PremiumVijayakumar will earn an annual base salary of $2 million for the year ending 31 March , up to $2 million in variable pay, and $384,000 in perquisites and other benefits, bringing his total compensation to $4.38 million.
HCL Technologies Ltd’s chief executive C. Vijayakumar is likely to earn as much as $10.8 million annually over the next five years, making him the highest-paid boss among those of Indian software services firms.
The pay jump also indicates that the country’s third-largest software exporter has shed its decades-old approach of being a conservative paymaster. Vijayakumar has been CEO of the company since October 2016, but was not a part of the company’s 12-member board. Last month, HCL founder Shiv Nadar stepped down from the board, making way for Vijayakumar as managing director.
Noida-based HCL Technologies disclosed its chief executive’s remuneration in its annual report for the first time.
Vijayakumar will earn an annual base salary of $2 million for the year ending 31 March , up to $2 million in variable pay, and $384,000 in perquisites and other benefits, bringing his total compensation to $4.38 million. In addition, he stands to get $31.5 million in stock options and restricted stock units in the five years to 31 March 2026. HCL, however, did not share the break-up of stock options and restricted stock units (RSUs) that will vest every year. The company’s annual report also did not fully reveal the parameters of variable pay and vesting period for employee stock options. Assuming the RSUs and stock options are spread equally over five years, Vijayakumar could see his earnings rise by $6.3 million, bringing his total compensation to $10.8 million. This will be more than double the $4.13 million (about ₹30.6 crore) he earned last year.
When asked for a break-up, an HCL spokesperson declined to comment “on executive compensation beyond what has already been disclosed on the stock exchange and annual report."
Wipro Ltd, which ended with $8.13 billion in revenue in the year to March, paid its chief executive Thierry Delaporte $8.8 million last year. Infosys Ltd, which ended with $13.56 billion in revenue, paid $6.78 million to CEO Salil Parekh. Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd’s CEO Rajesh Gopinathan was paid the least—$2.8 million -- by the company that ended with $22.17 billion in revenue last year.
One reason behind this difference in salaries is both Wipro and Infosys have external CEO candidates, and companies often pay more to get leaders from outside. Gopinathan, in contrast, is a TCS veteran before succeeding N. Chandrasekaran in 2017. Both Parekh and Delaporte are former executives of Capgemini SE, the French IT firm. Additionally, both Delaporte and Vijayakumar are based overseas: Delaporte is based out of Paris, while Vijayakumar is based out of New York. Gopinathan and Parekh work out of Mumbai.
Vijayakumar, 53, has steered HCL well over the last four-and-a-half years: HCL’s revenue has jumped 46% from $6.97 billion at the end of March 2017 to $10.17 billion at the end of March 2021. Still, much of this growth has been driven by acquisitions, including the firm paying $1.8 billion to International Business Machines Corp. to buy software products such as Lotus Notes and Appscan.
Under Vijayakumar’s watch, HCL’s market value rose 162% to $39 billion from $14.5 billion on 21 October 2016, when he took charge as CEO. “The compensation structure shows Indian IT services firms want to remain competitive and are willing to pay top dollars to retain talent," said Shriram Subramanian, founder and managing director of investor proxy firm InGovern Research Services.
He added, “In HCL’s case, the bulk of the pay is linked to company performance, and so it is a good thing. But the sad part is performance-linked parameters of variable pay and the break-up schedule and the vesting period of Esops have not been disclosed."
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