Updated April 2026 · SEC DEF 14A data
Brian Cornell
Chief Executive Officer at Target · Retail
Brian Cornell serves as Chief Executive Officer of Target. Total compensation: $8.0M. CEO compensation at U.S. public companies is disclosed via the SEC DEF 14A proxy statement, including base salary, stock and option awards, performance-tied incentives, and "other compensation" that captures perquisites and post-employment benefits.
Compensation at this scale is typical of senior executives at mid-cap public companies, or non-CEO senior officers at larger firms. Equity awards tend to dominate cash compensation in the disclosure. The CEOPay executive page surfaces the per-year compensation history (where multi-year disclosure exists), the breakdown by award type, and the per-company context for the role. Cross-executive comparisons within a single company are most useful for understanding internal pay structure.
Brian Cornell, Chief Executive Officer at Target, earned $8.0M in reported total compensation in fiscal year 2026 and $32.0M in cumulative SEC-disclosed compensation across the 4 fiscal years on file. Pay was disclosed in the company's SEC DEF 14A proxy statement and is broken into salary, stock awards, option awards, non-equity incentive, pension change, and other compensation under the Summary Compensation Table required by Regulation S-K Item 402.
Total Compensation
Fiscal year 2026
Compensation Breakdown
Brian Cornell Net Worth: $32.0M in SEC-Disclosed Pay
Brian Cornell has earned $32.0M in cumulative total compensation across the 4 fiscal years of disclosure on file (2023–2026) as Chief Executive Officer at Target. That figure — the sum of every Summary Compensation Table entry the company has filed under SEC Regulation S-K Item 402 — is a defensible floor for an estimated net worth conversation: it is firmly in the eight-figure range; actual net worth is typically higher once vested-and-held stock appreciation and outside investments are included, and is sometimes lower if a meaningful share of pay was sold near grant to cover taxes. Brian Cornell's actual net worth is not directly disclosed in SEC filings; it would require reconciling this cumulative pay with current beneficial ownership, prior open-market stock sales (reported on Form 4), exercised options, taxes paid, and personal investments outside the company.
Beneficial ownership — the actual share count Brian Cornell controls — is disclosed separately in the same DEF 14A in the “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management” table, with insider transactions reported on SEC Form 4 within two business days of any open-market trade. To estimate Brian Cornell’s current net worth from public filings alone, combine cumulative disclosed compensation above with current Target share count × share price, subtract option exercises and stock sales already reported on Form 4, then adjust for taxes (typically 35–50% of vested equity value at grant) and any disclosed personal investments.
What Brian Cornell's Pay Tells Us
Brian Cornell earns $8.0M as Chief Executive Officer at Target. Compensation in this range reflects a structured mix of base salary, annual cash incentives, and time-vested or performance-vested equity, with the equity portion typically vesting over three to four years on the standard SEC-disclosed schedule.
Balanced equity-and-cash package: stock and option awards account for roughly 62% of total compensation, with base salary at 10% and the remainder in annual cash incentive, pension change, and other compensation. This mix is common in mid-cap public companies and in industries with more stable revenue trajectories.
Target's CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is 250:1 — broadly typical of large U.S. enterprise companies under the SEC Item 402(u) disclosure framework. Shareholders approved the most recent say-on-pay vote with 91.3% support — within the typical S&P 500 range.
Compensation History
| Year | Salary | Bonus | Stock Awards | Options | Non-Equity | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | $800K | - | $4.0M | $960K | $1.2M | $880K | $8.0M |
| 2025 | $800K | - | $4.0M | $960K | $1.2M | $880K | $8.0M |
| 2024 | $800K | - | $4.0M | $960K | $1.2M | $880K | $8.0M |
| 2023 | $800K | - | $4.0M | $960K | $1.2M | $880K | $8.0M |
Compensation has been broadly steady across the 4 fiscal years on file (2023–2026), with total comp clustered near $8.0M.
How These Numbers Are Reported
Every figure on this page comes from the SEC DEF 14A proxy statement that Target filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of its most recent annual shareholder meeting. The proxy is freely available on the SEC's EDGAR system. Inside it, the Summary Compensation Table reports salary, bonus, stock awards, option awards, non-equity incentive plan compensation, change in pension and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings, all other compensation, and total — for the chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and the three other most highly compensated executive officers (the "named executive officers" or NEOs).
Stock awards and option awards are reported at grant-date fair value under FASB ASC 718, which is an accounting estimate at the time of grant rather than realized pay. Realized pay — what the executive actually banked — appears in the separate "Option Exercises and Stock Vested" table inside the same DEF 14A. Both views matter: the grant-date number is what the board approved, the realized number is what actually flowed to the executive in a given year. Read the full methodology for inputs, weights, and how each line item is sourced.
Authoritative governance context: Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis publish the proxy-advisor frameworks most institutional shareholders use to evaluate pay alignment, and our Pay-for-Performance Grade follows the same four-factor approach.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Brian Cornell earn?
Brian Cornell earned $8.0M in total compensation as Chief Executive Officer at Target in fiscal year 2026, as disclosed in the company's most recent SEC DEF 14A proxy statement. Brian Cornell earns $8.0M as Chief Executive Officer at Target. Compensation in this range reflects a structured mix of base salary, annual cash incentives, and time-vested or performance-vested equity, with the equity portion typically vesting over three to four years on the standard SEC-disclosed schedule.
What is Brian Cornell's pay package made of?
Brian Cornell's reported total of $8.0M breaks into base salary of $800K, stock awards of $4.0M, option awards of $960K, plus non-equity incentive, pension change, and other compensation. Balanced equity-and-cash package: stock and option awards account for roughly 62% of total compensation, with base salary at 10% and the remainder in annual cash incentive, pension change, and other compensation. This mix is common in mid-cap public companies and in industries with more stable revenue trajectories.
What is Brian Cornell's net worth?
Brian Cornell has earned $32.0M in cumulative total compensation across the 4 fiscal years of disclosure on file (2023–2026) as Chief Executive Officer at Target. That figure — the sum of every Summary Compensation Table entry the company has filed under SEC Regulation S-K Item 402 — is a defensible floor for an estimated net worth conversation: it is firmly in the eight-figure range; actual net worth is typically higher once vested-and-held stock appreciation and outside investments are included, and is sometimes lower if a meaningful share of pay was sold near grant to cover taxes. Brian Cornell's actual net worth is not directly disclosed in SEC filings; it would require reconciling this cumulative pay with current beneficial ownership, prior open-market stock sales (reported on Form 4), exercised options, taxes paid, and personal investments outside the company.
Where does this compensation data come from?
Every figure on this page is sourced from the SEC DEF 14A proxy statement that Target filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of its most recent annual shareholder meeting. The Summary Compensation Table inside the filing is the authoritative document, available on the SEC EDGAR system at https://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml. Equity values follow FASB ASC 718 grant-date fair-value accounting; pension changes reflect the year-over-year actuarial revision required by Regulation S-K Item 402.
How has Brian Cornell's pay changed over time?
Compensation has been broadly steady across the 4 fiscal years on file (2023–2026), with total comp clustered near $8.0M.
What is Target's pay-for-performance picture?
Target's CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is 250:1 — broadly typical of large U.S. enterprise companies under the SEC Item 402(u) disclosure framework. Shareholders approved the most recent say-on-pay vote with 91.3% support — within the typical S&P 500 range. Target earns a Pay-for-Performance Grade of C (54/100) on the four-factor framework documented on the methodology page.
Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, DEF 14A proxy filings via EDGAR. Public domain.
Last updated 2026-04-06 · 4 fiscal years of compensation history on file.