CenterPoint Energy
Compensation Insight

How CenterPoint Energy Pays

CenterPoint Energy's CPE-01 to CPE-11 ladder from apprentice lineworker to the officer layer, priced across 11 United States utility markets alongside RSU and PSU equity with no stock options since 2004, a $12.09M CEO package at 93:1, and two Houston H-1B wage records.

~8,800 employees · NYSE: CNP · CenterPoint Energy, Inc. · Houston, Texas · FY ends 31 December
Employees
~8,800
Approximately 8,830 at the 7 November 2025 proxy measurement date, all located in the United States.
Median employee pay
$130,189
The 2025 pay-ratio median, measured on base, short- and long-term incentives, overtime and other compensation.
CEO total pay
$12.09M
Jason Wells's 2025 Summary Compensation Table total, of which $7.63 million was grant-date stock value.
CEO pay ratio
93:1
Below Atmos at 106 to 1, NiSource at 106 to 1 and Xcel at 108 to 1; above Entergy at 88 to 1.
2025 incentive funding
159%
Company scorecard result; named-executive payouts ran 159 to 191 percent of target after individual adjustments.
FY2025 revenue
$9.36B
Reported in the 2025 Form 10-K; FY2025 non-GAAP earnings per share were $1.76.
Attrition
Not disclosed
No quarterly or trailing-twelve-month voluntary attrition rate appears in any reviewed CenterPoint filing.
Capital plan
$66.7B
The 2026 to 2035 investment plan raised at the Q2 2026 results, from more than $65 billion in February 2026.
Locations
United States
1.00× base / 1.00× TC vs Houston

Band Hierarchy

CenterPoint publishes job titles, reporting relationships, experience requirements and officer roles, but no enterprise grade codes, no salary structures and no promotion ladder. CPE-01 through CPE-11 is a research taxonomy created to make the available evidence comparable; only the CPE-10 and CPE-11 rows and the outside-director package carry a company disclosure.

Field and craft ladder — CPE-01 through CPE-03

CPE-03
Professional II / experienced craftIC / field · variable 8% · reported
Journeyman Lineworker, Engineer II, Business Analyst, System Operations Specialist
CPE-01
Field apprentice / operations entryField / operations · variable 5% · reported
Apprentice Lineworker, Service Apprentice, Utility Helper

Professional ladder — CPE-02 through CPE-05

CPE-05
Lead / staff / principal / architectSenior IC · variable 13% · reported
Lead Engineer, Senior IT Architect, Lead Compensation Analyst, Staff Consultant
CPE-04
Senior professional / senior engineerIC / professional · variable 10% · reported
Senior Engineer, Senior Analyst, Senior Consultant, Project Manager
CPE-02
Associate / entry professionalIC / professional · variable 5% · reported
Associate Dispatcher, Associate Engineer, Customer Service Representative, Junior Analyst

Management ladder — CPE-06 through CPE-09

CPE-09
Senior Vice PresidentLeadership · variable 60% · modeled
Senior Vice President, Chief Risk Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Compliance Officer
CPE-08
Vice PresidentLeadership · variable 40% · modeled
Vice President, Business Unit Head, Functional Vice President
CPE-07
Senior manager / directorManagement · variable 27% · modeled
Senior Manager, Director, Director IT, Senior Counsel
CPE-06
Supervisor / managerManagement · variable 16% · reported
Operations Supervisor, Manager Customer Service Learning, IT Manager, Engineering Manager

Executive — CPE-10 and CPE-11

CPE-11
Chair, President and Chief Executive OfficerExecutive · variable 130% · verified
Chair of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
CPE-10
EVP / named executive officerExecutive · variable 80% · verified
EVP and Chief Financial Officer, EVP and Chief Operating Officer, EVP Regulatory Services and Government Affairs, EVP and Chief People Officer

Disclosed executive layer

Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer
Jason P. Wells
Fully disclosed in the proxy statement, including salary, incentive payout, grant-date equity, target total direct compensation and the pay ratio.
Executive Vice Presidents who are named executive officers
Christopher A. Foster as Chief Financial Officer, Monica Karuturi as Chief People Officer, Jesus Soto, Jr. as Chief Operating Officer, Jason M. Ryan for Regulatory Services and Government Affairs
Full Summary Compensation Table disclosure plus target base, short-term incentive target and long-term incentive target.
Officers below the named-executive threshold
Regional gas and electric presidents, General Counsel, Chief Technology and Chief Risk roles
Not publicly disclosed. Compensation appears only if an officer later becomes a named executive or an individual employment arrangement is filed.
Non-employee directors
The independent board, including committee chairs and the lead independent director
Disclosed as retainers plus an immediately vested stock award. This is a governance package rather than an employment band and it is excluded from the pay ladder.
VerifiedOnly CPE-10, CPE-11 and the outside-director package carry a company disclosure. CPE-01 through CPE-06 are triangulated from job postings and third-party salary records, and CPE-07 through CPE-09 are modeled bridges.

Track divergence

CPE-01 to CPE-03 field and craft
Apprentice moves to journeyman in roughly three years, and from there to a senior or lead craft step or into an operations supervisor role. Overtime, shift premium, call-out and emergency-restoration hours can dominate annual cash, and CenterPoint quoted more than $200,000 for some lineworkers.
CPE-02 to CPE-05 professional individual contributor
Associate moves to Engineer or Analyst II, then Senior, then Lead, Staff, Principal or Architect. Live postings support manager-level individual contributor designations such as Senior IT Architect and Lead Compensation Analyst, so the senior individual contributor path is real rather than nominal.
CPE-06 to CPE-07 people leadership
Supervisor and Manager move to Senior Manager and Director. The observed CPE-06 base of $125,000 sits below the CPE-05 senior individual contributor base of $135,000, so the first management step is not automatically a pay step at CenterPoint.
CPE-08 and above officer layer
Vice President, Senior Vice President, Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer. This is where equity becomes material and where public evidence goes dark until a person becomes a named executive officer.

Hierarchy qualifications and legacy structures

  • CPE-01 through CPE-11 is research nomenclature invented for this report. CenterPoint has never published a Band 1 to N or Grade A to Z structure, and the taxonomy must not be quoted as an internal framework.
  • The 2019 combination with Vectren explains persistent regional job and benefit differences, particularly in the Indiana and Ohio bargaining populations. The former Vectren grade codes, the current CenterPoint codes and any harmonisation timetable are all undisclosed.
  • CPE-08 and CPE-09 are interpolation bands between director-level posting evidence and disclosed executive compensation. They are the least reliable rows on the page and should be read as a planning envelope only.
  • Represented field roles progress through bargained wage steps rather than through a corporate grade. The current collective bargaining wage tables were not located in any public CenterPoint filing, so no union scale is shown here.
  • CPE-01 shows a higher base than CPE-02 because apprentice craft pay starts above entry professional pay. That is a real feature of utility pay structure, not a sorting error.
  • The proxy states that long-term incentives cover named executives and certain other management-level employees without naming the minimum level, so the equity boundary inside management is genuinely hidden rather than merely unresearched.

Peer-level mapping

BandArchetypePeer mappingCaveat
CPE-01Field apprentice / operations entryApprentice, helper or trainee at a comparable investor-owned utilityApprentice steps are normally set by a collective bargaining agreement, so an identical peer title can sit on a very different wage step.Company-quoted entry pay of about $60,000 inside a $55,000 to $92,000 base envelope from apprentice-lineman submissions. The $14,000 above base is overtime, shift and call-out cash rather than an incentive target.
CPE-02Associate / entry professionalAssociate, Engineer I or Analyst I at a comparable investor-owned utilityHigh confidence on scope, but utilities differ on whether an associate title is exempt or nonexempt, which changes whether overtime is payable.Triangulated from a live Evansville Associate Dispatcher posting and entry-role records on Levels.fyi, Glassdoor and Indeed. Base sits below CPE-01 because apprentice craft pay starts higher than entry professional pay.
CPE-03Professional II / experienced craftEngineer II, journeyman or system specialistMedium-high. A journeyman wage is a bargained step and an Engineer II is a salaried grade; the two only resemble each other on annual cash.Company-quoted journeyman pay of about $113,000 after three years sits at the top of a $65,000 to $113,000 base envelope. Overtime above $200,000 was quoted for some lineworkers and is deliberately excluded from this row.
CPE-04Senior professional / senior engineerSenior Engineer, Senior Analyst or ConsultantHigh confidence in engineering and information technology, weaker in regulatory, customer and corporate functions where equivalent scope is graded differently.Triangulated from senior-engineer records on Levels.fyi, Glassdoor and Indeed against a PayScale company average of about $86,642 across all roles and tenures.
CPE-05Lead / staff / principal / architectLead, Staff, Principal or ArchitectMedium-high. CenterPoint uses lead and senior architect titles for both senior individual contributors and small-team leaders, and no public source separates the two.Anchored on live Senior IT Architect and Lead Compensation Analyst postings and the upper end of the Levels.fyi sample, which tops out near $141,191 of reported total compensation.
CPE-06Supervisor / managerSupervisor or first-line ManagerHigh confidence on scope, but a utility supervisor carries on-call rotation and storm-duty obligations that a peer manager title may not.Anchored on the Houston Manager, Customer Service Learning posting and Comparably's estimated $126,219 average total pay. Base sits below CPE-05 because senior individual contributors out-earn first-line managers in the observed sample.
CPE-07Senior manager / directorSenior Manager or DirectorHigh on title and low on equity. The proxy never states the minimum level at which long-term incentives begin, so director equity is possible rather than guaranteed.Modeled bridge between director-level posting evidence and disclosed executive pay. The $10,000 equity figure is a low expected value drawn from a modeled $0 to $150,000 grant range, because eligibility below the officer layer is not disclosed.
CPE-08Vice PresidentVice President at a comparable investor-owned utilityMedium and modeled. CenterPoint discloses no compensation at all for officers below the named-executive threshold.Interpolation between director posting evidence and disclosed executive compensation. The bundle also carries a $150,000 to $750,000 modeled grant range for this level that cannot be reconciled with its own $500,000 total median; this row follows the total median and treats equity as the residual.
CPE-09Senior Vice PresidentSenior Vice President or non-named executive officerThe lowest-confidence row on the page. No CenterPoint disclosure exists anywhere between director pay and named-executive pay.Modeled from the disclosed officer framework. The bundle's separate $400,000 to $1.30 million grant range is not reconcilable with its own $950,000 total median, and this row follows the total median.
CPE-10EVP / named executive officerNamed executive officer at a comparable investor-owned utilityDisclosed rather than modeled, but a four-person median is a small sample and one-time buyout awards distort any single year.Median 2025 target total direct compensation across the four non-CEO named executives, built from a $725,000 target base, an 80 percent short-term incentive target and a $1.978 million long-term incentive target. It excludes Jesus Soto's one-time $6 million buyout award.
CPE-11Chair, President and Chief Executive OfficerUtility chief executive; Atmos, NiSource, Xcel, Entergy and CMS form the comparison set used hereGrant-date accounting values, one-time awards and differing fiscal calendars make cross-company chief executive totals directional only.Jason Wells's 2025 Summary Compensation Table actual rather than target: $1,226,923 of salary, $2,583,750 of non-equity incentive, $7,625,023 of stock awards at grant-date value and $656,645 of all other compensation. His 2025 target total direct compensation was $10,500,000.

Critical evidence warning

CenterPoint Energy publishes no salary bands, no range minimums or midpoints and no promotion matrix for ordinary employees. Every figure below the named-executive rows is either a triangulated third-party observation or a model built around one, and the vice president and senior vice president rows are interpolations between two disclosed points rather than observations. Use the ladder for orientation and never as a quotation of a CenterPoint pay band.


Compensation by Band — Houston

Low / median / high annual values at 1.00× base and 1.00× total-compensation factors versus Houston. Total equals base plus bonus plus annualized equity.

BandTitleBaseVariableTotal TCEquity
CPE-01
Field apprentice / operations entry
0–3 years on an apprenticeship progression · reported
$58K$78K5%
$82K
$70K$94K
CPE-02
Associate / entry professional
0–2 years · reported
$47K$63K5%
$60K
$51K$69K
CPE-03
Professional II / experienced craft
2–5 years; journeyman status after approximately three years · reported
$72K$98K8%
$98K
$83K$113K
CPE-04
Senior professional / senior engineer
5–8 years · reported
$89K$121K10%
$120K
$102K$138K
CPE-05
Lead / staff / principal / architect
7–12 years · reported
$115K$155K13%
$158K
$134K$182K
CPE-06
Supervisor / manager
7–12 years, commonly with 3–5 years of leadership · reported
$106K$144K16%
$150K
$128K$173K
CPE-07
Senior manager / director
10–18 years, typically with five or more years of leadership · modeled
$157K$213K27%
$245K
$208K$282K
$10K
CPE-08
Vice President
15–22 years · modeled
$268K$362K40%
$500K
$425K$575K
$60K
CPE-09
Senior Vice President
18–25 years or more · modeled
$404K$546K60%
$950K
$808K$1.09M
$190K
CPE-10
EVP / named executive officer
20–30 years or more · verified
$616K$834K80%
$3.28M
$2.79M$3.78M
$1.98M
CPE-11
Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer
25 years or more · verified
$1.04M$1.41M130%
$12.09M
$10.28M$13.91M
$7.63M
Corporate headquarters; multiple current job postings · 6 reported band cellsReportedModeledVerifiedLow, median and high come directly from the bundle's own triangulated envelopes rather than from a fixed percentage spread. The envelope is widest at CPE-01 and CPE-03, where overtime and bargained steps create real dispersion, and narrowest at CPE-10, where the low and high are simply the lowest and highest disclosed named-executive targets.

Total Compensation Range by Band

Total compensation in Houston across the employee bands. Proxy-disclosed executive cohorts are excluded so the employee bands stay readable.

CPE-01$70K$94KCPE-02$51K$69KCPE-03$83K$113KCPE-04$102K$138KCPE-05$134K$182KCPE-06$128K$173KCPE-07$208K$282KCPE-08$425K$575KCPE-09$808K$1.09M$0$200K$400K$600K$800K$1.00M$1.20M

Global Footprint & Pay Arbitrage

CenterPoint Energy is a domestic United States regulated utility. The 2026 proxy identified approximately 8,830 employees at 7 November 2025, all in the United States, so this report models eleven American markets and manufactures no international bands. Houston is the pay anchor and every other city is calibrated against the Houston median.

~8,800
Employees, approximately 8,830 at 7 November 2025
100%
Of the disclosed workforce located in the United States
11
Markets modelled, across Texas, Indiana, Minnesota and Ohio
$66.7B
2026 to 2035 capital plan driving technical and field hiring

Office and market catalogue — calibration factors versus Houston

LocationLikely office profilePresenceBaseTC
Houston
United States · USD
Headquarters and the largest disclosed operating and leadership hub, covering Houston Electric, corporate functions, IT and the executive layerCorporate headquarters; multiple current job postings1.00×1.00×
Baytown
United States · USD
Houston-area field and operations market inside the Houston Electric service territoryService territory operations0.98×0.98×
Beaumont
United States · USD
Texas Gulf Coast field market with a heavy storm-restoration workloadService territory operations0.95×0.95×
Galveston
United States · USD
Coastal Houston Electric service territory and field marketService territory operations0.98×0.98×
Evansville
United States · USD
Indiana operating hub inherited from the 2019 Vectren combination, with live dispatcher and utility roles observedCurrent job postings observed0.90×0.90×
Indianapolis
United States · USD
Indiana professional and regulatory market; CenterPoint does not disclose headcount for the cityRegional coverage0.95×0.95×
Terre Haute
United States · USD
The lowest-cost Indiana field and service market in the modelService territory operations0.87×0.87×
Minneapolis
United States · USD
Minnesota natural gas utility and the only market in the model that prices above the Houston anchorService territory operations1.04×1.04×
Bloomington
United States · USD
Twin Cities operating and professional market adjacent to the Minneapolis hubService territory operations1.02×1.02×
Columbus
United States · USD
Ohio natural gas market under an agreed $2.62 billion sale expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026Pending divestiture0.94×0.94×
Dayton
United States · USD
Ohio field and service market inside the same pending gas-business divestiture as ColumbusPending divestiture0.90×0.90×

CenterPoint does not publish employee headcount by city, so this catalogue makes no claim about which market is largest after Houston. Presence is evidenced by service territory, by current job postings in Houston and Evansville, or by the disclosed pending divestiture in Ohio.

Houston anchor medians — the basis of every modeled cell

BandBaseStockBonusOtherTotal
CPE-01$68K$0$14K$82K
CPE-02$55K$0$5K$60K
CPE-03$85K$0$13K$98K
CPE-04$105K$0$15K$120K
CPE-05$135K$0$23K$158K
CPE-06$125K$0$25K$150K
CPE-10$725K$1.98M$580K$3.28M
CPE-11$1.23M$7.63M$2.58M$657K$12.09M
  • Houston is the anchor at 1.00. It is the headquarters, the largest disclosed operating and leadership hub and the source of most of the job-posting evidence used in the ladder.
  • Minneapolis at 1.04 and Bloomington at 1.02 are the only markets in the model that price above Houston. Terre Haute at 0.87 is the lowest.
  • City factors are flat across the ladder. Unlike an offshore delivery model, a domestic utility shows no evidence of geographic compression that narrows at senior levels, so no separate top-of-ladder factor is applied.
  • CPE-10 and CPE-11 are national proxy disclosures. They are not local pay ranges and should not be read as city-scaled figures in any selected market.
  • Louisiana and Mississippi were sold on 1 April 2025 and are no longer CenterPoint pay locations, so Shreveport and Jackson are excluded from the table entirely rather than shown with a stale factor.
  • Columbus and Dayton remain in the table because employees are still there, but the Ohio natural gas business is under an agreed $2.62 billion sale expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Model rules

  • Every modeled cell is the Houston median multiplied by the city factor. There is no foreign-exchange step because every CenterPoint salary evidenced in this report is denominated in United States dollars.
  • A total compensation cell is base plus target incentive plus annualised equity. It excludes sign-on payments, relocation and one-time retention or buyout awards.
  • No employer benefit load is added anywhere. The 401(k) match and the 3 percent company retirement contribution are employer cost, not pay, and total compensation is rebuilt from the components so that it reconciles.
  • Overtime, shift premium, call-out and storm-restoration pay are real cash for field roles but are not an incentive target. Where the observed total exceeds base plus target incentive at CPE-01 and CPE-03, the residual is that field cash and is labelled as such on the row.
  • City factors are an analytical normalisation layer built for this report. They are not disclosed CenterPoint salary zones and should never be presented as such.
  • Disclosed executive rows are never multiplied by a city factor in the underlying research model; the ladder view applies factors uniformly, so treat CPE-10 and CPE-11 as national values wherever the city selector sits.

Variable Pay & Annual Cash Incentive

CenterPoint describes short-term incentive targets as a percentage of base salary and publishes them only for named executives. In 2025 the executive and non-executive scorecards were consolidated, which points to a single companywide framework, but no target percentage by non-executive level has ever been disclosed, so every band target below CPE-10 is modeled.

BandTargetMechanismRecent payout
CPE-01
Field apprentice / operations entry
0% to 5% of baseModeled annual target as a percentage of base. In practice the larger variable component at this level is overtime, shift premium and call-out pay rather than the incentive plan.Not publicly disclosed
CPE-02
Associate / entry professional
0% to 5% of baseModeled annual target as a percentage of base; the broad employee formula is undisclosed.Not publicly disclosed
CPE-03
Professional II / experienced craft
5% to 8% of baseModeled annual target as a percentage of base. Journeyman craft cash is dominated by overtime and emergency-restoration hours, which are not an incentive target.Not publicly disclosed
CPE-04
Senior professional / senior engineer
7% to 12% of baseModeled annual target as a percentage of base; the broad employee formula is undisclosed.Not publicly disclosed
CPE-05
Lead / staff / principal / architect
10% to 15% of baseModeled annual target as a percentage of base; the broad employee formula is undisclosed.Not publicly disclosed
CPE-06
Supervisor / manager
12% to 20% of baseModeled annual target as a percentage of base; the broad employee formula is undisclosed.Not publicly disclosed
CPE-07
Senior manager / director
20% to 35% of baseModeled annual target as a percentage of base, bridging observed director evidence to the disclosed 80 percent executive target.Not publicly disclosed
CPE-08
Vice President
35% to 50% of baseModeled officer target; CenterPoint discloses nothing below the named-executive threshold.Not publicly disclosed
CPE-09
Senior Vice President
50% to 70% of baseModeled officer target; CenterPoint discloses nothing below the named-executive threshold.Not publicly disclosed
CPE-10
EVP / named executive officer
80% of baseAnnual short-term incentive on the company scorecard, with an individual or discretionary adjustment that can be paid as a separate bonus line.159% of target for Foster and Soto; 191% for Karuturi and Ryan once their discretionary bonus lines are included
CPE-11
Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer
130% of baseAnnual short-term incentive on the company scorecard with no individual modifier applied for 2025.159% of target, paying $2,583,750 against a $1,625,000 target
ModeledVerifiedThe 2025 scorecard weighted adjusted earnings per share at 70 percent, safety at 10 percent, operational excellence at 10 percent and customer satisfaction at 10 percent. Adjusted earnings per share reached the maximum result on the disclosed scale and safety finished above target, while operational excellence finished below target and customer satisfaction finished below threshold. The overall funded achievement was 159 percent of target. Executive compensation opportunities were reviewed in February 2025 and salary adjustments generally became effective in early to mid-March.

Executive incentive targets — percent of salary

Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer
130% of a $1,250,000 target base
Combined with a 610 percent long-term incentive target for $10,500,000 of target total direct compensation.
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
80% of a $760,000 target base
Long-term incentive target of 290 percent of base, the highest of the non-CEO named executives.
Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer
80% of a $750,000 target base
Long-term incentive target of 270 percent of base for $3,375,000 of target total direct compensation.
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
80% of a $725,000 target base
Appointed 11 August 2025. Long-term incentive target of 260 percent, separate from the one-time $6,000,000 buyout award.
Executive Vice President, Regulatory Services and Government Affairs
80% of a $535,000 target base
Long-term incentive target of 200 percent of base for $2,033,000 of target total direct compensation.

Named-executive outcomes

ExecutiveTargetPaidAttainment
Jason P. Wells$1,625,000$2,583,750159% of target
Christopher A. Foster$608,000$966,720159% of target
Monica Karuturi$600,000$1,144,800191% of target including a $190,800 discretionary bonus line
Jesus Soto, Jr.$580,000$922,200159% of target
Jason M. Ryan$428,000$816,624191% of target including a $136,104 discretionary bonus line

Employee payout timing and history

CenterPoint consolidated the executive and non-executive scorecards for 2025, so the 159 percent company result is the best available proxy for a broad-employee outcome, but no enterprise-wide payout percentage has ever been published for 2023, 2024 or 2025 and no target percentage by non-executive level exists in any reviewed source. The annual lump-sum cadence is the supported executive interpretation; a monthly or quarterly broad incentive cadence is not disclosed. Overtime, shift and call-out pay, emergency-response hours, spot recognition and union premiums sit outside the incentive plan and, for field roles, are usually the larger number.

Sales and special incentives

CenterPoint is a regulated utility with no meaningful commissioned sales force, and no quota, commission rate, accelerator or draw structure appears in any reviewed source. The nearest analogue is the field overtime and call-out economy, which is genuinely large: the company quoted more than $200,000 of annual earnings for some lineworkers once storm and restoration hours are counted.


Equity — RSUs, PSUs, Options & ESPP

CenterPoint is a United States issuer, so employee equity means restricted stock units and performance share units rather than an Indian-style employee stock ownership plan. The 2022 Long-Term Incentive Plan authorises options, but the company states it has not granted a stock option since 2004, and no employee stock purchase plan was found in any reviewed source.

2022 Long-Term Incentive Plan
Active and shareholder-approved
Verified
Authorises options, stock appreciation rights, restricted stock, restricted stock units, stock awards, performance share units and performance stock. Current practice is annual restricted stock units and performance share units for named executives and certain other management-level employees, mixed 70 percent performance units and 30 percent restricted units in 2025. Restricted units vest one third on each of the first three grant anniversaries subject to continued employment and a positive operating income condition, with retirement, death and disability provisions. Performance units run three-year periods.
Reserve: 5,609,194 securities underlying outstanding rights and 13,554,999 remaining for future issuance at 31 December 2025
2026 proxy statement and SEC Form 4 filings
Stock Plan for Outside Directors
Active
Verified
Immediately vested common stock awarded annually to each eligible non-employee director. The 2025 award was 4,534 shares with a grant-date value of $175,000 at $38.60 per share. It vests on grant, so there is no forfeiture risk and no performance condition.
Reserve: Granted outside the employee long-term incentive pool
2026 proxy statement
CenterPoint Energy Savings Plan company stock fund
Active as a defined-contribution investment option
Verified
A participant-directed investment option inside the 401(k) rather than a discretionary equity grant. Participant allocations to the company stock fund are capped at 25 percent of investment elections, which is a deliberate concentration control rather than a benefit limit.
Reserve: Approximately $3.171 billion of total Savings Plan net assets at 31 December 2025
CenterPoint Energy Savings Plan Form 11-K for 2025
  • Outstanding rights represent 29.27 percent of outstanding plus available shares. That is a current commitment ratio, not cumulative utilisation of the original 2022 reserve, and it will move as performance units settle above or below target.
  • Performance share units are 4,390,229 of the 5,609,194 outstanding rights, so roughly 78 percent of the outstanding commitment is contingent on three-year performance rather than on service alone.
  • At the $38.93 share price snapshot the outstanding rights carry an illustrative market value of about $218.4 million and the remaining reserve about $527.7 million. Grant-date accounting value is not realised value and performance units can settle at zero.
  • CenterPoint publishes no burn rate, no grant count by level and no share of the workforce receiving equity, so the reserve tells you about company capacity rather than about an individual employee's odds of a grant.

Equity plan capacity at 31 December 2025

5,609,194
Securities underlying outstanding rights
Comprising 4,390,229 performance share units and 1,218,965 stock awards.
13,554,999
Securities remaining for future issuance
Illustrative market value of about $527.7 million at the $38.93 snapshot price.
29.27%
Current commitment ratio
Outstanding rights as a share of outstanding plus available, not cumulative plan utilisation.
$7.63M
Chief executive 2025 grant-date stock value
70,212 regular restricted stock units plus the balance in target performance units.

Vesting — common reported employee schedule

Year 1
33%
+33% · annual tranche
Year 2
67%
+33% · annual tranche
Year 3
100%
+33% · annual tranche

Standard restricted stock units vest one third on each of the first three grant anniversaries, conditional on continued employment and a positive operating income result. Performance share units are a single three-year measurement rather than an annual step, settling on relative total shareholder return and cumulative adjusted earnings per share. Jesus Soto's one-time $6,000,000 buyout award is the exception: 155,561 units vesting 25 percent a year over four years. Outside-director stock vests immediately on grant.

Eligibility by hierarchy level

  • The proxy says long-term incentives cover named executives and certain other management-level employees. It never states the minimum level, so director-level equity has to be treated as possible rather than guaranteed and no routine grant is evidenced at or below supervisor level.
  • The 2025 named-executive mix was 70 percent performance share units and 30 percent restricted stock units. Performance units split evenly between relative total shareholder return against a utility peer group and cumulative adjusted earnings per share, each on a three-year period.
  • Relative total shareholder return pays nothing below the 25th percentile except through modifier mechanics and reaches 200 percent at or above the 85th percentile, so half the executive equity carries genuine zero risk.
  • Long-term incentive targets as a percentage of base run from 200 percent at the lowest-paid named executive to 290 percent at the chief financial officer and 610 percent for the chief executive.
  • Modeled grant ranges for the officer bridge levels are $0 to $150,000 at director, $150,000 to $750,000 at vice president and $400,000 to $1.30 million at senior vice president. None of these is a CenterPoint disclosure.

Indicative annual grant value by band — Houston

BandAnnual value (USD)MedianShares at $38.93
CPE-07$8K$13K$10K~193321
CPE-08$45K$75K$60K~1,1561,927
CPE-09$143K$238K$190K~3,6606,101
CPE-10$1.48M$2.47M$1.98M~38,10763,511
CPE-11$5.72M$9.53M$7.63M~146,899244,831

Annualized planning value (±25%), not the face value of every new-hire grant. Share equivalents use the $38.93 reference price at 25 August 2026 market-data capture and ignore plan valuation rules and PSU performance. Highlighted rows are disclosed grant-date stock awards.

Named executive target equity

ExecutiveTargetUnits / structure
Jason P. Wells
Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer
$7,625,000 for 2025610 percent of target base, delivered as 70 percent performance share units and 30 percent restricted stock units. The regular grant included 70,212 restricted units with the balance in target performance units. The proxy's maximum grant-date scenario for the 2025 awards was about $12.963 million.
Christopher A. Foster
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
$2,204,000 for 2025290 percent of target base as 20,295 regular restricted stock units plus target performance units on the standard three-year design. Maximum grant-date scenario about $3.747 million.
Monica Karuturi
Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer
$2,025,000 for 2025270 percent of target base as 18,646 regular restricted stock units plus target performance units. Maximum grant-date scenario about $3.442 million.
Jesus Soto, Jr.
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
$1,885,000 regular target plus a $6,000,000 buyout260 percent of target base as 14,662 regular restricted stock units plus performance units, alongside 155,561 buyout restricted stock units vesting 25 percent a year over four years. The combined 2025 grant-date stock value was $7,884,981 and the maximum scenario about $9.204 million.
Jason M. Ryan
Executive Vice President, Regulatory Services and Government Affairs
$1,070,000 for 2025200 percent of target base as 9,853 regular restricted stock units plus target performance units. Maximum grant-date scenario about $1.819 million.
VerifiedCenterPoint does not appear to run an employee stock purchase plan. No discounted purchase programme, lookback or payroll-deduction share purchase was found in the proxy, the Form 10-K, the Savings Plan Form 11-K or the careers pages. The closest thing to broad employee share ownership is the Savings Plan company stock fund, which is a 401(k) investment option capped at 25 percent of a participant's elections rather than a discounted purchase right. An employee below the officer layer should therefore plan on cash compensation and the employer retirement contribution, not on equity.

Executive Compensation

Fiscal 2025 Summary Compensation Table values from the 2026 proxy statement filed on 13 March 2026. Stock is grant-date fair value rather than cash realised, and the two diverge sharply for a package that is roughly 63 percent equity. The bonus column, where it appears, is a discretionary or individual adjustment separate from the scorecard-funded incentive.

CEO total — Jason P. Wells
$12.09M
Stock awards are 63.1% of the reported total; salary 10% and non-equity incentive 21%
10%
21%
63%
Salary $1.23M
Incentive $2.58M
Equity $7.63M
Base salary$1,226,923
Non-equity incentive plan payout at 159 percent of target$2,583,750
Stock awards at grant-date value$7,625,023
All other compensation$656,645
Reported total$12,092,341

Reading the package

Salary was about 10.1 percent of the chief executive's 2025 reported total and grant-date stock value about 63 percent, with the scorecard-funded cash incentive making up a further 21.4 percent. On a target basis the package was a $1,250,000 base, a 130 percent short-term incentive target and a 610 percent long-term incentive target for $10,500,000 of target total direct compensation, so roughly 88 percent of the target package sits outside fixed salary and about 73 percent of it is equity.

CEO-to-median-employee ratio
93:1
Median employee $130,189 · The median employee measure included base salary, short- and long-term incentives, overtime and other compensation for the identified employee. Because CenterPoint's workforce is entirely United States based and includes a large represented field population whose overtime counts toward the median, the denominator is unusually high for a company of this size, which is the main reason the ratio sits below most of its utility peers..
Peer CEO comparison
Entergy · Chief executive officer · 2025$16.75M
Entergy 2026 proxy statement
Xcel Energy · Chief executive officer · 2025$16.00M
Xcel Energy 2026 proxy statement
NiSource · Chief executive officer · 2025$13.20M
NiSource 2026 proxy statement
CenterPoint Energy · Jason P. Wells · 2025$12.09M
CenterPoint Energy 2026 proxy statement
CMS Energy · Chief executive officer · 2025$10.53M
CMS Energy 2026 proxy statement
Atmos Energy · Chief executive officer · FY2025$9.95M
Atmos Energy FY2025 proxy statement

CenterPoint's chief executive total sits fourth of six in this set. The pay ratios tell a different story from the absolute totals: CenterPoint at 93 to 1 is below Atmos at 106 to 1, NiSource at 106 to 1 and Xcel at 108 to 1, and above Entergy at 88 to 1 and CMS at 56.1 to 1, largely because median employee pay ranges from $94,123 at Atmos to $189,374 at Entergy. Cross-company ratios are directional only, because companies use different fiscal calendars and different median-employee methodologies.


Named Executive Officers & Board

CenterPoint reshaped its operating leadership during 2025. Jesus Soto, Jr. joined as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer on 11 August 2025 with a $6,000,000 buyout restricted stock unit award, which is why his 2025 total exceeds that of longer-serving executives despite less than five months of salary.

Jason P. Wells · Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer$12.09M
Salary $1.23M · Cash incentive $2.58M · Stock $7.63M · Other $657K · Equity 63.1%
Jesus Soto, Jr. · Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer from 11 August 2025$9.13M
Salary $251K · Cash incentive $922K · Stock $7.88M · Other $71K · Equity 86.4%
Monica Karuturi · Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer$4.15M
Salary $744K · Cash incentive $1.14M · Stock $2.02M · Other $232K · Equity 48.8%
Christopher A. Foster · Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer$4.08M
Salary $752K · Cash incentive $967K · Stock $2.20M · Other $157K · Equity 54%
Jason M. Ryan · Executive Vice President, Regulatory Services and Government Affairs$2.62M
Salary $533K · Cash incentive $817K · Stock $1.07M · Other $204K · Equity 40.8%

Two named executives received a separate bonus line in 2025: Monica Karuturi at $190,800 and Jason M. Ryan at $136,104. Those lines are the difference between the 159 percent scorecard-funded result and the 191 percent outcome reported for them, and they are discretionary or individual adjustments rather than a second incentive plan. Jesus Soto's $9.13 million total is dominated by a one-time buyout award: $7,884,981 of the stock column is a $1,885,000 regular long-term incentive target plus $6,000,000 of buyout restricted stock units vesting 25 percent a year over four years. Recurring target total direct compensation for the named executives, which excludes that buyout, runs from $2,033,000 to $3,572,000.

Board compensation framework

ElementAmountNotes
Annual cash retainer$130,000Paid to each eligible non-employee director; the employee chair receives no director pay.
Annual stock award$175,0004,534 shares granted in 2025 at $38.60 per share, vesting immediately with no performance condition.
Lead Independent Director$40,000The largest single supplement, additive to the standard cash retainer.
Audit Committee chair$25,000The highest committee-chair supplement, reflecting the workload.
Governance Committee chair$20,000Additive supplement on the same basis as the other non-audit chairs.
Human Capital and Compensation Committee chair$20,000This is the committee that approves the executive incentive design and equity mix.
Safety and Operations Committee chair$20,000A committee that exists because safety is a weighted measure in the short-term incentive scorecard.
Easy Match charitable matchUp to $50,000A charitable matching allowance rather than personal compensation.

A non-chair director's baseline annual cash-plus-stock value was approximately $305,000 in 2025 before charitable matching, with committee-chair and lead-director supplements additive on top. Because the stock award vests immediately, a CenterPoint director's package carries none of the forfeiture or performance risk that an executive grant carries.

Regional heads and other officers

The proxy provides compensation only for named executive officers. Pay for regional gas and electric presidents, the General Counsel, chief technology and chief risk roles and every other senior officer below the named-executive threshold is not publicly disclosed, and will only become visible if one of them later becomes a named executive or an individual employment arrangement is filed. Section 16 filings show share movements for insiders but never salary, target or grant value in isolation.


Insider Trades — SEC Forms 3/4/5

CenterPoint is a New York Stock Exchange issuer, so the governing record is SEC Forms 3, 4 and 5 rather than any Indian exchange filing, and BSE, NSE and SEBI substantial-acquisition reporting is not applicable. Because the company has granted no stock options since 2004, almost every acquisition line is a restricted or performance unit settling into shares, and the disposal line immediately after it is usually shares surrendered to cover the tax.

DatePersonTransactionSharesPriceValue
2026-05-05
Christopher A. Foster
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Withholding
Shares withheld to cover tax when previously awarded restricted stock units vested. Not an open-market sale.
5,867$43.53$255K
2026-02-19
Jason P. Wells
Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer
Settlement
Restricted and performance units acquired on vesting. The value is shown at the same-day withholding price for scale, not as transaction consideration.
173,594$7.40M
2026-02-19
Jason P. Wells
Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer
Withholding
Shares withheld for taxes on the same-day vesting. Not a discretionary disposal.
64,813$42.64$2.76M
2026-02-19
Jason P. Wells
Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer
Withholding
A second tax-withholding line tied to the same vesting event, covering a separate award tranche.
29,215$42.64$1.25M
2025-08-11
Jesus Soto, Jr.
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Award
One-time buyout restricted stock unit award granted on appointment, vesting 25 percent a year over four years.
155,561$6.00M
2025-02-12
Jason P. Wells
Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer
Award
Regular annual time-based restricted stock units vesting one third in 2026, 2027 and 2028 subject to conditions.
70,212$2.29M
2023-11-09
Jason P. Wells
President and Chief Operating Officer at the time
Purchase
An unambiguous open-market purchase through a family trust, and the clearest voluntary buy signal in the record.
10,000$26.91$269K

Reading guide

Withholding is not sellingTransaction code F reflects shares surrendered to satisfy tax on vesting. Three of the seven filings shown here are withholding lines. A feed that colour-codes every disposal as bearish would misread this issuer badly.
No option exercisesCenterPoint has granted no stock options since 2004, so recent exercise-style activity is overwhelmingly unit vesting rather than option exercise.
One real purchaseThe 10,000-share family-trust purchase at $26.905 in November 2023 is the only open-market buy in the reviewed record, at roughly 69 percent of the August 2026 snapshot price.
Grant dating is predictableRegular annual awards cluster in mid-February alongside the February executive compensation review, and the corresponding vesting and withholding lines cluster in mid-February three years later.

Benefits & Perks

CenterPoint quantifies its retirement programme in detail through the Savings Plan Form 11-K and describes the rest of the package only by category on its careers pages. The most important structural fact is that benefits are not uniform: the Savings Plan filing sets out different contribution, auto-enrolment and vesting provisions for certain represented employees, so a single companywide headline understates the variation between the salaried population and the bargaining units concentrated in the legacy Vectren states.

Texas

  • RetirementDollar-for-dollar 401(k) match on up to 6 percent plus a 3 percent company contribution. The 3 percent is paid regardless of whether the employee contributes, so the eligible employer commitment can reach 9 percent of pay. Bargaining-unit rules can differ, but the Houston headquarters population is predominantly non-represented. [official]
  • WellnessOn-site wellness centre at the Houston headquarters. The only location-specific facility identified anywhere in CenterPoint's public benefit material, alongside fitness discounts available more broadly. [official]
  • EligibilityBenefits begin on the first day of employment. Current careers language for Houston postings. Eligibility can still vary by employee class, and no waiting-period schedule is published. [official]
  • MobilityTransit subsidies and flexible work schedules. Role and location dependent, and most visible on Houston corporate postings. Field and operations roles are shift-bound and will not carry the same flexibility. [official]
  • Health and welfareMedical, dental, vision, life and disability categories supported. The carrier, employer premium share, deductible, coverage amounts and plan tiers are not disclosed in any reviewed source. [npd]

Global programs

  • RetirementCenterPoint Energy Savings Plan holding about $3.171 billion of net assets. For 2025 the plan recorded $97.124 million of employee contributions and $72.293 million of employer contributions, which is the clearest quantification of what the retirement benefit actually costs the company. [official]
  • RetirementDeferral limits of 50 percent pre-tax or Roth and 16 percent after-tax. Auto-enrolment is generally 6 percent with one percentage point annual escalation to a 10 percent ceiling, and 3 percent for some bargaining populations. [official]
  • EquityCompany stock fund capped at 25 percent of participant investment elections. This is a concentration control inside the 401(k), not an equity grant and not a discounted purchase right. No employee stock purchase plan was found. [official]
  • EligibilityBenefits begin on the first day. Stated in current careers material. Eligibility can vary by employee class and by collective bargaining agreement. [official]
  • Field workOvertime, shift premium, call-out and emergency-response pay. Not a benefit in the usual sense, but for represented field roles it is the largest variable component of annual cash and CenterPoint quoted more than $200,000 of annual earnings for some lineworkers. [official]

Benefit fields not publicly quantified

The exact medical carrier and employer premium share, health plan coverage amounts, health savings account seeding, the paid time off day schedule, sick leave days, maternity and paternity weeks, pension formulas for each legacy group, relocation amounts, phone and internet allowances, commuter caps, certification reimbursement caps, sabbatical policy and the employee assistance provider are all undisclosed in the reviewed public sources. International statutory benefits are not applicable: no material CenterPoint employee population exists outside the United States, so no country-specific statutory package is displayed as though CenterPoint offered it.


Performance Review & Pay Progression

CenterPoint discloses the executive review calendar and the equity vesting conditions and discloses nothing about how ordinary employees are rated or how a rating turns into money. There is no public rating scale, no forced distribution and no merit matrix, so the progression figures below are explicitly a user-interface model rather than company policy.

Not publicly disclosed

No enterprise rating scale, rating labels or number of rating levels appears in any reviewed source.
No forced ranking, bell curve or calibration distribution is disclosed.
No rating-to-increase merit matrix, standard promotion hike or annual merit budget is published.
The enterprise-wide salary review month, effective date and off-cycle correction policy are not disclosed; only the February executive review and its early-to-mid-March effective date are.
Probation duration, confirmation terms and any companywide promotion waiting period are not published.
Voluntary attrition is not reported in any CenterPoint SEC filing, so no retention pressure metric can be computed.
Pay-equity work is discussed qualitatively in human-capital material, but no adjusted pay-gap statistic or remediation budget was found.

Modeled promotion planning timeline

BandYears to next scopePromotion hikeStatus
CPE-013–4 years to journeyman through the apprenticeship programmeNot disclosedModeled planning interval
CPE-022–3 years to CPE-03Not disclosedModeled planning interval
CPE-033–4 years to CPE-04 or to a lead craft stepNot disclosedModeled planning interval
CPE-043–5 years to CPE-05 or a move across to CPE-06Not disclosedModeled planning interval
CPE-054–6 years to CPE-06 or CPE-07Not disclosedModeled planning interval
CPE-063–5 years to CPE-07Not disclosedModeled planning interval
CPE-074–7 years to the officer layer, with no reliable public normNot disclosedModeled planning interval
CPE-08No reliable public norm; a board and committee succession decisionNot disclosedModeled planning interval
CPE-09No reliable public normNot disclosedModeled planning interval
CPE-10Board appointmentNot disclosedModeled planning interval
CPE-11Board appointmentNot disclosedModeled planning interval

The only strongly evidenced time-to-level fact at CenterPoint is the field one: apprentice to journeyman lineworker takes approximately three years, after which the company quoted pay of about $113,000. Everything on the salaried side is modeled. Executive compensation opportunities were reviewed in February 2025 with salary adjustments generally effective in early to mid-March, and standard restricted stock unit vesting carries both a continued-employment condition and a positive operating income condition, with retirement, death and disability provisions. Union and craft wage progression may be governed by collective bargaining agreements whose current wage tables were not located in public filings.

Pay progression evidence

Modeled progression, not CenterPoint policy: CPE-01 to CPE-03 takes about three to four years and runs on apprenticeship and safety milestones with bargained wage steps rather than a percentage increase; CPE-02 to CPE-03 takes two to three years for a modeled 6 to 12 percent increase; CPE-03 to CPE-04 takes three to four years for 6 to 12 percent; CPE-04 to CPE-05 takes three to five years for 6 to 12 percent; CPE-05 to CPE-06 or CPE-07 takes four to six years for 8 to 15 percent; CPE-06 to CPE-07 takes three to five years for 8 to 15 percent; and CPE-07 to the officer layer takes four to seven years with no reliable public norm on the increase. Above vice president there is no norm at all, because the move is a board and committee succession decision rather than a promotion.


H-1B / LCA Visa Footprint — United States

H-1B sponsorship is immaterial at CenterPoint. Only two labour condition application salary records were found under CenterPoint Energy Service Company, LLC, both in Houston and both for the same job title. With one observation per year the 25th percentile, median and 75th percentile are necessarily identical, so the distribution below is a record listing rather than a wage curve.

Salary records found
2
One 2022 filing and one 2025 filing, both Houston, both Consultant Developer Applications.
2025 certified wage
$149,718
Up from $134,328 on the 2022 record, an increase of about 11.5 percent over three years.
Approval rate
Not calculable
One continuing petition approval and no denial were observed. Publishing 100 percent without a denominator would be misleading.
H-1B dependency
Not dependent
CenterPoint was not characterised as H-1B dependent by any aggregator reviewed.

Dataset summary

DatasetResultInterpretation
H1Bdata.info employer extractTwo Houston labour condition application salary records, 2022 and 2025Filed under CenterPoint Energy Service Company, LLC rather than under the parent company name.
MyVisaJobs employer profileOne continuing H-1B petition approval in the 2026 view and no denialHistorical aggregator totals also show three filings in 2019 averaging $130,318 and one in 2018 at $124,611.
Fiscal-year reconciliationAggregators classify the 2022 filing under different fiscal yearsOne view places it in the 2023 cycle. The two salary records are the same underlying filings either way.

City-level H-1B wage history

CityP25MedianP75Records
Houston, Texas — 2025 filing
Consultant Developer Applications, certified. A single record, so all three quantiles are the same number.
$150K$149,718$150K1
Houston, Texas — 2022 filing
Consultant Developer Applications, certified record observed. Again a single record with identical quantiles.
$134K$134,328$134K1

All-years aggregates. P25/P75 are rounded reconstruction values marked modeled; medians and record counts are the stronger fields.

Selected title / worksite records

TitleWorksiteProffered wageNotes
Consultant Developer ApplicationsHouston, Texas$149,718 in 2025The only certified 2025 record and the highest CenterPoint labour condition application wage on file.
Consultant Developer ApplicationsHouston, Texas$134,328 in 2022The same title three years earlier, showing that sponsorship is repeat-specialist rather than programmatic.
Historical aggregator totalAll CenterPoint worksites$130,318 average across 3 filings in 2019The busiest year in the record and still a rounding error against an 8,800-person workforce.
Historical aggregator totalAll CenterPoint worksites$124,611 across 1 filing in 2018Consistent with isolated specialist information technology sponsorship rather than a staffing channel.

Reading the data correctly

  • Labour condition application wages are proffered base salary. They exclude any incentive payout and any equity, though at this level CenterPoint evidences no routine equity anyway.
  • A labour condition application is a filing, not a hire. Certified applications exceed actual petitions and petitions exceed actual employees.
  • With one record per year the quantiles carry no statistical meaning. They are shown because the table requires them, not because a distribution exists.
  • Aggregators classify fiscal years differently, so the same two filings can appear under 2022, 2023 or 2025 depending on the source.
  • These records sit above the modeled CPE-04 Houston median of $105,000 and near the CPE-05 median of $135,000, which is consistent with a senior specialist contractor-to-employee conversion rather than an entry-level sponsorship programme.

Key Nuances & Insights

01This is a United States-only employer and the pay page has to say so

The 2026 proxy measured approximately 8,830 employees, all in the United States. Any India, Australia, United Kingdom or Singapore salary band for CenterPoint would be fabricated, and a global pay multiplier cannot be calculated because there is no CenterPoint population abroad to compare against.

02Craft overtime inverts the pay hierarchy

A journeyman lineworker working major storm restoration can out-earn salaried professionals and some managers. CenterPoint quoted roughly $60,000 at entry, about $113,000 after three years and more than $200,000 with overtime for some lineworkers. Reading the base-pay ladder alone will understate field compensation by a wide margin.

03The first management step is not a pay step

The observed supervisor and manager base of $125,000 sits below the lead, staff and architect base of $135,000. Moving into people leadership at CenterPoint buys scope and a higher incentive target, not an immediate base increase.

04Equity begins somewhere inside management and the boundary is hidden

The proxy covers named executives and certain other management-level employees without naming the minimum level. Director-level equity has to be treated as possible rather than guaranteed, and nothing at or below supervisor shows a routine grant.

05No stock options since 2004

Options remain authorised under the 2022 plan but none has been granted in more than two decades. Current equity economics run entirely on restricted unit vesting, performance unit settlement and share withholding for tax, so option-strike reasoning simply does not apply here.

06There is no employee stock purchase plan

No discounted purchase programme, lookback or payroll-deduction share purchase appears in the proxy, the Form 10-K, the Savings Plan filing or the careers pages. The only broad share access is the 401(k) company stock fund, capped at 25 percent of a participant's elections.

07Tax withholding is not insider selling

Three of the seven Form 4 lines reviewed here are shares surrendered to cover tax at vest. A transaction feed that treats every disposal as a bearish signal would badly misread an issuer whose executives receive units rather than options.

08Retirement is the largest quantified benefit

A dollar-for-dollar match on 6 percent plus a 3 percent company contribution regardless of employee contribution means the eligible employer commitment can reach 9 percent of pay before any tax-deferred growth. For a mid-band professional that is worth more than the modeled annual incentive target.

09The 9 percent headline does not apply to every bargaining unit

The Savings Plan filing records different contribution, match, auto-enrolment and vesting provisions for certain represented employees, including 3 percent auto-enrolment and 20 percent annual vesting over five years for some groups. Indiana and Ohio carry the largest represented populations from the Vectren combination.

10Portfolio sales are moving the pay map

Louisiana and Mississippi left on 1 April 2025 and Ohio is under an agreed $2.62 billion sale expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. Historical salary submissions tagged to Shreveport or Jackson describe a footprint that no longer exists, and Columbus and Dayton may follow.

11The 159 percent scorecard is the closest thing to a broad payout figure

CenterPoint consolidated its executive and non-executive scorecards in 2025, so the 159 percent company result is the only companywide performance signal that exists. It is not a published employee multiplier, and the 191 percent outcomes for two executives came from separate discretionary bonus lines rather than from the scorecard.

12The low pay ratio is a denominator story

CenterPoint's 93 to 1 ratio is below most of its utility peers not because the chief executive is paid modestly but because the $130,189 median employee is high, driven by an all-United States workforce whose median measure includes overtime. Atmos, with a $94,123 median, reports a higher ratio on a smaller chief executive package.

13Half the executive equity can settle at zero

Performance units are 70 percent of the named-executive grant and half of that is relative total shareholder return, which pays nothing below the 25th percentile and up to 200 percent at or above the 85th. The grant-date value in the proxy is therefore an accounting figure, not an entitlement.

14City factors are analytical, not policy

The 0.87 to 1.04 spread across CenterPoint's eleven markets is a normalisation layer built for this report from a Houston anchor. CenterPoint publishes no salary zones, and the factors should never be quoted as though it did.

Research control

CenterPoint sits in the middle of its utility peer set on chief executive pay and at the low end on pay ratio. Its $12.09 million chief executive total is fourth of six behind Entergy, Xcel and NiSource and ahead of CMS and Atmos, while its 93 to 1 ratio is below Xcel at 108, NiSource and Atmos at 106 and above Entergy at 88 and CMS at 56.1. On the employee side the structure is characteristic of a regulated utility rather than a technology employer: no routine equity below the officer layer, modest incentive targets that only reach 20 to 35 percent at director, and a field population whose overtime economy is large enough to move the companywide median employee figure to $130,189.

Evidence classification

LabelMeaningExamples and permitted use
VerifiedA CenterPoint or SEC filing, an official CenterPoint careers or benefit page, or a government rule.Executive and director compensation, the pay ratio, equity plan terms and reserve, the 401(k) and Savings Plan mechanics, headcount, the divestitures and the capital plan.
ReportedA named third-party dataset with observable records, chiefly Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, PayScale, Comparably, Indeed and the labour condition application aggregators, plus company-quoted pay figures carried in journalism.The Houston anchor medians for CPE-01 through CPE-06, the lineworker apprentice, journeyman and overtime figures, and the two H-1B wage records.
ModeledThe Houston anchor multiplied by a city calibration factor, or an interpolation between two disclosed points, inside a planning envelope.Every non-Houston city cell, the CPE-07 through CPE-09 bridge rows, all non-executive incentive targets and the progression timeline.
Not publicly disclosedNo source in the research bundle supports a figure.Recorded as such rather than estimated. Attrition, the rating system, the merit matrix, benefit cost sharing and union wage tables all fall here.

Explicit “Not publicly disclosed” index

Official grade or band codes and any title-to-grade mapping
Salary range minimum, midpoint and maximum by level and by city
Short-term incentive target percentage for every non-executive level
Broad-employee incentive payout percentages for 2023, 2024 and 2025
The minimum level at which long-term incentive eligibility begins
Typical vice president and senior vice president grant size
Rating scale, rating labels, forced distribution and the merit matrix
Enterprise-wide salary review month, effective date and off-cycle correction policy
Current voluntary attrition rate
Collective bargaining wage tables and apprenticeship step schedules
Medical carrier, employer premium share, deductibles and coverage amounts
Paid time off day schedule, sick leave, and maternity and paternity weeks
Pension formulas for each legacy Vectren and CenterPoint group
Employee headcount by city or by state
Compensation for officers below the named-executive threshold
Any lateral-hire premium against internal promotees at the same level

Known gaps and diligence before relying on a cell

  1. 1The bundle's own vice president and senior vice president rows are internally inconsistent. It states a $500,000 total median and a $150,000 to $750,000 grant range at vice president, and a $950,000 total median with a $400,000 to $1.30 million grant range at senior vice president; neither pair reconciles. This report follows the total medians and treats equity as the residual, so equity at those two rows reads lower than the bundle's grant range implies.
  2. 2CPE-10 and CPE-11 are national proxy disclosures. The research model deliberately does not scale them by city, but the shared ladder view applies location factors uniformly, so those two rows should be read as national figures regardless of the selected market. They are also marked as excluded from the range chart because a $12 million cohort flattens the employee scale.
  3. 3No top-of-ladder location factors are used. A domestic regulated utility shows no evidence of the junior-to-senior geographic compression that offshore delivery models produce, so inventing a separate senior factor would have misstated every city.
  4. 4No employer benefit load is added to any total. The 401(k) match and the 3 percent company contribution are employer cost rather than pay, and every total compensation figure is rebuilt from base plus incentive plus equity so that it reconciles.
  5. 5At CPE-01 and CPE-03 the observed total exceeds base plus the modeled incentive target. The residual is overtime, shift and call-out cash, which is real money but is not an incentive plan; it is carried in the bonus component and labelled on the row rather than being dropped.
  6. 6Negotiated union scale is kept out of the band anchors entirely. The current collective bargaining wage tables were not located in any public CenterPoint filing, so the field rows are triangulated salary evidence and the bargained steps behind them remain undisclosed.
  7. 7Shreveport and Jackson are excluded from the location table rather than shown with a stale factor, because the Louisiana and Mississippi businesses were sold on 1 April 2025 and are no longer CenterPoint pay locations. Columbus and Dayton are retained but flagged as pending divestiture.
  8. 8CPE-11 uses the actual Summary Compensation Table total of $12,092,341 while CPE-10 uses a target total direct compensation median of $3,283,000. The bundle presents them that way because there is one chief executive and four other named executives; the CPE-11 target equivalent is $10,500,000 and is noted on the row.
  9. 9Summary Compensation Table component sums differ from the reported totals by one dollar for Monica Karuturi, Jesus Soto and Jason Ryan. That is proxy rounding, and the reported totals are used.
  10. 10No companywide salary freeze, salary cut, published average merit increase, campus-offer reduction, delayed joining programme or off-cycle market correction was located in the last two years. That is a negative search result and should not be read as proof that none occurred.

Source register — 16 sources

DEF 14A 2026CenterPoint Energy 2026 Definitive Proxy Statement · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-03-13. Executive and director compensation, the 93 to 1 pay ratio, workforce measurement, short- and long-term incentive design, the equity reserve and the no-options-since-2004 statement.
10-K 2025CenterPoint Energy 2025 Annual Report on Form 10-K · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-02-19. Operations, revenue, employee count and the geographic footprint of the utility businesses.
11-K 2025CenterPoint Energy Savings Plan Form 11-K for 2025 · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-06-23. 401(k) match, the 3 percent company contribution, deferral limits, auto-enrolment, vesting variation by bargaining group, plan net assets and the 25 percent stock fund cap.
Q2 2026CenterPoint Energy second-quarter 2026 results release · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-07-28. The $66.7 billion 2026 to 2035 capital plan and the current employee population description.
Q4 2025CenterPoint Energy fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results release · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-02-19. FY2025 non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.76 and the then-current capital plan.
Forms 4Section 16 filings for Wells, Foster and Soto · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-05-05. Restricted and performance unit settlements, tax withholding lines, the 2025 annual grant, the Soto buyout award and the 2023 open-market purchase.
Soto awardCenterPoint preliminary proxy and appointment disclosure for Jesus Soto, Jr. · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-02-06. The $6 million buyout restricted stock unit award of 155,561 units vesting 25 percent a year over four years.
CareersCenterPoint Energy careers postings for Houston and Evansville · CenterPoint Energy · 2026-08-26. Job titles, experience requirements, first-day benefit eligibility, transit and wellness provisions and the tuition reimbursement category.
Workforce releaseCenterPoint lineworker workforce announcement · CenterPoint Energy Investor Relations · 2025-07-25. The plan to add 200 lineworkers in 2025 and nearly 800 by 2030 and the Energy Expressway training programme.
Lineworker payHouston Chronicle report on CenterPoint lineworker training and pay · Houston Chronicle · 2025-11-22. Company-quoted apprentice pay of about $60,000, journeyman pay of $113,000 after three years and overtime above $200,000.
LA/MS saleCompletion of the Louisiana and Mississippi natural gas sale · CenterPoint Energy Investor Relations and SEC filing · 2025-04-01. The 380,000-customer and 12,000-mile scope of the divestiture and the resulting legacy status of Shreveport and Jackson.
Ohio saleAnnouncement of the Ohio natural gas business sale · CenterPoint Energy Investor Relations · 2025-10-21. The $2.62 billion transaction value and the expected fourth-quarter 2026 close.
Salary platformsLevels.fyi, Glassdoor, PayScale, Comparably and Indeed CenterPoint records · Third-party salary platforms · 2026-08-26. The Houston anchor medians for CPE-01 through CPE-06, including a $52,260 to $141,191 reported total range, a PayScale average of about $86,642 and a Comparably estimated average of about $126,219.
H-1B extractsH1Bdata.info and MyVisaJobs extracts for CenterPoint Energy Service Company, LLC · Third-party Department of Labor aggregators · 2026-08-26. The two Houston labour condition application salary records, the historical filing counts and the petition outcome.
Peer proxiesAtmos Energy, NiSource, Xcel Energy, Entergy and CMS Energy proxy statements · United States Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026-04-06. Peer chief executive totals, median employee pay and pay ratios for the utility comparison set.
Market snapshotCNP share price and reference foreign-exchange capture · Market data capture · 2026-08-25. The $38.93 share price used for illustrative equity valuation. Every CenterPoint salary in this report is denominated in United States dollars, so no currency conversion is applied.

Recent News & Workforce Trend

CenterPoint's compensation story over the last two years is a portfolio story and a field-hiring story rather than a salary-action story. No companywide pay freeze, pay cut or published merit increase was found in any reviewed source.

Reduced by the divestiture
1 Apr 2025 employees
The Louisiana and Mississippi natural gas businesses, about 380,000 customers and 12,000 miles of pipeline, left the company. CenterPoint did not disclose the associated employee count.
~8,830
7 Nov 2025 employees
The proxy measurement date. All employees were located in the United States.
~8,800
2026 employees
The population described in 2026 company material, essentially flat against the proxy measurement.
+800 lineworkers
By 2030 employees
The announced hiring plan, of which 200 were targeted for 2025 alone, offset in part by the pending Ohio divestiture.

Headcount has been broadly flat at roughly 8,800 while the shape of the workforce changes underneath it: two gas businesses sold or being sold, and the most visible expansion in field craft rather than in corporate or technology roles. CenterPoint publishes no attrition rate and no city or state headcount, so the only reliable workforce signal in the filings is the total and the fact that it is entirely domestic.

28 Jul 2026
Ten-year capital plan raised to $66.7 billion

The 2026 to 2035 investment programme increases sustained demand for engineering, field and project-delivery talent, which is the main structural support for the lineworker hiring plan.

Q2 2026 results release
23 Jun 2026
Savings Plan filing quantifies the retirement benefit

Approximately $3.171 billion of net assets at 31 December 2025, with $97.124 million of employee and $72.293 million of employer contributions for the year, plus the bargaining-unit variations in match, auto-enrolment and vesting.

Form 11-K for 2025
5 May 2026
Chief financial officer surrenders shares on vesting

5,867 shares withheld at $43.53 to cover tax when previously awarded restricted stock units vested. It is a withholding line rather than an open-market sale.

SEC Form 4
13 Mar 2026
2026 proxy discloses 2025 pay

Chief executive total compensation of $12,092,341 against a $130,189 median employee for a 93 to 1 ratio, a 159 percent short-term incentive funding result and a 70 percent performance unit and 30 percent restricted unit long-term incentive mix.

2026 proxy statement
19 Feb 2026
Chief executive vesting and tax withholding

173,594 shares acquired on restricted and performance unit vesting, with 94,028 surrendered across two lines at $42.64 to cover tax.

SEC Form 4
19 Feb 2026
FY2025 results and capital-plan update

Non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.76 for FY2025 and a capital plan then exceeding $65 billion. Adjusted earnings per share carries a 70 percent weight in the short-term incentive scorecard.

Q4 and FY2025 results release
22 Nov 2025
Lineworker pay and training detail reported

Company-quoted entry pay of around $60,000, journeyman pay of $113,000 after approximately three years, and total earnings above $200,000 with overtime for some lineworkers.

Houston Chronicle
21 Oct 2025
Ohio natural gas business sale announced

A $2.62 billion transaction expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. Columbus and Dayton remain CenterPoint pay locations until then, with no disclosed benefit-continuity or retention terms.

CenterPoint investor relations
11 Aug 2025
Jesus Soto, Jr. appointed chief operating officer with a $6 million buyout award

155,561 buyout restricted stock units vesting 25 percent a year over four years, on top of a $1,885,000 regular long-term incentive target. It is the clearest evidence in the record of what a senior external hire can command.

SEC filings and 2026 proxy statement
25 Jul 2025
Lineworker workforce expansion announced

A plan to add 200 lineworkers in 2025 and nearly 800 by 2030, supported by a new Energy Expressway training programme. This is the company's most visible hiring commitment.

CenterPoint investor relations
1 Apr 2025
Louisiana and Mississippi gas utilities sold

About 380,000 customers and 12,000 miles of pipeline left the company. Shreveport and Jackson stopped being CenterPoint pay locations, so historical salary submissions tagged to them describe a footprint that no longer exists.

CenterPoint investor relations and SEC filing
Last updated 2026-08-27