While the recent catastrophic events in the U.S. financial markets will most certainly dramatically affect CEO compensation reported in 2009, The Conference Board Top Executive Compensation report shows that changes are already underway.

Compensation mix is reallocated towards stock. Almost all industries show a reallocation of compensation towards stock and away from total cash compensation and stock options. In financial services (non-banks), for example, the average percent of total compensation delivered in non-equity incentives fell by 2.62 percentage points (from 24.19 to 21.57).

Cash may be losing share-but the median CEO still earns more of it. Median cash compensation increased in more than two thirds of the industries studied (as did total compensation overall). The largest median gainer in cash compensation is insurance (up by 34.39 percent to $1,227,371). The only notable negative is construction, an outlier showing a 22.36 percent decrease.

Food and tobacco executives are the top earners. Among the 22 industries represented, food and tobacco shows the highest median CEO total compensation. It tops the list with $6.34 million in median total compensation, and $2.7 million in median total cash compensation, followed by utilities, insurance, and financial services (non-banks).

CEOs already have plenty of "skin in the game." Of the largest 10 percent of companies in the sample, the median CEO holds almost 100 times (99.97 percent) of his/her salary in total stock and stock options holdings in the company. Across industry, the largest median multiple (94.44) is seen in the financial services industry (non-banks), the smallest is commercial banks (23.31).

"Companies must assume their top executives' compensation will come under greater scrutiny from within and without," says Linda Barrington, Research Director, The Conference Board. "The financial market crisis and U.S. recession have contributed to eroding public trust in business leadership."

Certainly, from a macro-perspective, median CEO compensation should fall during a recession if such compensation is based on U.S. revenue performance. Since the current recession did not start until December 2007, it won't be until next year's proxy data that this hypothesis can be best tested. "Whether or not this year's upward trend in cash compensation continues will bear watching in 2009 when the data reflecting a year of economic downturn are available," adds Kevin Hallock, co-author of the report and Professor, IRL School, Cornell University.

Using data reported from firm proxies as of June 2008, The Conference Board 2008 Top Executive Compensation Report provides extensive analysis of median compensation by industry, revenue, and compensation type, for CEOs and companies' five highest-paid executives.