The 17 richest people in advertising, ranked by income

Global ad spend in 2014 rose 3.9% to $513 billion, according to GroupM - and ad agency bosses saw their compensation soar last year too.

Like previous years, our ranking of the richest people in advertising is predominantly made up of white men.

One of them is even subject to an SEC investigation into his income.

There's just one woman on the list.

Methodology: Our ranking looked at SEC filings, taking account of total annual 2014 compensation, including salary, stock awards, option awards, and other incentives. That's an obvious flaw because a lot of people on this list hold a lot of their net worth in stock they have accumulated over previous years, and through other assets and investments.

This list is by no means extensive: We chose to look at public companies only. We also only looked at pure-play advertising agencies: Otherwise advertising execs at tech companies like Google and Facebook, or brand marketers would surely make the list too. Our rankings also begin with those who earn $2 million and above (there are plenty of execs in advertising who earn over $1 million.)