Infosys CEO pay rises to $7.9Mn in FY24
BENGALURU, INDIA — Infosys CEO and Managing Director Salil Parekh’s annual compensation surged by 17% to ₹66.25 crore (US$7.9 million) in the fiscal year 2023-24 (FY24), according to the company’s latest annual report.
This substantial increase makes Parekh the second-highest paid CEO in the Indian IT industry, trailing only behind Wipro’s former CEO Thierry Delaporte, who earned approximately ₹166 crore (US$19 million) in the same period.
Parekh’s compensation surges 17% amid stock payouts
Parekh’s FY24 remuneration package includes ₹39.03 (US$4.6 million) crore from the exercise of 2,58,636 Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) under the 2015 Plan and 32,447 RSUs under the 2019 Plan.
His compensation was 677 times the average salary of an Infosys employee, highlighting the significant disparity between executive and average employee pay.
The average annual increase in employee salaries was 9% in India, with the median remuneration of employees (MRE) rising to ₹9,77,868 (US$11,732) in FY24 from ₹9,00,012 (US$10,798) in FY23.
Historical context and future prospects
In FY22, Parekh’s compensation was ₹71.02 crore (US$8.5 million), which then fell by 21% to ₹56.44 crore (US$6.7 million) in FY23 due to fewer RSUs being exercised. The increase in FY24 marks a return to higher compensation levels, driven by the substantial exercise of stock units.
In his letter to shareholders, Parekh highlighted the company’s ongoing projects aimed at leveraging generative AI to benefit clients.
“These projects are in software engineering, process optimization, customer support, advisory services, as well as sales and marketing. They are helping our clients reduce cost, improve service quality, connect with their customers and drive growth,” he added.
Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani, who chose not to receive any remuneration for his services, mirrored Parekh’s AI views in his annual report message.
“The Gen AI revolution presents an unrivaled opportunity. The flux of change as the whole technological landscape is being reset will create many large openings. Packaged solutions will be reimagined, and we will see a resurgence of custom-built solutions that must be enabled with new types of AI building blocks,” Nilekani stated.
He further noted the importance of compliance in AI application development, saying, “Global companies will have to build their AI applications in a way that they are compliant in every country. While [the] application can be trialed on very large models, deployment will be on narrow transformers, trained on relevant enterprise data, fully secure and efficient in their inferencing.”
