IT CEOs’ salaries thrive despite ongoing business uncertainties

Bengaluru, 26 June

- Not much change has been seen Indian IT firms’ CEO compensation despite revenue growth coming down in FY25

- Industry experts expect top leaders continuing their gold run going ahead

- FY26 compensation may see a dip owing to lower ESoP component

Indian IT services companies will continue to pay astronomical figures to Chief Executive Officers despite rising median salaries gap.

According to experts, despite the uncertainty around the business owing to tariffs and geopolitical tensions, compensation of CXO-level leaders will not be negatively impacted.

“Globally, CXO level salaries have been relatively insulated from market uncertainties. That is the norm across sectors. From finance to technology, top leaders have been drawing hefty compensation for decades now. Even after the global financial crisis, when many banks were bailed out by the US government; there was little difference to CXO-level salaries,” said a top executive of a Bengaluru-headquartered HR consultancy firm, which has helped several tech firms in their search for top level hiring.

In the annual reports released by top IT services firms, it has been seen that compensation of CEOs has not been impacted despite slowdown in revenue growth during FY25.

While CEO of Infosys drew a compensation of Rs 80.62 crore, it stood at around Rs 54 crore. India’s top IT services firm TCS’ CEO’s total compensation for FY25 was at Rs 26.52 crore. Tech Mahindra CEO drew home a compensation of Rs 54 crore in the last financial year.

The media salary gap- the ratio of CEO salary to average salary of the company- has also increased for most companies.

“During this financial year, the total compensation of top leaders may see some adverse impact as the sector is facing multiple uncertainties in the growth front,” Supaul Chanda, President (Staffing) of HR staffing firm, Galent told the BizzBuzz.

Notably, salary growth of entry-level has remained stagnant for more than a decade now, while increments for experienced staffers have come down in the last financial year.

Meanwhile, contraction in the US economy during January-March period coupled with rapid adoption of AI (artificial intelligence) have made growth forecast dicey for most players. During the January-March period, the US economy shrank 0.5 per cent owing to tariff-induced uncertainties.

Companies have also started flagging up such business uncertainties. “We continue to see a significantly elevated level of uncertainty in the global economic and geopolitical environment as compared to calendar year 2024. In every boardroom and every industry, our clients are not facing a single challenge. They are facing everything at once, economic volatility, geopolitical complexity, major shifts in customer behaviour,” Accenture CEO, Julie Sweet told the analysts last week.