Infosys has marginally reduced its CEO-to-employee pay ratio.
The Median Remuneration of Employees to top management personnel was 273 in the 2018 fiscal, according to data from its annual report. In the 2017 fiscal, the ratio of median employee pay to the CEO was 283. Also, former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka, who quit the company in August last year, was paid ₹13 crore in the 2018 fiscal. Median pay refers to average pay of an employee in an organisation
Sikka’s total compensation for fiscal 2016 and 2017 was ₹45 crore, according to annual report data. The lack of clarity on his pay-related information was one of the reasons for straining of relations between co-founder NR Narayana Murthy and the key Infosys management then.
Also, this was construed as bad corporate governance and Shriram Subramanian, founder and managing director of proxy firm InGovern Research, had told BusinessLine then that there is asymmetry of information in the information provided to shareholders and in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure. Infosys had filed a copy of Sikka’s employment agreement to the SEC on May 18, 2016.
For the 2018 fiscal, COO Pravin Rao drew ₹8.22 crore in salary, same as in 2017 fiscal. However, he was given ₹4 crore worth of RSUs and 43,000 ESOPs totalling 70,250 units. David Kennedy, who quit along with Sikka and some other members of the Board, took home salary of ₹7.75 crore, which includes ₹6 crore of severance pay. Amongst other Infosys top management personnel, Mohit Joshi, President, saw his pay go up by more than 50 per cent. He took home ₹10.31 crore, in comparison to fiscal 2017 when he took ₹6.79 crore.
CFO MD Ranganath drew ₹7.98 crore, Presidents Ravi Kumar S and Rajesh K Murthy took home more than ₹19 crore.