Ken Murphy: Tesco’s CEO salary explained - as supermarket’s profits boom to £1.48bn

Tesco has announced on Wednesday (4 October) that it has seen its profits increase in the last six months to £1.48 billion. The supermarket pledged to “continue to lower prices” to support shoppers struggling amid the cost of living crisis and said it will do “everything” in its “power” to make sure customers “have a fantastic, affordable Christmas”.

Back in May, the firm announced that its CEO was paid £4.4 million last year - and is expected to gain a 3% salary increase this year. Tesco’s CEO received £1.71 million in fixed pay and £2.73 million in performance-based remuneration in 2022. He received this huge salary despite the supermarket at the time announcing its profits had halved and it was increasing prices for shoppers.

The supermarket’s CEO earns a whopping salary while Tesco is found to be not the cheapest store. The monthly supermarket price comparison, put together by Which?, found that Tesco was the fourth cheapest supermarket in August.

Its comparison revealed that Aldi was the cheapest for a basket of items, at £65.21. Tesco’s basket of items came to £74. So, who is Tesco’s CEO and what is his background? Here’s everything you need to know.

Who is the CEO of Tesco?

Ken Murphy, who has been Tesco’s CEO since October 2020, comes from Cork in Ireland. He started work in his father’s shop aged 15, studied finance and economics at University College Cork (UCC), qualified as an accountant, and later studied at Harvard Business School.

After a short time at Procter & Gamble, he joined pharmacy chain Unichem in 1997 just before it merged with Alliance Santé. By 2003 became managing director of Unichem Italia, and when the group merged with Boots in 2006, Murphy was picked to lead the integration of the two businesses.

He was appointed boss of Boots UK and Ireland in 2011. Following the takeover of the US giant Walgreens he moved to America in 2013. According to The Times, in late 2018 he arrived back in Dublin with his family, serving as a consultant to Walgreens Boots Alliance.

He spent over 20 years as part of the firm’s senior management, and through his many roles at Walgreens Boots Alliance, Murphy had overall responsibility for brand strategy and the commercial offering in the organisation’s retail businesses. At Walgreens, Murphy was paid a salary of £750,000. He sold $8.5m (€7.6 million) of Walgreens Boots Alliance stock in 2016 and owns 8,227 shares.

He is married to his wife Olga, who is a former therapist and personal trainer, and the couple have three children. According to The Grocer, Murphy said in a Retail Week interview in 2012 that what kept him awake at night was “the ever-growing gap between those who have money and those who don’t in this country”.