EXCLUSIVE Who is Gregory Goeckner? No one knows, but he makes $250,000 a year thanks to several steep salary increases as CEO of the Hollywood Foreign Press.
When Goecker first arrived at the HFPA in 2013 he received just $108,000. He’s had a 131% salary increase over five years. (The latest tax return is for 2014.)
I’ve talked to several HFPA members who have no idea what Goecker does. He’s not a journalist or movie reviewer. If he was supposed to guide the HFPA through their many legal machinations, he’s failed. Now when the Globes have been cancelled for 2022 by NBC and are in disarray, Goeckner’s name has not been heard.
But Goeckner isn’t the only one who benefits from the cascades of millions that come in from Dick Clark Productions and NBC, all tax free. In 2019, the Globes claimed salaries of $3.4 million for their own people, up from $2.9 million in 2018.
Back in 2014, the Globes then president Theo Kingma made around $58,000. In 2019, president Meher Tetna earned $135,957. That’s a huge increase. Lorenzo Soria, now deceased, was paid $75K in 2019. Zoya Malinskaya, billed as “Financial officer,” took home $114K.
A source from the HFPA says, “It’s just a matter of time before the IRS takes a long look at all of this.”
What’s amazing is that with $3.4 million distributed among a few people no one in this group has been able to step up, take control, resolve the pending issues of racism and inclusivity, and rectify the situation. Instead, they’ve let it get so out of hand that there may not be a way for the HFPA to survive.
