Parul
In a striking revelation by The Wall Street Journal, India-born Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, has emerged as America’s second-highest paid CEO for 2023. The analysis highlighted the remarkable presence of 17 CEOs of Indian descent within the top 500 rankings.
Nikesh Arora led the way among his peers with a staggering $151.43 million in earnings, outshining notable figures like Tesla’s Elon Musk, who received no compensation for the year. Following closely, Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, secured the 11th spot with a commendable $44.93 million.
Tech giants also featured prominently in the report. Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, another Indian-born executive, earned $24.40 million and $8.80 million respectively during the review period.
Arora, a graduate of Delhi’s Air Force Public School, first garnered international attention as Google’s chief business officer. His transition to leading SoftBank in 2014 was marked by record-breaking compensation in Japan. Since 2018, he has been at the helm of Palo Alto Networks, where his pay package largely consists of equity awards over a three-year period.
Narayen’s journey from Hyderabad to becoming Adobe’s CEO in 2007, after joining the company in 1998, underscores the impressive ascent of Indian-born leaders in the global corporate arena.
At the pinnacle of the pay scale, Hock Tan of Broadcom claimed the top spot with earnings of $162 million. Other high-ranking Indian American executives include Sanjay Malhotra of Micron Technology ($25.28 million), Ajei Gopal of Ansys ($24.63 million), and Reshma Kewalramani of Vertex Pharmaceuticals ($20.59 million).
Additional prominent figures include Arvind Krishna of IBM ($20.40 million), Badrinarayn Kothandaraman of Enphase Energy ($19.53 million), and Sanjiv Lamba of Linde ($19.20 million). The list continues with Surendralal Karsanbhai of Emerson Electric ($18.32 million), Anirudh Devgun of Cadence Design Systems ($17.34 million), Shankha Mitra of Welltower ($17.20 million), and Sumit Roy of Realty Income ($13.13 million).
Also featured are Satish Dhanasekaran of Keysight Technologies ($10.75 million), Prahlad Singh of Rewity ($9.13 million), Sundar Pichai of Alphabet ($8.80 million), Udit Batra of Waters ($8.74 million), and Sundarrajan Nagarajan of Nordson ($6.98 million).
This data not only underscores the financial success of these executives but also highlights the significant impact and leadership of Indian-born professionals in the upper echelons of American business.
