Bacow Made $1.2 Million During First Full Year of Presidency, Financial Disclosures Show

University President Lawrence S. Bacow earned $1,224,889 in 2019, his first full year as Harvard’s president, according to financial documents filed by the University earlier this month.

Compensation for Bacow and other top-earning University officers and professors was released May 14 as part of the University’s Form 990 tax filings for fiscal year 2020, which the Internal Revenue Service requires tax-exempt entities to submit annually. Salaries are reported on a calendar year rather than a fiscal year.

Bacow made $570,072 in 2018 during the first six months of his term. During her last full year in the position, former University President Drew G. Faust earned just over $1.7 million.

Also in 2019, during her first full year as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Claudine Gay made $783,399 — up from the $487,562 she earned in 2018, which included her first four months in the role and the completion of her term as Dean of Social Science during the first half of that year.

Other top-earning University officials in 2019 included Provost Alan M. Garber ’76, who earned $955,759 in total compensation, and Executive Vice President Katherine N. Lapp, who accrued $812,012. Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development Brian K. Lee made $874,077.

Former Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria, who concluded his term in 2020, and Harvard Medical School Dean George Q. Daley were again the University’s highest-earning deans, following recent trends. Nohria made $918,972 while Daley earned $892,218 in calendar year 2019.

The University’s four highest-compensated faculty members — Robert L. Simons, David E. Bell, Richard S. Ruback, and Francesca Gino — all teach at Harvard Business School, as was the case for the past few years. Simons, the highest paid, earned just more than $2 million in total compensation.

The fifth highest-earning faculty member — Computer Science professor David J. Malan ’99 — teaches the popular introductory course Computer Science 50: “Introduction to Computer Science I.”

Employees of Harvard Management Company, which oversees management of the University’s $41.9 billion endowment, significantly out-earned University administrators and professors. HMC Chief Executive Officer N.P. “Narv” Narvekar received a $6.25 million compensation for fiscal year 2019, according to HMC’s 990 tax filings, which were also released this month.

Narvekar’s compensation marks a slight decline from his 2018 earnings of $7.2 million.

Narvekar’s 2019 compensation came in the middle of his five-year plan to drastically restructure the company and its investment strategy, which saw widespread layoffs and the “spin out” of the endowment’s in-house natural resource and property investment teams. HMC completed the plan in January 2021, more than a year ahead of schedule.

HMC’s other highest compensated employees in 2019 included Chief Operating Officer Sanjeev Daga at $4.95 million and Chief Investment Officer Richard W. Slocum at just over $5 million for performance year compensation.

While Daga is listed with $6.26 million in total compensation on the 990 form, the additional $1.3 million reported are payments made by HMC to reimburse compensation forfeited by Daga upon his departure from Columbia University’s Investment Management Company in 2018.

The tax filings do not reflect the financial burdens imposed by the ongoing pandemic, as they are only representative of the University’s finances through fiscal year 2019.

Recently, the Harvard Corporation decided to draw further from the endowment in fiscal year 2022 due to strong market returns over the past year.

—Staff writer Virginia L. Ma can be reached at virginia.ma@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Kevin A. Simauchi can be reached at kevin.simauchi@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @Simauchi.