Average Top Executive Earns More Than 240 Times The Median Staff's Salary, Says Study

Top company executives, including chief executive officers (CEOs) and managing directors (MDs), have widened the gap in pay between themselves and their employees. The average top executive now earns 241.2x the median employee compensation, according to a Business Standard report attributing data from tracker PRIME Infobase.

The ratio had declined to 191.8 in 2019-20 but has been rising since then. The pre-pandemic year had a ratio of 218, which was lower than the figure for 2021-22, according to the report.

The average top executive compensation exceeded the FY19 levels of Rs 10.3 crore. It has now touched Rs 12.7 crore, or a monthly compensation of Rs 1 crore. The median employee salary is now Rs 8.2 lakh for the companies in the sample.

Uttam Tibrewal of Jaipur-based AU Small Finance Bank (SFB) was the highest-paid executive for 2021-22 at Rs 121.3 crore. This included Rs 119.59 crore worth of employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) exercised in FY22.

Shantanu Khosla, MD of Mumbai-based Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals, was the second-highest-paid executive in the sample. He also received similar ESOPs worth over Rs 100 crore, of his total compensation of Rs 110.82 crore. Murali K Divi, MD of pharmaceutical company Divi’s Laboratories, had a total compensation of Rs 110.4 crore. The company awarded him Rs 110.1 crore based on net profits, the BS report said.

According to earlier reports, the average remuneration of top-50 companies on the Nifty jumped 22 per cent year-on-year to a record Rs 28.4 crore in the financial year 2021-22. It had averaged about Rs 17-18 crore between 2017-18 and 2019-20.

Not only professional-run companies but even promoter-led firms, including JSW Steel and Divi’s Laboratories, witnessed an aggregate compensation of Rs 140 crore.

HCL Tech CEO C Vijayakumar is the highest-paid CEOs in India. The company in its annual report recently said Vijayakumar got $16.52 million or about Rs 130 crore in compensation.

Vijayakumar got Rs 123.13 crore ($16.52 million) in 2021. He got $2 million as base salary and another $2 million in variable pay. The CEO further got $0.02 million as perquisites and other benefits for the year ended March 31. The LTI (long-term incentive) of $12.50 million took his total salary to $16.52 million.

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