---
title: "As Ocado lines up a new boss, scrutiny falls on Tim Steiner's £100m in pay"
description: "Ocado is preparing to replace its co-founder and long-serving chief executive, Tim Steiner — and his exit has trained the spotlight on the roughly £100m he is reported to have earned over the years, at a company whose share price has collapsed and which was dropped from the FTSE 100."
category: "Business"
category_url: https://newsparlor.com/category/business
author: "Liam Fitzgerald"
published: 2026-06-28T08:11:00.000Z
updated: 2026-06-28T08:11:00.000Z
canonical: https://newsparlor.com/article/ocado-tim-steiner-pay-succession
tags: ["ocado", "executive-pay", "tim-steiner", "ftse-100", "corporate-governance"]
---
# As Ocado lines up a new boss, scrutiny falls on Tim Steiner's £100m in pay

Ocado is preparing to replace its co-founder and long-serving chief executive, Tim Steiner — and his exit has trained the spotlight on the roughly £100m he is reported to have earned over the years, at a company whose share price has collapsed and which was dropped from the FTSE 100.

The online grocer and technology group Ocado is lining up a successor to Tim Steiner, the co-founder who has led it for more than two decades — and the prospect of his departure has put fresh focus on the roughly £100m in pay and share awards he has accumulated, [The Guardian reported](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/28/ocado-boss-tim-steiner-payouts).

## A boss on the way out

Ocado is searching for a new chief executive, with reports naming Niklas Heuveldop — head of Ericsson-owned Vonage — among the contenders; the company's shares fell on news that Steiner would be replaced, [BusinessCloud reported](https://businesscloud.co.uk/news/ocado-shares-fall-on-news-that-tim-steiner-will-be-replaced-as-ceo/). Steiner has been the public face of Ocado since helping found it in 2000, steering its shift from an online supermarket into a seller of warehouse-robotics technology to grocers around the world.

## Reward against a falling share price

The scrutiny stems from the gap between his rewards and the company's recent performance. Ocado's shares have slid steeply from their pandemic-era highs, and in 2024 the company was [demoted from the FTSE 100](https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/ocado-kicked-off-ftse-100-170749480.html) to the FTSE 250. Steiner's pay has repeatedly drawn opposition: a 2022 "value creation" scheme could have paid out up to £100m had the share price tripled, and a later incentive plan prompted a sizable shareholder revolt, with advisory firms recommending votes against it. The package passed despite the pushback.

## The arguments on each side

Ocado's board has defended its approach to executive pay as necessary to reward and retain leadership through a period of transformation, framing Steiner's incentives around long-term value creation in a capital-intensive technology business. Critics — including shareholder advisory groups and pay campaigners — counter that the potential rewards were out of line with market norms and with returns delivered to shareholders, and have pointed to the contrast with pay lower down the company.

## A familiar UK debate

The case feeds a long-running argument in Britain over executive pay. Boards increasingly cite global competition for talent and the need to retain leaders, especially those who can command higher rewards abroad; investors and campaigners increasingly press for pay to be justified by company-specific performance rather than blanket appeals to "competitiveness." As Ocado turns the page on its founder-chief executive and seeks a return to sustained profitability, how it structures the next leader's pay — and what it says about the last one's — will be watched closely.