Home Depot CEO pay tops $16 million, hourly workers still have advancement paths

**The number at the top is $16.19 million, but the more useful story for Home Depot workers is how the company says its ladder still runs from the sales floor to broader responsibility.** Ted Decker’s fiscal 2025 compensation put a sharp dollar figure on the gap between the C-suite and the store floor, yet the company’s own filings and careers messaging show a business that still depends on moving people up through store leadership, operations, and corporate functions.

Home Depot’s proxy statement also makes clear that compensation is tied to the company’s broader strategy. The retailer said it is focused on delivering a best-in-class interconnected experience, growing sales to professional customers, and building new stores. It also said it returned $8.9 billion in cash dividends in fiscal 2024 and paused share repurchases in March 2024 ahead of the SRS acquisition, a reminder that investor payouts, acquisitions, and executive pay all sit in the same conversation about where cash goes.

The annual shareholder meeting was scheduled for Thursday, May 22, 2025, putting the compensation discussion squarely in front of investors. For associates and managers, that matters because pay at the top is not just a Wall Street headline. It signals which parts of the business leadership believes will drive the next phase of growth.

That is the part hourly associates and department leads should pay attention to. A company with more than 2,300 stores and about 475,000 associates cannot keep running on outside hires alone. It needs a constant flow of people who know the rhythm of the sales floor, understand pro customers, and can handle the seasonal rushes that shape retail life. In a business this large, internal promotion is not a feel-good slogan, it is a staffing model.

The company’s history helps explain why. Home Depot says it was founded in 1978 and opened its first two stores on June 22, 1979, in Atlanta, Georgia. What began as a small retail idea has become a North American operation where workers can move from hourly roles into department leadership, store operations, district-level responsibility, and eventually broader support jobs in areas like merchandising, online, finance, and distribution.

Ann-Marie Campbell’s role shows that bridge especially clearly. She became senior executive vice president in November 2023, with responsibility for outside pro sales and installation services while continuing to oversee U.S. stores and operations and the Canada and Mexico businesses. That mix matters because it ties together the company’s pro strategy, its core store network, and its international operations. For a store manager or district leader, that is the kind of role that turns retail experience into enterprise-level responsibility.

Home Depot’s stated strategy reinforces the same point. The company is betting on an interconnected business where the store still matters, but so do pro relationships, installation work, and the digital experience. That means the most valuable workers are not just cashiers or receivers, but people who can navigate between product knowledge, job-site needs, and omnichannel retail.

That scale is what creates movement inside the company. Home Depot said it plans to finish an approximately 80-store expansion plan in 2027 and then continue building 15 to 20 stores per year. New stores mean new department leads, assistant managers, operations leaders, asset protection roles, and support openings. Even when growth is measured, expansion creates the next rung for workers who are ready to move.

For hourly associates, the practical lesson is that advancement tends to follow the parts of the business Home Depot keeps investing in: stores, pro sales, installation, online operations, and the systems that connect them. The company’s size and profit base give it the ability to pay its top leaders richly, but they also create genuine internal pathways for workers who want to move from knowing the aisle map to running the operation.

On that front, the message is clear: Home Depot is still structured like a company that promotes from within because it has to. Its stores are too numerous, its customer base too specialized, and its pro business too important to treat internal experience as optional. For associates, that means the career ladder is still there. The climb is demanding, but inside a company this large, it is also one of the few ladders in retail that can still reach all the way to the top.