Fiserv Loses Its $70 Million Man

Fiserv Headquarters. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

As Urban Milwaukee reported last week, Fiserv Inc. CEO Michael P. Lyons was the top-paid CEO and ranked 23rd nationally in 2025, with a total compensation package worth a whopping $70 million.

But as of today, Lyons is gone. The Milwaukee-based company announced that Lyons “has stepped down as CEO and member of the Board of Directors.”

“Takis Georgakopoulos has been appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and as a member of the Board of Directors, effective immediately,” the company stated. “Most recently, Mr. Georgakopoulos served as Fiserv’s Co-President leading Technology and Merchant Solutions and previously as Chief Operating Officer, Technology and Merchant Solutions.”

So why would Lyons leave a position with such a massive compensation package? As the Charlotte Observer reported, Lyons’ $70.3 million package included a base salary of $1.21 million, in addition to a bonus, other compensation and nearly $56 million in stock awards, according to Fiserv’s annual proxy statement filed in April.

Lyons was hired on Jan. 25, 2025, at a time when Fiserv’s stock price was about $209, up from $140 just a year earlier. As of today, the price had dropped to $49, which was a disaster for Fiserv and also meant that Lyons’ stock award was probably worthless. Had the stock continued to rise as it had during the previous 12 years, Lyons and the stockholders would have both gotten much richer.

Today’s terse announcement by Fiserv seemed to suggest that Lyons was in the wrong field, noting he left Fiserv “to return to banking and become CEO of Truist Financial Corporation.”

Lyons certainly landed on his feet, with a compensation package worth about $57 million, though some of it is spread over three years, including an annual base salary of $1.3 million, an annual incentive plan for short-term performance this year that equals $4.225 million, a long-term initial incentive package this year valued at $12 million, and, to “offset compensation forfeited from his previous employer Fiserv, Lyons will receive $2.7 million in cash and about $37.5 million in equity and stock awards, to be distributed across performance periods through 2028,” the Observer reported.

A story by Financial Advisor back in October on Fiserv’s “stock meltdown — one of the most stunning collapses in recent memory for the fintech world” may have occurred because of decisions made by Lyons’ predecessor as CEO, Frank Bisignano. Bisignano, who left the company to take a job in U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, was earning $23 million as Fiserv CEO. He denied being the cause of the company’s problems.

As for the newest Fiserv CEO, Georgakopoulos will receive a compensation package worth more than $28 million, as stock market analyst Guru Focus reported, including an annual base salary of $1.3 million, with a target annual cash incentive compensation opportunity of $2.6 million, an annual equity incentive compensation opportunity of $18.6 million and equity awards valued at $6 million.

Beyond the ins and outs of the Fiserv situation, the long-term corporate trend both nationally and in Wisconsin is a nearly half-century rise in CEO pay that shows no sign of relenting. The top 100 CEOs saw a 36% increase in average compensation in 2025, hiking their average pay to $39 million. When the top dog Elon Musk is getting $1.3 billion in annual compensation and the next two highest CEOs are getting more than $820 million apiece, the $70 million Michael Lyons was scheduled to earn looks like peanuts.