Satya Nadella
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
A profile
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: 10 interesting facts
1. Satya Nadella was born on August 19, 1967 in Hyderabad. His father BN Yugandhar is a former IAS officer who has held positions such as the Prime Minister’s special secretary and was a member of the planning commission as well.
2. Satya Nadella completed his schooling from Hyderabad Public School and went on to study electronics and communication engineering at Manipal University. After graduating in 1988, he moved to the US to pursue his masters in computer science from University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He also holds an MBA from University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.
3. Nadella joined Microsoft in the year 1992. During his long tenure with the company, he also held a key responsibility at the company's Bing division. And although Bing has never been Microsoft's crown jewel, Nadella helped it grow.
4. He also played a crucial role in bringing some of Microsoft's most popular technologies like database and Windows server and developer tools, to the cloud in the form of Azure.
5. Nadella also helped Microsoft bring out the enterprise focused cloud version of Microsoft Office, namely Office 365. Microsoft says Office 365 is one of its fastest-growing products ever.
Before joining Microsoft, Satya Nadella worked at Sun Microsystems (now owned by Oracle Corporation).
6. Satya Nadella married his schoolmate Anupama in 1992, the same year he joined Microsoft. The two have three children – a son and two daughters – and live in Bellevue, Washington.
7. Like most Indians, Nadella is a big fan of cricket. In fact, he was a part of his school’s cricket team. In an interview with Hyderabad's Deccan Chronicle, he said that playing cricket taught him about team work and leadership. His favourite form of the game is test cricket and he likens it to a Russian novel, because there are so many sub-plots in it.
8. Satya Nadella enjoys poetry. His profile on Microsoft's official website lists reading poetry as one of his hobbies.
9. According to Equilar '200 highest-paid CEO rankings,' Satya Nadella is the highest paid tech CEO in the US. The Microsoft CEO ranks at No. 4 on the overall list with a yearly compensation of $84,308,755. This includes a base salary of $918,917, along with $3,600,000 in cash bonus and $12,729 in perks.
10. After being named CEO, Satya Nadella got Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as his mentor. The other significant announcement that Microsoft made, other than naming Nadella as CEO, was regarding the resignation of Bill Gates as Microsoft's chairman.
Compensation
2019/Why Nadella's earns 249 times more than median employee
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella earned $42.9 million in total pay during the company's fiscal year 2019. This is 249 times more than that of the median employee at the company and up by almost 65% from the year before.
And going by what Microsoft chairman John Thompson has to say, it's worth every penny. According to a report in Business Insider Prime, at the recent shareholders meeting an investor asked the board to justify Nadella's compensation package.
Thompson replied by pointing at the stellar performance of the company's stock under India-born CEO. He also reportedly mentioned the cultural and strategic changes that Nadella is said to have spearheaded at the software giant.
"The notion we are going to have a cultural expansion or change in this company would not have happen if it were not for Satya, quite frankly," Thompson reportedly told the investor. "Strong execution of his vision around an intelligent cloud has clearly been the driver of growth for this company," he added as per the report.
The median employee salary at Microsoft stood at $172,512 during the same period.
Talking about the reorganisations and partnerships formed under Nadella, Thompson said, "While many people think we are of significant revenue scale and operating margins and what have you, the reality is we are." "We are, in large part, because Satya and the team have driven that performance over the last five or six years," he went on to add.
In a proxy statement announcing his pay package, earlier this year, Microsoft said that increase in salary is due to simple raise which the company credits to his performance as CEO since taking over in 2014. A large chunk of this pay package comes from the partial vesting of performance-based stock option award he received when he took over the top job at Microsoft.
"During the first five-year performance period, Microsoft’s market capitalization increased $509 billion (from $302 billion to $811 billion), and Microsoft’s relative TSR was in the 97th percentile, resulting in Mr. Nadella earning and vesting in the maximum 900,000 shares," said the company in the proxy statement.
Indian politics and Nadella
2020: India’s citizenship issue
January 15, 2020: The Times of India
NEW DELHI: BJP criticised Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella for his comment on the fallout of changes in the citizenship law, but warmed up to the tech czar after he issued a detailed statement where he acknowledged a country’s right to define its borders, ensure national security and determine its immigration policy.
After a comment of Nadella, attributed to him by US digital media platform Buzzfeed, which was seen as critical of the new changes in India’s citizenship law, generated excitement, the Microsoft CEO issued a detailed statement.
“Every country will and should define its borders, protect national security and set immigration policy accordingly. And in democracies, that is something that the people and their governments will debate and define within those bounds. I’m shaped by my Indian heritage, growing up in a multicultural India and my immigrant experience in the US. My hope is for an India where an immigrant can aspire to found a prosperous start-up or lead a multinational corporation benefitting Indian society and the economy at large,” Nadella said in a statement issued by Microsoft India.
Asked about the controversy over the Microsoft chief’s remarks, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra pointed to the latter’s second statement and said it marked an endorsement of what the government has sought to achieve through the new citizenship law. “That is what the government of this country has done. We are looking after national security and protecting borders. As far as immigrants are concerned, there is a process for citizenship. Anybody can apply for citizenship. Even the PM has said so. Once they apply for work permit, for citizenship, many have become citizens. Of course, anybody can then do whatever the Constitution has bestowed on them (sic).”
To a question on CAA, Nadella was quoted by Buzzfeed as saying, “I think what is happening in India is sad...just bad...I would love to see a Bangladeshi immigrant who comes to India and creates the next Unicorn in India or becomes the next CEO of Infosys.”
