Quicksplained: How much do top CEOs of Indian IT companies earn?

The list of CEOs with the highest salaries this year is still dominated by the IT industry.

This is true even though the sector has faced headwinds during the last two years.

Thanks mostly to a one-time stock incentive, Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar Singisetti made $22.56 million (about Rs 186 crore) in remuneration last year, making him the highest-paid Indian executive in the IT sector, according to Mint.

For the uninitiated, an Indian CEO's average remuneration was Rs 13.8 crore, 40 per cent more than it was before COVID-19.

More than half of this compensation is based on both short- and long-term incentives, according to the Deloitte India Executive Performance and Rewards Survey 2024.

Let’s take a closer look.

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Who are the highest-paid CEOs in the IT industry?

• According to Mint, which cited a business filing dated 12 April, Cognizant’s 52-year-old leader, Ravi Kumar Singisetti, received shares valued at $20.25 million (about Rs 169.1 crore) last year. His pay is 556 times greater than the median income of Cognizant workers.

• In the Indian IT services sector, Singisetti has the highest CEO compensation in terms of revenue. His salary makes up 0.11 per cent of Cognizant’s $19.35 billion in revenue from the previous year.

• Thierry Delaporte, the former CEO of Wipro Ltd ., was paid $10.1 million (Rs 83 crore), or 0.089 per cent of the $11.16 billion in revenue generated by the company. His pay was 916 times higher than the median amount paid to Wipro workers.

• According to the report, C Vijayakumar’s guaranteed compensation of $10.65 million (Rs 88 crore) is equivalent to 0.085 percent of HCL Technologies Ltd’s $12.58 billion in revenue.

• Accenture Plc paid CEO Julie Sweet $31.55 million in compensation, or 0.049 per cent of the $64.1 billion in revenue generated by the business. Sweet received pay from Accenture 633 times.

• Salil Parekh, the managing director and CEO of Infosys, is paid $6.8 million (about Rs 56.4 crore), or 0.037 per cent of the company’s $18.1 billion in revenue. Parekh of Infosys was paid 627 times the median salary, as per Mint report.

• Before K Krithivasan took over as CEO in June of last year, Tata Consultancy Services paid out $3.5 million (Rs 29.16 crore) to its outgoing CEO Rajesh Gopinathan. This amount represents 0.012 per cent of the company’s $27.9 billion in revenue.

• The salary of Vijayakumar and Rajesh Gopinathan was 253 times and 427 times higher than the median compensation at HCL Technologies and TCS, respectively.

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With inputs from agencies