HCLTech CEO C Vijayakumar’s remuneration for the fiscal year 2024 zoomed 190.75 percent YoY to around Rs 84.16 crore, making him the highest paid among Indian IT services companies’ CEOs for the year.
Second to him is Infosys CEO Salil Parekh, who drew around Rs 66.25 crore, followed by Wipro’s new CEO Srini Pallia who got a remuneration package of around Rs 50 crore. TCS CEO K Krithivasan’s maximum basic salary is about Rs 1.9 crore annually.
According to HCLTech’s annual report which came out on July 22, Vijayakumar earned a base salary of around $1.96 million (Rs 16.39 crore), a performance-lined bonus of $1.14 million (Rs 9.53 crore), around $2.36 million (Rs 19.74 crore) was paid in long-term incentive (LTI) cash component and $4.56 million (Rs 38.15 crore) in LTI – perquisite value of the RSUs (restricted stock units) exercised and a remaining $0.04 million in benefits, perquisites and allowance – totalling to $10.06 million.
Vijayakumar’s remuneration was 707.46 times the median salary of employees. The median increase in remuneration of employees for the year was about 7.07 percent, the annual report said.
Demand environment
In its letter to shareholders, Vijayakumar said, “We closed the year with revenue of $13.3 billion, up 5.4% YoY. Our revenue growth rate was the highest among the tier 1 global IT services companies and our EBIT margin for the year was 18.2%.”
HCLTech maintained its cautious outlook on discretionary spends returning. Though during the company’s Q1FY25 earnings last week, the company said it has started seeing some green shoots in certain pockets but it is still too early to have a view on that.
Also read: Discretionary spending has not picked up, says HCLTech CEO C Vijayakumar
“We expect the demand environment for IT services to remain unchanged, with discretionary spends by clients staying soft. But equally, there are opportunities for growth led by emerging technologies such as GenAI and surround areas such as cloud, data and cybersecurity. With our comprehensive portfolio across digital, engineering, cloud, AI and software, we are well placed to leverage the market opportunities,” he said in the annual report.
On the generative AI front, HCLTech has already delivered over 200 proofs of concept (PoCs) and plans to upskill over 50,000 employees in FY25 in Gen AI and adjacent capabilities.
“When it comes to GenAI, we see the market moving toward real-world B2C and B2B use cases being deployed at scale. HCLTech’s full-stack technology play and core engineering DNA positions us uniquely to help clients unlock the full potential of GenAI. Our approach to GenAI is grounded in the “art of possible” to enable clients to deploy practical technology solutions,” he added.
Also read: No office, no leaves! HCLTech links employee leaves to office attendance
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