Chief Executive Officers: India
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
10 India-born CEOs of global technology giants
The Times of India, August 15, 2016
10 Indian-origin CEOs 'ruling' the technology industry
Indians have played a key role in the success of technology powerhouses globally.
From Google to Microsoft, Cognizant to NetApp -- Indians run some of the world's biggest and best companies.
Photocopying major Xerox has named Infosys veteran and former iGate CEO Ashok Vemuri as CEO of its back-office outsourcing company.
Vemuri's elevation is another milestone for Indian-origin CEOs, of whom at least half a dozen are in Fortune 500 companies.
Sundar Pichai, Google
India-born Sundar Pichai was named as Google CEO on August 10, 2015.
The 44-year-old head of Google was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and pursued education at IIT Kharagpur (B Tech), Stanford (MS) and Wharton (MBA); at Wharton, he was named a Siebel Scholar and Palmer Scholar.
He is responsible for the launch of the dominant Chrome web browser, and was previously the product head for Android, Chrome, Maps, and other popular Google products.
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe
Born in Hyderabad, Shantanu Narayen joined Adobe in 1998 as the senior vice president of worldwide product research and became the COO in 2005 and CEO in 2007.
He holds a Bachelor in Science from Osmania University, an MBA from University of California, Berkley, and an MS from Bowling Green State University.
Narayen held product development roles at Apple and Silicon Graphics before co-founding photo-sharing startup Pictra. A chance encounter between Adobe and Pictra led to Narayen joining Adobe, where rose swiftly through the product ranks.
He was named among the world's best CEOs by Barron's MAgazine in 2016.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft
After a 22-year stint with Microsoft, Nadella was appointed as the chief executive officer of the company in February 2014.
He previously held the position of executive vice president of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise group.
The Hyderabad-born 47-year-old has a BE from Manipal Institute of Technology, MS from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Sanjay Mehrotra, Sandisk
Sanjay Mehrotra co-founded flash memory storage company SanDisk in 1988 and has been its CEO since January 2011.
He pursued bachelors and masters degrees at University of California, Berkley, and also went to Stanford for executive programme. Mehrotra holds several patents to his name.
Sanjay Jha, Global Foundries
Sanjay Jha took over as CEO of Global Foundries, a semiconductor foundry that produces chips for giants like AMD, Broadcom, Qualcomm, and STMicroelectronics, in January 2014; before that he has served as the CEO of Motorola Mobility and COO of Qualcomm.
He joined Motorola as co-CEO in 2008, while serving simultaneously as CEO of Motorola's Mobile Devices Business.
Prior to Motorola, Sanjay held multiple senior engineering and executive positions during his 14 years with Qualcomm, ultimately serving as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Qualcomm Inc. from 2006 to 2008.
Jha was born in Bhagalpur, Bihar and holds a BS from University of Liverpool and PhD from University of Strathclyde.
Rajeev Suri, Nokia
Rajeev Suri joined Nokia in 1995 and held various positions before being appointed as president and CEO in April 2014.
Suri's ascedancy to Nokia CEO's position came after Microsoft acquired Nokia's mobile phone business. Previously, he was the head of the company's global services.
Like Satya Nadella, Suri also holds a B-Tech from Manipal Institute of Technology, but holds no post graduate degrees.
George Kurian, NetApp
George Kurian became the CEO and president of storage and data management company NetApp in June 2015, after serving as its executive vice president of product operations for nearly two years. Prior to joining NetApp, George was vice president and general manager of the Application Networking and Switching Technology Group at Cisco Systems.
His diverse background also includes the role of vice president at Akamai Technologies, management consulting at McKinsey & Company, and leading Software Engineering and Product Management teams at Oracle Corporation.
Born in Kottayam district, Kerala, he pursued engineering at IIT-Madras, but left six months later to join Princeton University; he also holds an MBA degree from Stanford.
Francisco D’Souza, Cognizant
Among the youngest CEOs in the software services sector, D'Souza is Cognizant's CEO and a member of the company's board of directors.
D'Souza joined Cognizant as a co-founder in 1994 and went on to become its CEO in the year 2007. During his tenure as CEO, Cognizant's employee base has grown from 55,000 to over 230,000.
The son of an Indian diplomat, D'Souza was born in Kenya. He holds a BBA from University of East Asia, Macau and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh; D'Souza also serves on the board of General Electric as an independent director.
Dinesh Paliwal, Harman
Dinesh Paliwal is the president and CEO of Harman International, a premium audio gear brand that owns the likes of JBL, Becker, dbx, among others.
Born in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, Paliwal holds a BE from IIT Roorkee, and MS and MBA from Miami University.
Prior to joining Harman, he spent 22 years with ABB Group, where he last held the dual role of President of ABB Group with responsibility for the company's global P&L, and Chairman/CEO - ABB North America.
He serves on the board of Bristol-Myers Squibb, and previously served as the economic advisor to the governor of China's Guangdong province for three years.
Ashok Vemuri, Xerox Business Services LLC
Xerox, the 110-year-old document technology company that over the years has come to symbolize everything associated with photocopying, named former iGate CEO Ashok Vemuri as the new CEO of its back-office outsourcing company.
Earlier this year, Xerox said that it would split into two separate companies -- one would focus on document technology, which would include Xerox's traditional printer and copier businesses, while the second company would focus on back-office outsourcing, payment processing and other technology-related services.
A former Infosys veteran, Vemuri became CEO of Xerox's business process outsourcing company after the separation of the company's two entities.
CEO salaries
2012-2015: CEO salaries, a rise
The Times of India, Jun 06 2016
Namrata Singh & Shubham Mukherjee
Aurobindo gets best value from payout to CEO in 3 yrs
CEO salaries have seen a spike as the occupant of the corner office operates in a challenging VUCA world--volatility , uncertainty , complexity and ambiguity. With CEOs taking home large payouts, there has been a greater scrutiny over hisher performance. The scrutiny has moved from a simplistic calculation of the return on CEO pay over profits to a holistic view covering other key financial parameters. So, which Indian company got the best value for its payout to a CEO?
Aurobindo Pharma extracted the best value from the payout to its CEO, followed by Britannia Industries and Bharat Forge over a three-year period--2012-13 to 2014-15.
In a study commissioned by TOI to global staffing company Randstad, Aurobindo Pharma got an overall score of 386600 based on six parameters. The company paid its CEO, M Govindarajan, an average annual compensation of Rs 9.5 crore, which is above the average CEO salary during the period.
The results for the study , `CEO Compensation & Company Performance', were based on six parameters -returns on compensation (profitCEO pay), change in revenue, operating margin, profit after tax, market capitalization and debt. For the study , the financial performance of BSE100 companies was analysed for the three-year period based on their annual reports. Idea Cellular , Bharat Petroleum, Axis Bank, HCL Technologies, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and Lupin were the next on the top10 list which were able to maximize gains from CEO payouts. Randstad India MD & CEO Moorthy K Uppaluri said the current CEO compensation structure is set to undergo a paradigm shift with higher emphasis on performance-based pay and stock awards. “CEOs are increasingly accepting such results-driven compensation structures which are outcome based and linked to the company's success. The average CEO salary was Rs 7.6 crore in FY 2015, a17% increase over the previous year's average,“ said Uppaluri.
Britannia Industries, which came second with an overall score of 303, paid an average salary of around Rs 4.3 crore to CEO Varun Berry . Bharat Forge, third on the list with a score of 297, shelled out around Rs 13.2 crore as salary to its CMD B N Kalyani, while Aditya Birla Group company Idea Cellular , which ranked fourth, gave MD Himanshu Kapania around Rs 6.6 crore.
When contacted, Aurobindo Pharma declined to comment. Santrupt Misra, CEO, carbon black business & director , group HR, Aditya Birla Management Corporation, saidthe group does not judge leaders only in terms of financial performance but rather with a more comprehensive set of metrics that include qualitative aspects as well such as leadership and talent development, a strong customer and supplier connect and creating value for stakeholders.
For FY13-FY15, CEO compensation grew by 25%, while revenues increased by 14.6%, ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation & amortization) margins were flat at 0.3% growth and PAT was up by 12%. Marketcap for the companies grew by 42% while long-term debt on their books increased by16%.
Promoter-owned and run companies had on an average the highest CEO compensation, the study revealed. The average salary paid out to CEOs, for the period, was Rs 6.5 crore. PSUs offered the best return on CEO compensation given the low base of salaries.Nine out of the top 10 companies that offered the best PAT compensation multiple were PSUs. SBI, Coal India and ONGC were the top 3 companies on that parameter.
Harsh Goenka, chairman RPG Enterprises, says “how much is too much“ is currently engaging boards of many Indian companies. “Salaries of CEOs have increased exponentially but so has the complexity . A CEO today is not only a leader , but also astrategist, a tactician, a coach, a troubleshooter , a mediator , an innovator and much more. It is impossible to relate CEO salary with just PAT or one particular matrix, but a combination of them,“ he said.
However , one top CEO, who did not wish to be identified, said CEO pay is out of whack and more due diligence is required while fixing compensation.
2014-15: CEO-median employee salary ratio
The Times of India, Jul 06 2015
Mukesh's pay 205-times RIL's median
Ratio Stands At 439 For ITC's Deveshwar, 89 For Wipro's Premji
Billionaire industrialist and India's richest man Mukesh Ambani has not taken a pay hike for seven years, but his salary is over 205-times that of the median employee remuneration at Reliance Industries (RIL). However, this ratio stands much higher at 439 times in case of ITC executive chairman Y C Deveshwar.
The same ratio stands much lower at 89-times in case of IT major Wipro's chairman and managing director Azim Premji, and just at 19-times for mortgage giant HDFC's chair a man Deepak Parekh for the latest fiscal 2014-15.
However, HDFC Bank's t MD Aditya Puri got a remuner p ation that was 117-times the t median employee pay at the bank, while for ICICI Bank 2 CEO Chanda Kochhar, it was 97 c times and at over 74 times for Axis Bank's managing director and CEO Shikha Sharma.
For IT giant Infosys' CEO Vishal Sikka, his pay was 116 times of the median employee pay at the company . The same ratio for HUL's CEO Sanjiv Mehta was 93 times, but much higher at 293 times for Vedanta Limited's chairman Navin Agarwal.
Listed companies have be gun disclosing these ratios, as also other comparisons such as salary hikes for the top management personnel and an average staff, for the first time pursuant to the new Companies Act and Sebi's latest Corporate Governance Code coming into force.
While a majority of the companies are still in the proc ess of disclosing these details, the disclosures made so far by the top companies show a wide variance in these ratios, while there is also a huge difference between the pay hike figures for the top management per sonnel and an average staff member in many cases.
However, there are a few cases where the increase in the median employee remunera tion is almost equal or even higher than the same for the CEOs and other key manage ment personnel.
In case of RIL, chairman and MD Mukesh Ambani has kept his salary capped at Rs 15 crore for seven years now, while the median remuneration of em ployees increased by 3.7% to Rs 7.29 lakh during 2014-15. The to tal remuneration of key mana gerial personnel, in fact, dipped by 1.9% to Rs 73.28 crore.
2014
Dec 26 2014
India Inc has 96 executives in the million-dollar pay club, a study of top salaries for 2013-14 commissioned by TOI has revealed. The number of professional CEOs in the club has increased from 34 during 2012-13 to 39, finds the study by global executive search firm EMA Partners. In case of promoter CEOs, the number went up marginally from 56 to 57. The study took into account executive compensation in excess of Rs 6 crore per annum for the top 200 listed companies and excluded stock options. Here are the highlights...
2016: CEO pay falls 15%, after years
The Times of India, May 28, 2016
A mere $19.3 million. That's how much compensation Wells Fargo's chief executive, John G Stumpf, was awarded last year, making him perfectly representative of the best-paid CEOs in the country.
Among the 200 highest-paid chief executives at American companies with annual revenue of at least $1 billion that filed proxies by April 30, the average pay was, give or take a few thousand dollars, equivalent to Stumpf's own: a cool $19.3 million.
Yet by the topsy-turvy standards of corporate pay, what's remarkable is not how big that number is, but how small. After years of steady increases, the average compensation among the top executives in 2015 was down 15% from the 2014 figure of $22.6 million, according to the Equilar 200 Highest-Paid CEO Rankings, conducted for The New York Times. By other measures, too, CEO compensation declined. Cash and stock awards, the main components of pay packages, fell last year. Among the companies in the rankings, the biggest pay package, worth $94.6 million, went to Dara Khosrowshahi of Expedia. That meant that for the first time since 2012 no company awarded its chief more than $100 million.
All of which raises a tantalizing prospect: Has executive pay finally peaked? Have the CEOs and the compensation committees that set their pay discovered something approaching modesty? Some experts say that is the case. "We're hearing a great deal more concern from compensation committee chairs about absolute pay," said Kenneth Daly, CEO of the National Association of Corporate Directors, a trade group for board members. What is certain is that last year's weak stock market pulled down the value of executive pay packages. After posting fairly consistent gains for years, the S&P 500-stock index and the Dow Jones industrial average each fell slightly in 2015. Because the average compensation package was 69% stock, lower share prices meant less pay for CEOs. But the relation between pay and performance remains tenuous at best. Several CEOs reaped huge windfalls, even while presiding over precipitous declines in total shareholder return. Take Philippe Dauman, chief of the media conglomerate Viacom. Dauman was awarded $54.1 million last year, a 22% raise from 2014. Over the year, Viacom shares plunged 43%.
Average 2016 salary Rs 20 cr, double of 2014
The Times of India, Aug 08 2016
Avg CEO pay at blue chips up 100% in 2 years
In a sharp jump, the average CEO salary at top listed companies in the private sector is approaching Rs 20 crore -double the level seen just two years ago at about Rs 10 crore. However, this remains less than one-sixth of the average CEO salaries at top listed companies in the US, which stood at close to $20 million (about Rs 130 crore) in 2015 despite a decline from 2014. In India, the average CEO salary at top private companies, on the other hand, is way above the Rs 25-30 lakh average that their public sector counterparts get.
An analysis of the CEO salaries for the financial year 2015-16 disclosed by the country's top listed companies, forming part of the stock market benchmark index sensex, shows that they paid an average overall remuneration of close to Rs 19 crore to their top executives.
This includes salary , commissions, allowances, value of all perquisites and Esops exercised during the year, among other benefits disclosed by the companies as part of the total remuneration to their top-paid executives which included executive chairpersons, CEOs or managing directors.
The analysis is based on the disclosures made by 20 out of the total 24 private sector companies on the sensex, as the remaining four are yet to disclose their figures. Among the six PSUs on the sen sex, the figure for 2015 16 is available only in case of SBI, whose chairperson Arund hati Bhattacharya got about Rs 31 lakh.
Those at the lower end in terms of overall remuneration were mostly bankers and in cluded Axis Bank's Shikha Sharma (Rs 5.5 crore), ICICI Bank's Chanda Kochhar (Rs 6.6 crore) and HDFC Bank's Aditya Puri (Rs 9.7 crore). At HDFC, chairman Deepak Pa chairman Deepak Parekh was paid Rs 1.89 crore, while vice-chairman and CEO Keki Mistry got Rs 9.3 crore and MD Renu Sud Karnad got Rs 8.5 crore.The latest figures were not available for four companies -Sun Pharma, Maruti, Hero MotoCorp and Cipla.
2nd highest ratio to national per capita income
A new measure puts Indian CEOs ahead of Americans, Nov 26 2016 : BLOOMBERG
If your life's goal is to be a highly paid chief execu tive officer, the US is the place. But if your dream is just to be richer than society , South Africa and India are great bets too.
In either case, probably best to avoid Thailand, Poland and China.
A Bloomberg ranking of CEO compensation at companies filling benchmark indexes in 25 of the world's largest economies shows the biggest paychecks -by far -are written in the US. Heads of S&P 500 businesses get pay packages averaging $16.9 million, about 2.6 times more than what their counterparts reap abroad. In second-place Switzerland, CEOs get 1.6 times the average.
In China, pay is 90% below the average -at least based on disclosures by companies in the Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index.They typically report annual compensation of about $640,000. But heads of stateowned companies, for example, enjoy valuable perks including housing and entertainment that sometimes go unmentioned in filings.
The deck gets shuffled a bit when CEO pay is compared to estimated income generated per person -a rough gauge of what chiefs get relative to the society where their companies are listed. That puts pay for CEOs in South Africa and India ahead of the US. There are myriad reasons behind the international disparities in packages.
One of most important is size. The US is home to many of the world's largest publicly traded corporations.
Cost of living explains some of it, too. It's much more expensive to live lavishly in North America and Western Europe than in places like Thailand, where CEOs take home roughly $60,000 -less than in every other nation ranked. In other cases, it's cultural. In Japan, big paychecks are typically taboobecause they're considered a sign of greed. And taxes and regulations matter.
In the US, businesses will at least be required to disclose more, comparing a CEO's pay with the median worker's starting in 2017.President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to issue a temporary moratorium on new regulations that aren't “compelled by Congress or public safety.“ Such comparisons aren't simple. Bloomberg's ranking of CEO pay against earnings across society bases income generated per person on gross domestic product per capita, adjusted for purchase-price parity . It's not a perfect measure: GDP measures just the value of goods and services produced, not how they were distributed.
The figures show that CEOs in South Africa and India take home more than the estimated income generated by an average worker -outearning their American colleagues on a relative basis.
Each country's compensation figure is based on the average CEO pay package for companies in one major stock index, weighted by market capitalization. The pay, disclosed in public filings, includes any salary , bonuses, value of perquisites and non-cash pay such as equity awards, deferred-compensation programs and pensions.
2016: 3PIOs among top 100;2 in top 10
Sources: The Times of India
1. The Times of India, Apr 29 2016
2. The Times of India, May 28, 2016
2 Indians among 10 highest paid CEOs
As many as three Indian origin persons have been named among the 100 highest-paid CEOs globally with PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi and LyondellBasell's Bhavesh V Patel making it to the top ten list compiled by Equilar.
Chemicals company LyondellBasell Industries' top executive Patel was ranked sixth on the list with a total compensation of $24.5 million, while Nooyi, the chief executive of PepsiCo, was ranked eighth on the list with a total pay of $22.2 million. Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, was ranked 26th on the list of 100 highestpaid CEOs with a total compensation of $18.3 million.
A mere $19.3 million. That's how much compensation Wells Fargo's chief executive, John G Stumpf, was awarded last year, making him perfectly representative of the best-paid CEOs in the country.
Among the 200 highest-paid chief executives at American companies with annual revenue of at least $1 billion that filed proxies by April 30, the average pay was, give or take a few thousand dollars, equivalent to Stumpf's own: a cool $19.3 million.
Yet by the topsy-turvy standards of corporate pay, what's remarkable is not how big that number is, but how small.
After years of steady increases, the average compensation among the top executives in 2015 was down 15% from the 2014 figure of $22.6 million, according to the Equilar 200 Highest-Paid CEO Rankings, conducted for The New York Times. By other measures, too, CEO compensation declined. Cash and stock awards, the main components of pay packages, fell last year. Among the companies in the rankings, the biggest pay package, worth $94.6 million, went to Dara Khosrowshahi of Expedia. That meant that for the first time since 2012 no company awarded its chief more than $100 million.
All of which raises a tantalizing prospect: Has executive pay finally peaked? Have the CEOs and the compensation committees that set their pay discovered something approaching modesty?
Some experts say that is the case. "We're hearing a great deal more concern from compensation committee chairs about absolute pay," said Kenneth Daly, CEO of the National Association of Corporate Directors, a trade group for board members. What is certain is that last year's weak stock market pulled down the value of executive pay packages. After posting fairly consistent gains for years, the S&P 500-stock index and the Dow Jones industrial average each fell slightly in 2015. Because the average compensation package was 69% stock, lower share prices meant less pay for CEOs.
But the relation between pay and performance remains tenuous at best. Several CEOs reaped huge windfalls, even while presiding over precipitous declines in total shareholder return. Take Philippe Dauman, chief of the media conglomerate Viacom. Dauman was awarded $54.1 million last year, a 22% raise from 2014. Over the year, Viacom shares plunged 43%.
Extensions after age 70
Jul 08 2015
Reeba Zachariah & Boby Kurian
Super rich don't want to retire
Wipro's Premji, Lupin's Gupta Among 234 Seeking Extension As New Cos Act Caps Age Of Those In Executive Role At 70
About half a dozen billionaires are among the 234 business leaders who are seeking extension of the retirement age, which has been fixed at 70 years under the revamped Companies Act for those serving in a listed company in an executive role. Wipro boss Azim Premji, who turns 70 on July 24, is seeking a two-year extension as executive chairman and managing director at the company's annual general meeting slated for July 22. With a net worth estimated at over $16 billion, Premji, India's third richest man, emerges the most influential India Inc name seeking continuation of employment under a more stringent Act.
Pharma major Lupin's Desh Bandhu Gupta, with a net worth of $6.4 billion, is another billionaire seeking extension as executive chairman for five years through a special resolution at the company's July 23 AGM. “The new Act requires a proper justification and a special resolution with 75% voting in favour to continue with executive powers beyond 70. An age limit was deemed fit since significant public capital is parked with the country's largely promoter-driven companies,“ said Sai Venkateshwaran, partner and head of accounting advisory services at KPMG. This applies to those with executive functions and not independent directors.
Premji's desire to not hang up his boots is putting the spotlight on the so-called `Club of 70s', which includes the likes of Adi Godrej, KP Singh (of DLF), who have all got extensions under the previous Act to continue to lead their companies.
Wockhardt's Habil Khoraki wala, with a promoter stake worth $2 billion, also sought a similar continuation earlier this year. Adi Godrej continues to steer his family's interest, estimated at $4.8 billion, in Godrej Consumer Products as does K P Singh with a $2.5-billion stake in DLF . Kirpal Singh, 89, who heads Dolphin Offshore Enterprises as chairman, is the oldest executive head currently . Other veterans include P R S Oberoi (86) of EIH and C Prathap Reddy (83) of Apollo Hospitals Enterprises.
Most of them control a signif icant block of shares, giving them enough comfort to seek extensions even under the stringent, new rules. Premji and DLF's Singh control around 74% shares each in their companies, while Godrej has 63% and Lupin's Gupta 46%. L&T Group executive chairman A M Naik, probably the mostinfluential professional executive head past his retirement age, sought continuation under the old rules and has two more years at the helm unless he seeks another extension.
Wipro's special resolution recalls how Premji, who joined the business in the 1960s, turned a $2-million business into a $7.5-billion entity and India's third largest software exporter.While Premji's extension is set to sail through in the upcoming shareholder meeting, there have been minority investor rebellions against older executive heads in some of the lesserknown listed companies.
Some minority shareholders of Ultramarine & Pigments have written to the company that its executive chairman R Sampath, who is past 70, should step down. But the company said it has robust legal advice stating no requirement for a fresh ratification until Sampath's current tenure under the old Act ends.
