $13.83M $11.75M – $15.90M | $9.46M |
| CLO | Chief Legal Officer 25+ years · verified | $553K – $748K | — | $14.29M $12.14M – $16.43M | $11.80M |
| CoPres | Co-President, Apollo Asset Management 25+ years · verified | $85K – $115K | — | $50.13M $42.61M – $57.65M | $27.09M |
| ExChr | Executive Chairman and CIO, Athene 30+ years · verified | $1.59M – $2.16M | — | $71.16M $60.49M – $81.84M | $3.38M |
| CEO | Chief Executive Officer 30+ years · verified | $85K – $115K | — | $913K $776K – $1.05M | — |
| Board | Non-employee Director Senior executive, regulatory or investment background · verified | $128K – $173K | — | $350K $298K – $403K | $200K |
Total Compensation Range by Band
Total compensation in New York across the employee bands. Proxy-disclosed executive cohorts are excluded so the employee bands stay readable.
Global Footprint & Pay Arbitrage
Apollo reported approximately 6,140 employees at 31 December 2025, including about 2,010 supporting Retirement Services and 600 added with the Bridge acquisition. New York is the pay anchor and carries by far the deepest public evidence. Mumbai and London are the two strongest non-United States samples, and every other market is calibrated against the New York median.
Office and market catalogue — calibration factors versus New York
| Location | Likely office profile | Presence | Base | TC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
New York United States · USD | Global headquarters, asset management, client and corporate hub | Official Apollo locations page and FY2025 Form 10-K office list | 1.00× | 1.00× |
El Segundo and Los Angeles United States · USD | West Coast investment, credit and corporate office | Official Apollo locations page and FY2025 Form 10-K office list | 0.88× | 0.88× |
Houston United States · USD | Regional investment and business office | Official Apollo locations page and FY2025 Form 10-K office list | 0.84× | 0.84× |
West Des Moines United States · USD | Athene retirement-services hub, insurance, actuarial and operations | Official Apollo locations page and FY2025 Form 10-K office list | 0.68× | 0.68× |
Miami United States · USD | Regional investment and client office | Official Apollo locations page and FY2025 Form 10-K office list | 0.86× | 0.86× |
Mumbai India · INR | Asia-Pacific hub covering investment support, finance, operations, technology and corporate functions | Official Apollo India careers page and FY2025 Form 10-K office list | 0.09× | 0.08× |
Sydney Australia · AUD | Australia investment and client-facing office | Official Apollo locations page and FY2025 Form 10-K office list | 0.78× | 0.78× |
London United Kingdom · GBP | EMEA headquarters covering investment, client and corporate functions | Official Apollo locations page and FY2025 Form 10-K office list | 0.80× | 0.84× |
Frankfurt Germany · EUR | Continental Europe investment and client office | Official Apollo locations page and FY2025 Form 10-K office list | 0.72× | 0.72× |
Luxembourg City Luxembourg · EUR | Regulated European management entities, fund, legal, finance and client operations | Official Apollo locations page and the EU remuneration-policy summary | 0.78× | 0.78× |
Singapore Singapore · SGD | Asia-Pacific regional investment and client office | Official Apollo locations page and FY2025 Form 10-K office list | 0.76× | 0.76× |
Hong Kong Hong Kong · HKD | Asia investment and client office | Official Apollo locations page and FY2025 Form 10-K office list | 0.78× | 0.78× |
Tokyo Japan · JPY | Japan investment and client office with a reported expansion plan | Official Apollo locations page and FY2025 Form 10-K office list | 0.74× | 0.74× |
Hamilton Bermuda · BMD | Athene insurance and reinsurance hub | Official Apollo locations page and Retirement Services disclosures | 0.85× | 0.85× |
Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates · AED | Middle East client and investment office | Official Apollo locations page | 0.78× | 0.78× |
Riyadh Saudi Arabia · SAR | Middle East client and investment office | Official Apollo locations page | 0.76× | 0.76× |
Apollo does not publish city-level headcount, so this catalogue does not rank offices by employee count. The FY2025 Form 10-K lists a wider office network than is modelled here, including Irvine, Bethesda, Greenwich, Palm Beach, Salt Lake City, Orlando, Atlanta, Charlotte, Amsterdam, Zurich, Shanghai and Seoul; those markets are omitted because no compensation evidence of any class was located for them. Apollo's official locations page does not list a New Zealand office, so none is modelled.
New York anchor medians — the basis of every modeled cell
| Band | Base | Stock | Bonus | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A0 | $95K | $3K | $27K | — | $125K |
| A1 | $120K | $3K | $18K | — | $140K |
| A2 | $175K | $9K | $51K | — | $235K |
| A3 | $195K | $19K | $86K | — | $300K |
| A4 | $275K | $38K | $137K | — | $450K |
| A5 | $300K | $65K | $185K | — | $550K |
| A6 | $425K | $184K | $391K | — | $1.00M |
| CFO | $1.00M | $9.46M | $0 | $3.37M | $13.83M |
| CLO | $650K | $11.80M | $0 | $1.83M | $14.29M |
| CoPres | $100K | $27.09M | $0 | $22.94M | $50.13M |
| ExChr | $1.88M | $3.38M | $0 | $65.91M | $71.16M |
| CEO | $100K | $0 | $0 | $813K | $913K |
| Board | $150K | $200K | $0 | — | $350K |
- The New York column is the anchor. A0 through A7 medians blend employer-posted base ranges, labour condition application base wages and employee-submitted total pay for Apollo Management Holdings, L.P. and Apollo Global Management, Inc.
- The split of the gap between base and total into cash bonus and annualized equity is modeled, not disclosed. Apollo states that annual incentive above an undisclosed threshold may be settled partly in restricted stock units and that the equity percentage rises with total compensation, so the modeled equity share rises from 10 percent of the gap at A0 to 40 percent at A7.
- Mumbai is the only market with genuine level-dependent compression. Public totals sit at about 8 percent of the New York anchor at intern level and rise towards 21 percent at Managing Director, so Mumbai carries interpolated top factors while every other market carries one flat factor.
- London total compensation runs slightly above its base factor because front-office London packages approach New York at senior investment levels while corporate London sits well below.
- The named-executive and director rows are proxy disclosures shown for comparison. They are global values and are not a local pay range in any selected city.
Model rules
- Every modeled cell is the New York median multiplied by the city base or total factor and then by the 26 August 2026 foreign-exchange reference snapshot.
- Factors come from the research bundles' own city calibrations, which anchor on direct observations in New York, El Segundo, Mumbai and London and on regional finance-market adjustments everywhere else.
- Mumbai carries separate base and total factors at both ends of the ladder because base pay compresses less than total compensation against the New York anchor.
- A total compensation cell is base plus modeled annual incentive plus modeled annualized equity. Carried interest, personal fund commitments, sign-on payments, relocation and one-time retention awards are all excluded, which understates senior investment-track pay in strong realization years.
- No notional employer benefit load is added anywhere. One third-party Singapore guide asserted an average 22 percent uplift for bonus, equity and benefits combined; that claim is unverified and is not used, because employer benefit cost is not employee pay.
- Where no direct city observation exists, the cell is marked modeled and should be treated as a planning envelope rather than a benchmark.
Variable Pay & Annual Cash Incentive
Apollo discloses its executive arrangements in detail and discloses nothing about an employee bonus grid. There is no published target bonus matrix, no company-wide payout percentage for 2023 through 2025 and no rating-to-payout table. The band targets below are modeled from the research bundles' observed spread between base and total pay; the named-executive rows are company disclosures.
| Band | Target | Mechanism | Recent payout |
|---|---|---|---|
A0 Intern / Summer Analyst / Trainee | 20% of base | Discretionary programme bonus; cadence is not publicly disclosed. | Not publicly disclosed |
A1 Analyst / Entry-level IC | 25% of base | Discretionary annual cash bonus on company, business, team and individual performance. | Not publicly disclosed |
A2 Associate / Experienced IC | 50% of base | Discretionary annual cash bonus; front-office deal roles run materially more variable than corporate roles at the same title. | Not publicly disclosed |
A3 Senior Associate / Associate Director / Manager | 70% of base | Annual cash bonus plus possible restricted stock unit settlement once the award crosses an undisclosed threshold. | Not publicly disclosed |
A4 Principal / Vice President / Lead IC | 110% of base | Annual cash bonus plus restricted stock unit deferral; investment-track roles may begin to carry fund economics. | Not publicly disclosed |
A5 Director / Senior Vice President / Domain Head | 150% of base | Annual incentive plus multi-year restricted stock units and carry distributions as fund realizations occur. | Not publicly disclosed |
A6 Managing Director / Partner | 250% of base | Annual incentive plus multi-year restricted stock units and a specified share of the carried-interest pool, paid only after realization and subject to clawback. | Not publicly disclosed |
A7 Senior Partner / EVP / Business Head | 350% of base | Contract-specific scorecards, dedicated performance-fee rights, partnership distributions and board discretion. | Not publicly disclosed |
CFO Chief Financial Officer | Not publicly disclosed as a percentage | Committee-determined incentive plus annual restricted stock units, with a December 2025 performance-based retention award on top. | $10.0M retention award approved 9 December 2025, delivery no earlier than 2029 |
CLO Chief Legal Officer | Not publicly disclosed as a percentage | Committee-determined incentive plus annual restricted stock units, with a December 2025 performance-based retention award on top. | $13.5M retention award approved 9 December 2025, delivery no earlier than 2029 |
CoPres Co-President, Apollo Asset Management | Not publicly disclosed as a percentage | Performance-fee programme settled substantially in restricted stock units, generally vesting in three equal annual instalments. | $27.09M of 2025 stock awards under the performance-fee programme |
ExChr Executive Chairman and CIO, Athene | Scorecard-based annual incentive settled in restricted stock units | Athene scorecard covering spread-related earnings, gross organic inflows, new-business profitability, excess capital, strategic priorities, talent and culture, and portfolio return. | 2025 restricted stock unit award granted at 94% of target; the 2024 annual incentive award paid 57% of target |
CEO Chief Executive Officer | $10M annual performance-fee allocation | Annual allocation of performance-fee income under the 30 January 2025 five-year employment agreement, with one-year vesting. | The 2025 allocation was deferred for two additional years |
Board Non-employee Director | No variable pay | Fixed cash and equity retainers only, with additional retainers for committee membership, committee chairs and the lead independent director. | Not publicly disclosed |
Executive incentive targets — percent of salary
Named-executive outcomes
| Executive | Target | Paid | Attainment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marc Rowan | $10,000,000 | $0 | 2025 allocation deferred two additional years; nothing recognised as paid in the 2025 table |
| Martin Kelly | $10,000,000 | $0 | December 2025 performance-based retention award; delivery no earlier than 2029 |
| Whitney Chatterjee | $13,500,000 | $0 | December 2025 performance-based retention award; delivery no earlier than 2029 |
Employee payout timing and history
Apollo publishes no bonus target grid by level and no company-wide payout history for 2023 through 2025. Any claim that the firm paid a single percentage of target across all employees would be unsupported. The band targets shown here are modeled from the observed spread between base and total pay in public salary records, and the European remuneration policy adds a further qualification: non-financial factors including compliance with risk-management policies and conduct as a corporate citizen can reduce variable remuneration, and the policy is reviewed at least annually.
Sales and special incentives
Apollo does not disclose quota structures, commission rates, accelerators or draw arrangements for its client and capital-formation organisation. The far larger and more distinctive variable-pay instrument is carried interest: most funds described in the proxy carry an 8 percent preferred-return hurdle, aggregate carried interest is generally capped at 20 percent of fund profits, employees may be allocated a specified percentage, and drawdown-fund payouts are generally subject to clawback if later performance falls below the hurdle. None of that is captured by the modeled band targets.
Equity — RSUs, PSUs, Options & ESPP
Apollo's most distinctive structural feature is that every employee receives stock. The FY2025 Form 10-K and the 2026 proxy both state that all employees are granted stock through a range of equity-based compensation programs including the One Apollo stock program, which is unusual in financial services where equity commonly starts at Vice President. What is missing is not eligibility but sizing: no grant-value schedule by band exists in any public filing.
- Outstanding restricted stock units and shares available for future issuance are different plan states. Adding them together and calling the result a used pool is analytically wrong, and the 30.4 percent ratio of outstanding to outstanding-plus-available is a derived inventory measure rather than an official utilisation figure.
- At the $132.79 report-date share price, 26,465,255 outstanding restricted stock units carry a headline market value of about $3.51 billion and 60,528,237 available shares about $8.04 billion. Neither is annual compensation, an accounting liability or a forecast of grants.
- Unrecognised compensation expense on unvested restricted stock units was about $1.1 billion at 30 June 2026, with a weighted-average recognition period of 2.2 years.
- The 990,036 assumed Athene options carry a $38.73 weighted-average exercise price, so their headline market value of about $131 million overstates intrinsic value substantially.
- Equity issuance accelerated sharply in 2026. Service-based restricted stock units awarded in the first half of 2026 were 6.9 million units at $883 million of grant-date fair value against 3.4 million units at $527 million in the first half of 2025, and equity compensation expense rose to $478 million from $315 million.
Equity plan capacity and grant activity
Vesting — common reported employee schedule
There is no evidence of a single universal Apollo vesting schedule. Service-based awards generally vest over one to five years, performance awards add continued employment plus achievement of performance criteria, and executive awards can run far longer: the December 2025 retention grants cannot be delivered before 2029 and can slip to 2031 on resignation. Presenting a four-year, 25-percent-a-year schedule as Apollo policy would be wrong.
Eligibility by hierarchy level
- Universal eligibility is disclosed; universal grant value is not. Apollo states that all employees are granted stock, but no filing says the awards are equal, annual or material at every level, and no grant-size schedule by band exists.
- Whether interns and temporary programme participants are treated as eligible employees is not publicly disclosed, so the intern row carries no equity assumption beyond the modeled anchor.
- Restricted stock units are the practical instrument for the ordinary workforce. Options are permitted by the 2019 Omnibus Plan but the only options outstanding are 990,036 assumed Athene legacy awards, and no options or restricted shares were reported as 2025 named-executive grants.
- Carried interest and dedicated performance-fee rights are a separate dimension concentrated among senior investment professionals. They are not an employee share plan, they pay only after profitable realization, and drawdown-fund allocations are subject to clawback.
- The 2021 compensation reset is the reason ownership sits at the centre of the employee proposition. Apollo announced a one-time equity conversion designed to reduce the fee-related compensation ratio toward 25 percent over five years and to strengthen employee ownership.
Indicative annual grant value by band — New York
| Band | Annual value (USD) | Median | Shares at $132.79 |
|---|---|---|---|
| A0 | $2K – $4K | $3K | ~17–28 |
| A1 | $2K – $3K | $3K | ~14–24 |
| A2 | $7K – $11K | $9K | ~51–85 |
| A3 | $14K – $24K | $19K | ~107–179 |
| A4 | $29K – $48K | $38K | ~215–358 |
| A5 | $49K – $81K | $65K | ~367–612 |
| A6 | $138K – $230K | $184K | ~1,039–1,732 |
| A7 | $930K – $1.55M | $1.24M | ~7,004–11,673 |
| CFO | $7.09M – $11.82M | $9.46M | ~53,405–89,008 |
| CLO | $8.85M – $14.75M | $11.80M | ~66,659–111,098 |
| CoPres | $20.31M – $33.86M | $27.09M | ~152,977–254,961 |
| ExChr | $2.53M – $4.22M | $3.38M | ~19,079–31,798 |
| Board | $150K – $250K | $200K | ~1,130–1,883 |
Annualized planning value (±25%), not the face value of every new-hire grant. Share equivalents use the $132.79 reference price at 25 August 2026 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 |
|---|---|---|
Marc Rowan Chief Executive Officer | No 2025 stock award | The 30 January 2025 five-year agreement pairs a $100,000 salary with an annual performance-fee allocation carrying a $10 million target value and a one-year vesting period. The 2025 allocation was deferred for two additional years, so it appears nowhere in the 2025 Summary Compensation Table. His required Apollo share ownership is $15 million. |
John Zito Co-President, Apollo Asset Management | $27.09M of 2025 stock awards | 140,706 restricted stock units worth about $22.545 million plus 29,675 units worth about $4.540 million, granted under a performance-fee programme rather than a routine annual cycle. A further 167,252 units were granted on 10 February 2026. Required ownership is $10 million. |
Whitney Chatterjee Chief Legal Officer | $11.80M of 2025 stock awards | 93,180 restricted stock units worth about $11.802 million, including retention-oriented awards. The separate December 2025 grant of $13.5 million is conditioned on performance-fee income and cannot be delivered before 2029. Required ownership is three times annual salary. |
Martin Kelly Chief Financial Officer | $9.46M of 2025 stock awards | 4,451 restricted stock units worth about $713,000 plus 69,022 units worth about $8.742 million. The separate December 2025 grant of $10.0 million carries the same performance-fee condition and 2029 delivery floor. Required ownership is three times annual salary. |
James Belardi Executive Chairman and CIO, Athene | $3.38M of 2025 stock awards | 6,245 restricted stock units worth about $1.001 million plus 14,837 units worth about $2.377 million, granted at 94 percent of the scorecard target. His reported total is dominated instead by $65.9 million of other compensation from a vested founder partnership interest. Required ownership is $10 million. |
Executive Compensation
2025 Summary Compensation Table values from the 2026 proxy statement. These are grant-date accounting values and amounts paid under specific SEC rules; they are not identical to cash received, to economic profit participation or to compensation actually paid. Two rows in particular diverge sharply from ordinary pay logic: the chief executive's total excludes a deferred $10 million performance-fee allocation, and the Athene executive chairman's total is dominated by founder partnership distributions.
Reading the package
Marc Rowan's reported package is almost entirely non-salary and non-equity. Salary was $100,000, about 11 percent of the $913,367 table total, no stock award was reported for 2025 at all, and $813,367 sat in all other compensation. The economics that matter are outside the table: the 30 January 2025 five-year employment agreement provides an annual allocation of performance-fee income with a $10 million target value and one-year vesting, and the 2025 amount was deferred for two additional years. Required Apollo share ownership is $15 million. Ranking Apollo's chief executive against peers on the table total alone is therefore misleading in both directions.
Apollo's chief executive reports the lowest table total in this comparison set by a wide margin, at $913,367 against $68.280 million at Ares, $80.356 million at KKR and $125.642 million at Blackstone. Almost none of that gap is a real difference in economic opportunity; it is compensation architecture and disclosure timing. Apollo's chief executive economics run through deferred performance-fee allocations and ownership, Blackstone's founder economics run through ownership distributions and carry, and KKR uses a co-chief-executive structure with partnership economics. Apollo's own disclosed compensation peer set is broader and includes Ares, BlackRock, Blackstone, Blue Owl, Brookfield Asset Management, Carlyle, Goldman Sachs, KKR, Morgan Stanley and TPG.
Named Executive Officers & Board
Apollo announced leadership changes in January 2025 that reshaped the senior layer: James Zelter became President of Apollo Global Management, and John Zito joined Scott Kleinman as Co-President of Apollo Asset Management. The 2026 proxy shows materially different economics across the chief executive, the co-presidents, the Retirement Services leadership and the corporate function heads, so a title alone says very little about the package attached to it.
Three rows need reading with care. James Belardi's $71.162 million total is dominated by $65.9 million of all other compensation from distributions on a vested founder partnership interest, which is an ownership return rather than an annual award. John Zito's $50.129 million total reflects a performance-fee programme settled substantially in restricted stock units, not a routine annual grant. Marc Rowan's $913,367 total omits the deferred $10 million performance-fee allocation entirely. The disclosed components of Zito's row sum to $50,128,664 against a stated total of $50,128,663, a one-dollar rounding difference preserved here rather than adjusted away.
Board compensation framework
| Element | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Board cash retainer | $150,000 | Paid to each non-employee director. Employee directors receive no separate director compensation. |
| Committee member retainer | $25,000 per committee | Paid for each committee on which a non-employee director serves. |
| Committee chair retainer | Additional $25,000 | Paid on top of the committee member retainer for chairing a committee. |
| Lead independent or independent chair cash fee | $100,000 | An additional cash retainer for the lead independent or independent chair role. |
| Annual equity retainer | $200,000 | The standard annual director equity award, granted as restricted stock units in July. |
| Lead independent director equity retainer | $250,000 | A larger annual equity retainer reflecting the additional workload. |
Actual 2025 totals for non-employee directors ran from $345,780 in the Jay Clayton and Patrick Toomey transition context to $525,292 for lead independent director Gary Cohn, with most continuing directors between about $360,000 and $460,000. The July 2026 grants show the equity retainer in units: 1,986 restricted stock units to Gary Cohn and 1,589 to several other independent directors.
Regional heads and other officers
Scott Kleinman as Co-President, James Zelter as President of Apollo Global Management, Grant Kvalheim as President of Athene and John Kinahan as Chief Accounting Officer are executive officers who did not qualify as named executives for 2025, so no compensation table exists for them. Their pay is visible only through Section 16 share movements, which show February 2026 restricted stock unit grants of 29,313 units to Zelter, 19,035 to Kvalheim and 10,912 to Kinahan. Named-executive share ownership guidelines are $15 million for the chief executive, $10 million each for Belardi and Zito, and three times annual salary for Kelly and Chatterjee.
Insider Trades — SEC Forms 3/4/5
Apollo is a New York Stock Exchange issuer, so the governing record is SEC Forms 3, 4 and 5 and Schedules 13D and 13G. Indian exchange categories including BSE and NSE filings, SEBI SAST disclosures and promoter-group analysis do not apply. Transaction labels matter more here than at most companies: an annual restricted stock unit grant, a tax withholding and a gift are not open-market buying or selling, and only market dispositions carry any sentiment signal at all.
| Date | Person | Transaction | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-14 | Martin Kelly Chief Financial Officer | Sale Open-market disposition. | 3,000 | $140.84 | $423K |
| 2026-07-01 | Gary Cohn Lead Independent Director | Award Annual director equity retainer. The grant-date value is not disclosed; this is the report-date illustration at $132.79. | 1,986 | — | $264K |
| 2026-07-01 | Independent directors Non-employee Director | Award The typical annual director award; several independent directors received this unit count. Valued at the report-date price for illustration only. | 1,589 | — | $210K |
| 2026-05-27 | John Zito Co-President, Apollo Asset Management | Sale The largest open-market disposition in the reviewed window. | 48,644 | $130.66 | $6.36M |
| 2026-05-14 | Martin Kelly Chief Financial Officer | Sale Open-market disposition. | 7,000 | $134.65 | $943K |
| 2026-02-17 | Scott Kleinman Co-President and Director | Purchase Acquisition reported through an indirect vehicle; the filing footnotes should be read before treating it as an open-market purchase. | 2,048 | $129.23 | $265K |
| 2026-02-13 | James Belardi Executive Chairman and CIO, Athene | Settlement Exercise of assumed Athene legacy options. The value shown is the exercise cost, not sale proceeds. | 147,813 | $29.55 | $4.37M |
| 2026-02-13 | James Belardi Executive Chairman and CIO, Athene | Withholding Shares withheld for taxes; a non-market disposition. | 29,254 | $132.43 | $3.87M |
| 2026-02-10 | John Zito Co-President, Apollo Asset Management | Award Annual equity award. Valued at the report-date price for illustration; the grant-date value is not used here. | 167,252 | — | $22.21M |
| 2026-02-10 | Martin Kelly Chief Financial Officer | Award Annual equity award, separate from the December 2025 retention grant. | 116,087 | — | $15.42M |
| 2026-02-10 | Whitney Chatterjee Chief Legal Officer | Award Annual equity award, separate from the December 2025 retention grant. | 96,046 | — | $12.75M |
| 2026-02-10 | James Belardi Executive Chairman and CIO, Athene | Award Annual equity award following the Athene scorecard assessment. | 41,892 | — | $5.56M |
| 2026-02-10 | James Zelter President, Apollo Global Management | Award Annual equity award to an executive officer who is not a named executive. | 29,313 | — | $3.89M |
| 2026-02-10 | Grant Kvalheim President, Athene | Award Annual equity award to an executive officer who is not a named executive. | 19,035 | — | $2.53M |
| 2026-02-10 | John Kinahan Chief Accounting Officer | Award Annual equity award to an executive officer who is not a named executive. | 10,912 | — | $1.45M |
| 2026-02-06 | John Zito Co-President, Apollo Asset Management | Withholding Shares withheld for taxes on a vesting settlement. | 11,866 | $125.15 | $1.49M |
| 2026-02-06 | Whitney Chatterjee Chief Legal Officer | Withholding Shares withheld for taxes on a vesting settlement. | 4,899 | $132.43 | $649K |
| 2026-02-06 | Martin Kelly Chief Financial Officer | Withholding Shares withheld for taxes on a vesting settlement. | 3,629 | $132.43 | $481K |
Reading guide
Benefits & Perks
Apollo's careers pages and its India careers page name benefit categories in unusual detail but publish almost no plan economics. Nothing below quotes a match percentage, a deductible, an employer premium share or a paid-time-off day count, because Apollo discloses none of them in any reviewed source. Where a figure appears it is either an Apollo statement or a statutory baseline that applies whether or not Apollo enhances it.
United States
- Retirement — 401(k) and financial wellness programmes. Apollo confirms a retirement programme and financial wellness offerings. The match percentage, plan provider and vesting schedule are not publicly disclosed in any reviewed source, and no match figure should be inferred from employee-review sites. [official]
- Medical — Medical, dental and vision coverage with disability, life and AD&D insurance. Named on the Apollo careers site and in the Environmental, Health and Safety Policy. Deductibles, plan tiers and the employer premium share are not published. [official]
- Leave — Paid time off, Recharge Days and slowdown periods. Apollo describes designated recharge periods and additional recharge days where possible. The United States has no federal paid-leave mandate comparable with the United Kingdom or Australia, and Apollo publishes no day count. [official]
- Family — Paid parental leave, a new-parent stipend and a phase-in return programme. Fertility and adoption assistance are offered in the United States and the United Kingdom, alongside subsidised childcare and virtual tutoring for qualified employees. Leave durations are not published for the United States. [official]
- Wellbeing — Headspace, Circles concierge, discounted gym rates and free breakfast and lunch. Commuter benefits and mental and emotional wellness programmes are named on the careers site. Office catering is described as free of charge. [official]
Global programs
- Equity — One Apollo stock for every employee. Apollo states that all employees are granted stock through a range of equity-based compensation programs including One Apollo. This is the most distinctive item in the whole package and the one whose value is least disclosed: no grant size, frequency or vesting schedule is published at programme level. [official]
- Working model — Hybrid working with flexibility by business group. Apollo describes a global hybrid model rather than a fixed number of office days, with each business group setting its own pattern. [official]
- Wellbeing — Recharge Days and designated slowdown periods. Apollo schedules designated recharge periods and adds recharge days where possible. No global day count is published. [official]
- Support — Headspace and the Circles concierge service. Mental and emotional wellness programmes are named across Apollo's global and India benefit materials. [official]
- Family — New-parent stipend, phase-in return and fertility and adoption assistance. The parental support package is described globally, with fertility and adoption assistance specifically named for the United States and the United Kingdom. [official]
- Growth — Structured development, annual review programmes and employee surveys. Early-career analyst and associate programmes run in New York, London and Mumbai. Learning-platform vendors, certification limits, sabbatical terms and global remote-work eligibility are not disclosed. [official]
Benefit fields not publicly quantified
Apollo names benefit categories generously and publishes almost no benefit economics. The 401(k) match percentage, plan provider and vesting schedule, the India insurer and sum insured, the National Pension System employer rate, employer pension contributions above legal minimums in the United Kingdom and Australia, paid-time-off day counts in every market, deductibles, plan tiers, employee premium shares and eligibility waiting periods are all recorded here as not publicly disclosed rather than estimated. Statutory baselines quoted above are the law in that jurisdiction, not evidence that Apollo matches or exceeds them.
Performance Review & Pay Progression
Apollo's FY2024 and FY2025 filings confirm that training and annual review programmes exist and that the compensation philosophy is pay for performance, alongside annual employee surveys. Beyond that, almost nothing about the review mechanics is public: there is no disclosed rating scale, no rating labels, no calibration curve and no salary-increase table.
Not publicly disclosed
Modeled promotion planning timeline
| Band | Years to next scope | Promotion hike | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| A0 | 0.5 to 1.0 year programme; conversion depends on headcount and performance | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| A1 | Research assumption of 2 to 3 years to Associate; Apollo publishes no timetable | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| A2 | Research assumption of 2 to 4 years to Senior Associate or Associate Director | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| A3 | Research assumption of 3 to 5 years to Principal or Vice President | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| A4 | Research assumption of 3 to 6 years to Director or Managing Director depending on track | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| A5 | Research assumption of 3 to 7 years; promotion is selective and role-dependent | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| A6 | No standard public timeline; economics depend on franchise ownership, carry and succession | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| A7 | Appointment-based; contract, equity, carry and franchise economics dominate | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| CFO | Board and committee appointment | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| CLO | Board and committee appointment | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| CoPres | Board appointment | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| ExChr | Board appointment | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| CEO | Five-year employment agreement entered 30 January 2025 | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
| Board | Annual re-election | Not disclosed | Modeled planning interval |
Grant timing gives better visibility than salary timing. Proxy data shows sizable restricted stock unit grants in February and December and annual incentive determinations after fiscal-year performance, which is consistent with a year-end and early first-quarter compensation process for senior employees. Some awards are approved in December with annual restricted stock units granted the following February. A universal effective date for salary increases is not disclosed, and a third-party Singapore guide claiming annual February raises is unverified.
Pay progression evidence
Modeled progression, not Apollo policy: Analyst to Associate typically takes 2 to 3 years; Associate to Senior Associate or Associate Director 2 to 4 years; Associate Director or Vice President to Principal or Director 2 to 4 years; Director or Principal to Managing Director 3 to 6 years; and Managing Director to Partner is highly selective with no standard timeline. The promotion increase attached to each step is not publicly disclosed at any level. At senior investment levels the carry allocation attached to a promotion usually matters far more than the cash change, and nothing about that allocation is public either.
H-1B / LCA Visa Footprint — United States
Apollo is a small and highly concentrated H-1B sponsor by technology-industry standards, filing dozens rather than thousands of applications a year, almost all of them in New York. The correct sponsoring entity in the Department of Labor aggregations is Apollo Management Holdings, L.P. rather than Apollo Global Management, Inc. Labour condition application wages are proffered base salary only, so they exclude the annual bonus, restricted stock units and carried interest that dominate a senior Apollo package.
Dataset summary
| Dataset | Result | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| H1BData.info New York extract | 149 records at a $175,000 median | The single deepest Apollo wage sample for one city. Base wage only. |
| Ellis visa-sponsor profile | $182,500 headline median across the sponsored-position dataset | Also the source for the 47 filings in 2025, 34 in 2024, 38 in 2023 and the title-level breakdown. |
| Visa Bulletin 2021-to-present combined filings | 25th percentile $169,422, median $200,000, 75th percentile $232,500, 90th percentile $300,000 | A multi-year scope rather than a single fiscal year, which is why its median sits $17,500 above the Ellis headline and cannot be merged with it. |
| MyVisaJobs petition outcomes | 41 approvals and 1 denial for 2025 | Counts USCIS petition decisions rather than certified labour condition applications, a different concept from the Ellis filing counts. |
| Department of Labor disclosure files | The underlying source class for every wage record above | The aggregators simplify access but apply different fiscal-year filters, refresh dates and status categories, which is the whole reason their totals disagree. |
City-level H-1B wage history
| City | P25 | Median | P75 | Records |
|---|---|---|---|---|
New York, New York The headquarters worksite and effectively the entire programme. The outer columns are the dataset minimum and maximum rather than true quartiles, because Apollo worksite quartiles are not published anywhere. | $90K | $175,000 | $550K | 199 |
El Segundo, California The West Coast office and the second-largest worksite. One extract reports a $162,500 median across 18 records and another $155,000 across 14; the higher figure is shown here and the disagreement is preserved rather than averaged. | $85K | $162,500 | $300K | 18 |
Greenwich, Connecticut The highest median of any Apollo worksite on a very small sample, consistent with a senior investment mix. | $210K | $210,000 | $230K | 4 |
Miami, Florida A single record, so the minimum, median and maximum are the same number and no distribution exists. | $200K | $200,000 | $200K | 1 |
Los Angeles, California A separate Los Angeles worksite from El Segundo, with two records. | $140K | $170,000 | $200K | 2 |
West Des Moines, Iowa The Athene retirement-services hub and by far the lowest wage in the dataset, at roughly 41 percent of the New York median. It is the clearest evidence that the insurance and operations population is priced in a different market from the New York investment teams. | $73K | $72,654 | $73K | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Associate | All Apollo worksites, aggregated | $175,000 median across 77 positions | The largest single cohort, spanning $85,000 to $290,000. That $205,000 spread at one title is the clearest quantitative evidence that the Associate label covers front-office and corporate roles in different labour markets. |
| Principal | All Apollo worksites, aggregated | $300,000 median across 25 positions | The highest median of any non-partner title, spanning $68,869 to $325,000. Principal is used as a senior investment title at Apollo, which is why it outranks Director on base wage. |
| Director | All Apollo worksites, aggregated | $235,000 median across 22 positions | Spanning $94,910 to $275,000. Sits below Principal on base pay, which is the opposite of most corporate title hierarchies. |
| Associate Director | All Apollo worksites, aggregated | $190,000 median across 20 positions | Spanning $150,000 to $275,000, the tightest floor of any title in the dataset. |
| Analyst | All Apollo worksites, aggregated | $117,500 median across 20 positions | Spanning $90,000 to $150,000, closely matching Apollo's own New York analyst posting range. |
| Operating Partner | All Apollo worksites, aggregated | $500,000 median across 2 positions | Spanning $450,000 to $550,000. Two records is not a distribution, and base salary is the least meaningful part of an operating partner's economics. |
Reading the data correctly
- Labour condition application wages are proffered base salary. They exclude the annual bonus, restricted stock units, carried interest, benefits and sign-on payments, which together are the larger part of any senior Apollo package.
- The city columns here use each worksite's dataset minimum and maximum, not true 25th and 75th percentiles, because Apollo worksite quartiles are not published by the Department of Labor or by any aggregator. They are labelled as brackets rather than quartiles for that reason.
- A labour condition application is a filing, not a hire. Certified applications can cover multiple filings for the same worker or role, they exceed actual petitions, and petitions exceed actual employees.
- The aggregators count different things. Ellis counts labour condition applications while MyVisaJobs counts USCIS petition decisions, so 47 filings and 41 approvals for 2025 are not inconsistent, they are different measures.
- Record counts disagree across extracts of the same city. New York appears as 149, 199 and 134 to 159 records depending on the snapshot date and page, and this report preserves each figure with its source rather than reconciling them into one false number.
- For any legal or immigration decision, use the underlying Department of Labor and USCIS records rather than this summary or any aggregator.
Key Nuances & Insights
Apollo states in both the FY2025 Form 10-K and the 2026 proxy that all employees are granted stock through equity programs including One Apollo. In most of financial services equity begins at Vice President or Director. What Apollo does not disclose is grant sizing, so the correct conclusion is universal eligibility, never universal grant value.
An Apollo Associate can be an investment professional, a technology employee, a fund accountant or an operations specialist. The visa data quantifies this: 77 Associate records span $85,000 to $290,000 of base salary alone. Aggregating by title without function produces a range wider than $200,000 and a median that describes nobody.
A $300,000 Principal base or a $500,000 Operating Partner base can be a small fraction of lifetime economics when a fund realizes well. Salary sites record base and annual bonus and systematically omit illiquid multi-year performance rights, so every senior investment figure in this report understates the good years and overstates nothing.
Marc Rowan's $913,367 table total against a $189,150 median produces a 5 to 1 ratio that is accurate under SEC rules. It also excludes a $10 million target annual performance-fee allocation that was deferred for two more years, plus a $15 million share ownership requirement. Ranking chief executives on this number alone is meaningless.
About 2,010 of 6,140 employees support Retirement Services, adding insurance, actuarial and operational roles concentrated in West Des Moines and Bermuda. The West Des Moines visa median of $72,654 against New York's $175,000 is the sharpest illustration that this is not a pure private-equity partnership workforce.
Mumbai compensation sits at roughly 8 percent of the New York anchor at entry and rises towards 21 percent at Managing Director, a compression pattern that looks like offshore arbitrage. The role content does not: Apollo's India operation covers investment support, finance, operations, technology and corporate functions, and the India lead sits at Partner level. No onsite allowance or offshore rotation policy is disclosed, so IT-services assumptions should not be imported.
26.5 million outstanding restricted stock units and 60.5 million available shares describe different plan states. Adding them and calling the result a used pool is analytically wrong, and the 30.4 percent ratio derived from them is an inventory measure rather than an official utilisation figure.
Of eighteen reviewed Form 4 entries only three are open-market dispositions. Restricted stock unit grants, tax withholdings, an option exercise and the chief executive's 140,000-share gift are none of them a market signal, and treating any of them as buying or selling would materially misstate insider behaviour.
Apollo describes annual review programmes and a pay-for-performance philosophy, but publishes no rating scale, no labels and no forced distribution. The disclosed executive outcomes point the other way: an Athene corporate scorecard at 125 percent of target, an individual award granted at 94 percent, and a prior year at 57 percent with one component earning nothing at all.
Apollo announced a one-time equity conversion designed to reduce the fee-related compensation ratio toward 25 percent over five years and to strengthen employee ownership. Everything distinctive about the current employee proposition, One Apollo included, follows from that decision.
The December 2025 grants of $10.0 million to the Chief Financial Officer and $13.5 million to the Chief Legal Officer are conditioned on performance-fee income, cannot be delivered before 2029, can slip to 2031 on resignation and are forfeited entirely on a covenant breach or a for-cause termination. That is a lock-in structure, not an annual award.
United States cash pay looks higher on the page while Australian superannuation, United Kingdom pension and holiday entitlement and Indian statutory employer costs are quoted differently and sometimes inside the package. Total employer cost and after-tax value should be compared separately from the headline numbers in this report.
Research control
Apollo sits last in this comparison set on reported chief executive pay by an enormous margin, at $913,367 against $7.150 million at Carlyle, $68.280 million at Ares, $80.356 million at KKR and $125.642 million at Blackstone, and its 5 to 1 ratio compares with 346 to 1 at Ares and 29 to 1 at Carlyle. Almost none of that is a difference in economic opportunity; it is disclosure architecture, because Apollo's chief executive economics run through deferred performance-fee allocations and ownership rather than through the Summary Compensation Table. On the employee side the picture is more conventional: the New York ladder from a $140,000 Analyst total to a $1.0 million Managing Director total tracks the alternative-asset-manager market closely, with the equity share of the package rising from roughly a tenth of the gap above base at entry to about two-fifths at business-head level as annual incentive is increasingly settled in stock.
Evidence classification
| Label | Meaning | Examples and permitted use |
|---|---|---|
| Verified | An Apollo SEC filing, an official Apollo careers, India, locations or governance page, or a government rule. | Executive and director pay, the pay ratio, equity plan inventory, headcount, revenue, assets under management, benefit categories and statutory baselines. |
| Reported | A named third-party dataset with observable records, an employer-posted salary range, or a Department of Labor wage record. | The New York anchor medians, the Mumbai and London title observations and every H-1B wage figure. |
| Modeled | The New York anchor multiplied by a city calibration factor and foreign exchange, inside a planning envelope, plus the split of the base-to-total gap into cash bonus and annualized equity. | Every city without a direct observation, the A7 row, and the bonus and equity components of every band. |
| Not publicly disclosed | No source in either research bundle supports a figure. | Recorded as such rather than estimated. The list below is deliberately long. |
Explicit “Not publicly disclosed” index
Known gaps and diligence before relying on a cell
- 1The two bundles use slightly different foreign-exchange snapshots, 26 August 2026 and 25 August 2026. Rupee rates differ at 95.24 against 95.3594, sterling at 0.7334 against 0.733115 and the euro at 0.8576 against 0.856810. This report standardises on the 26 August 2026 set because it is the only one covering the Emirati dirham and the Saudi riyal.
- 2The two bundles quote different share prices, $132.79 as of 25 August 2026 and $132.69 as of the 21 August 2026 close. This report uses $132.79 for every mark-to-market illustration; the difference moves the headline equity-inventory values by less than 0.1 percent.
- 3The split of each band's gap between base and total into cash bonus and annualized equity is modeled, not disclosed. It follows Apollo's own statement that the equity percentage of an annual incentive rises with total compensation, running from 10 percent of the gap at A0 to 40 percent at A7, but no filing confirms any of those proportions.
- 4Mumbai's own source factors are non-monotonic at the top. Observed base factors run 0.09, 0.11, 0.11, 0.16, 0.15, 0.16 and 0.25 across A0 to A6 and then fall back to 0.16 at A7, because the bundle deliberately modelled Indian senior pay cautiously. This report interpolates a smooth 0.09 to 0.26 base and 0.08 to 0.22 total instead, which fits A0 through A5 closely, sits below the A6 observation and above the A7 one.
- 5The chief executive's compensation has two true and incompatible readings: a $913,367 Summary Compensation Table total and a $10 million annual performance-fee allocation target. Both are shown; neither alone is the answer.
- 6Headcount is not comparable year to year. The 2023 consolidated figure of 4,879 includes 1,976 Athene employees, some 2024 filings report the asset-management business at 3,125 rather than the 5,108 consolidated total, and the 2025 figure of 6,140 includes 600 employees acquired with Bridge. The 20.2 percent increase across 2025 is not organic hiring.
- 7H-1B counts disagree across extracts because they measure different things and refresh on different dates. New York records appear as 149, 199 and 134 to 159; the headline median appears as $175,000, $179,000, $182,500 and $200,000 depending on the scope; and 2026 filings appear as 15, 56 and 58. Each figure is preserved with its source.
- 8H-1B city percentiles do not exist for Apollo. The p25 and p75 columns in the city table are each worksite's disclosed minimum and maximum, which is a wider bracket than a quartile range and is labelled as such.
- 9Equity plan utilisation is not disclosed. The 30.4 percent figure is a simple ratio of outstanding units to outstanding plus available shares, and share recycling and the annual reserve formula make the denominator non-comparable with other issuers.
- 10No employer benefit load is applied anywhere in this report. One third-party Singapore guide asserted a 22 percent average uplift covering bonus, equity and benefits together; it is unverified, it conflates employee pay with employer cost, and it is excluded.
- 11Sydney evidence is genuinely contradictory. One Glassdoor estimate for a credit underwriting associate showed A$75,000 to A$90,000 while a third-party guide gave an A$150,000 associate point. Neither is Apollo-verified and the Sydney factor is therefore a flat regional model.
- 12No company-wide 2025 or 2026 salary hike percentage, pay freeze, salary cut, campus offer revision or attrition rate was located in any authoritative source for Apollo.
FX rates used — 1 USD equals, snapshot 2026-08-26
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 | Apollo Global Management Annual Report on Form 10-K for FY2025 · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-02-25. Headcount, revenue, assets under management, compensation and benefits expense, equity plan accounting, the all-employee stock statement and the office network. |
| 10-Q Q2 2026 | Apollo Global Management Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for Q2 2026 · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-08-10. First-half 2026 restricted stock unit grants and grant-date fair values, equity compensation expense, unrecognised expense, share settlements and tax withholding volumes. |
| DEF 14A 2026 | Apollo Global Management 2026 Definitive Proxy Statement · Apollo Investor Relations and the SEC · 2026-04-24. Named executive and director compensation, the pay ratio, One Apollo, carried interest and performance-fee mechanics, equity plan inventory and ownership guidelines. |
| DEF 14A 2025 | Apollo Global Management 2025 Definitive Proxy Statement · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2025. The 2024 Athene scorecard outcomes, including the 57 percent annual incentive result and the component that earned nothing. |
| 8-K Dec 2025 | December 2025 executive retention awards Form 8-K · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2025-12-12. The $10.0 million and $13.5 million performance-based retention grants, their conditions, delivery dates and forfeiture terms. |
| 8-K Jan 2022 | Apollo compensation reset and governance changes Form 8-K · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2022-01-27. The one-time equity conversion and the target of reducing the fee-related compensation ratio toward 25 percent over five years. |
| 2019 Omnibus Plan | AGM 2019 Omnibus Equity Incentive Plan, amended and restated · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2022-01-26. Award types, eligibility, the annual reserve formula and administrator discretion. |
| Forms 4 | Section 16 filings for Apollo insiders · Apollo Investor Relations and the SEC · 2026-08-14. Restricted stock unit grants, option exercises, tax withholding, the chief executive's gift and the three open-market dispositions. |
| Apollo careers | Apollo careers, benefits and India careers pages · Apollo Global Management · 2026-08-26. Benefit categories globally and for the United States, the United Kingdom and India, including the 26-week and 4-week India caregiver leave figures. |
| Apollo locations | Apollo global locations page and the Environmental, Health and Safety Policy · Apollo Global Management · 2026-08-26. Verification that every city modelled here is an official Apollo office, and confirmation that no New Zealand office exists. |
| EU remuneration | Apollo remuneration policy summary for EU and AIFMD entities · Apollo Global Management · 2023-02-24. The fixed and variable structure and the risk and conduct factors that can reduce variable remuneration. |
| Salary datasets | Glassdoor United States, United Kingdom and India, AmbitionBox, Levels.fyi and Wall Street Oasis Apollo records · Third-party salary aggregators · 2026-08-26. The New York anchor totals by title and the direct Mumbai and London title observations. |
| H-1B extracts | H1BData.info, Ellis, MyVisaJobs and Visa Bulletin Apollo Management Holdings extracts · Third-party Department of Labor and USCIS aggregators · 2026-08-26. Wage records by title and worksite, filing and petition counts and the percentile datasets. |
| Peer proxies | Ares, Carlyle, Blackstone and KKR 2026 proxy disclosures · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-04-20. Peer chief executive compensation and pay ratios for the comparison panel. |
| FX and price | Report-date currency references and the APO market quote · Public market quotes · 2026-08-26. Every local currency conversion and the $132.79 mark-to-market illustration price. |
Recent News & Workforce Trend
Apollo's 2026 has been shaped by an acceleration in equity issuance and by contractual retention at the top of the house rather than by any company-wide pay action. No firm-wide salary hike, freeze or cut was announced in any reviewed source, and Apollo publishes no attrition rate at all.
The 20.2 percent increase across 2025 is mostly acquisition rather than organic hiring, and the reporting scope changed twice in three years, so the series should not be read as a growth curve. Apollo publishes no city-level headcount and no attrition rate of any kind, which means the only geographic signal in the filings is the office list itself and the roughly 2,010 employees identified as supporting Retirement Services.
First-half 2026 service-based restricted stock units reached 6.9 million units at $883 million of grant-date fair value against 3.4 million units at $527 million a year earlier, and equity compensation expense rose to $478 million from $315 million. Assets under management reached approximately $1.05 trillion.
Gary Cohn received 1,986 restricted stock units as lead independent director and several other independent directors received 1,589 units each, consistent with the $250,000 and $200,000 equity retainers.
Apollo stated that all employees are granted stock through equity programs including One Apollo, reported chief executive compensation of $913,367 against a $189,150 median employee, and disclosed the carried-interest hurdle and clawback mechanics.
Headcount rose from 5,108 at the end of 2024 with 600 Bridge employees included after the acquisition. Asset Management compensation and benefits split into $1.443 billion of salary, bonus and benefits, $740 million of equity-based compensation and $810 million of profit-sharing expense.
James Belardi exercised 147,813 options at $29.55 for an exercise cost of about $4.37 million, with 29,254 shares withheld for tax. It is the clearest sign that the 990,036 remaining legacy options are running off rather than being replaced.
Grants of 167,252 units to John Zito, 116,087 to Martin Kelly, 96,046 to Whitney Chatterjee, 41,892 to James Belardi, 29,313 to James Zelter, 19,035 to Grant Kvalheim and 10,912 to John Kinahan, confirming a February annual grant cadence for the senior layer.
Grants of $10.0 million and $13.5 million, conditioned on performance-fee income, delivered no earlier than 2029, capable of slipping to 2031 on resignation and forfeited on a covenant breach or a for-cause termination.
The base salary stays at $100,000 and an annual performance-fee allocation is set with a $10 million target value and one-year vesting. The 2025 amount was deferred two additional years, which is why it appears nowhere in the 2025 compensation table.
James Zelter became President of Apollo Global Management and John Zito joined Scott Kleinman as Co-President of Apollo Asset Management. Apollo also reported plans to expand its Japan team.
Apollo announced a one-time equity conversion and reset designed to reduce the fee-related compensation ratio toward 25 percent over five years and to strengthen employee ownership. It is the origin of the current all-employee stock proposition.