Visa Inc. is poised to be the largest initial public offering on record and many investors are set to make a lot of money. One of them is Chief Executive Joseph Saunders, who was named to the top spot last year. The executive will be set to receive the option to buy 831,444 Visa shares at the offering price, which is valued at around $11 million based on the expected increase of Visa shares over time.

Saunders will also recieve a grant of 12,025 shares worth around $475,000 and an $11.2 million salary and bonus for little more than ten months of work. Compensation experts insist that these numbers are far above average, but then again Visa has performed extremely well over the past couple of years. Others point to the fact that Saunders didn't receive equity awards last year while its peers grant equity on a regular basis- this may justify such a large award.

The past 10 months may have been short, but Saunders has also put a lot of work into laying the groundwork for a public offering. Meanwhile, he has also done well supervising the company's reorganization. Finally, it is worth noting that the MasterCard CEO received $10 million when his company IPO'd and that is a much smaller organiation. Combined, these factors suggest that the Visa CEO may not have been overcompensated at all.