Persistent Systems CEO Sandeep Kalra tops India Inc remuneration charts

Remuneration of top brass grew 8.7% in FY25, outpacing firms' profits

Sandeep Kalra, chief executive officer (CEO) of mid-size IT services company Persistent Systems, topped the remuneration chart of India Inc’s top brass with ₹148 crore, nearly double the previous year. Hero MotoCorp Promoter and Chairman Pawan Munjal followed at ₹109 crore, unchanged from FY24, while Swiggy Cofounder Lakshmi Nandan Reddy Obul’s remuneration surged almost 14 times to ₹90 crore.

 

The compensation of India Inc’s executives continued to rise in FY25 despite a slowdown in corporate revenues and profits. The overall remuneration of CEOs and board members grew 8.7 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), outpacing the growth in companies’ revenues and net profits during the year. BSE 200 companies together paid ₹5,819.75 crore as remuneration to their CEOs and directors in FY25, up from ₹5,352.8 crore a year earlier.  

 

In comparison, their combined net sales rose 6.9 per cent Y-o-Y to about ₹130.8 trillion, while adjusted net profits increased 4.5 per cent Y-o-Y to ₹13.18 trillion in FY25.

 

The top management’s remuneration also grew faster than overall employee expenses. Salary and wage costs at BSE 200 companies were up 4.8 per cent to ₹13.21 trillion. This translates into a marginal 0.1 per cent decline in the average salary per employee in FY25 after adjusting for headcount growth. The workforce of 181 companies in the sample was up 4.9 per cent Y-o-Y to 7.1 million at the end of March 2025. 

 

The CEOs at the top-performing companies received high double-digit increments in FY25, while the overall remuneration of some CEOs and executive directors more than doubled last year. The 10 highest-paid CEOs in FY25 earned ₹834 crore in FY25, up 61.6 per cent Y-o-Y from ₹516.2 crore.

 

At number four in the rankings, Divi’s Laboratories CEO Murali K Divi earned ₹88 crore (up 37.6 per cent), while Swiggy’s Group CEO Sriharsha Majety took home ₹76.6 crore, nearly 11 times his FY24 pay.

 

Larsen & Toubro Executive Chairman S N Subrahmanyan stood sixth, with pay of ₹76.3 crore in FY25, up 49.4 per cent from ₹51.05 crore in FY24. He was followed by Adani Enterprises Executive Director Vinay Prakash, whose remuneration fell 22.4 per cent to ₹69.3 crore from ₹89.37 crore a year earlier.

 

Other CEOs and promoters in the top 10 league include Shree Cement’s H M Bangur, with total remuneration of ₹63.4 crore (up 8 per cent Y-o-Y), Bajaj Auto’s Rajiv Bajaj at ₹58.6 crore (up 9 per cent), and Tech Mahindra’s Mohit Joshi, who earned ₹53.9 crore in FY25, a massive jump from ₹18 lakh a year ago.

 

In all, 156 executives and directors in the sample earned over ₹10 crore in FY25, up from 137 in the previous year. Their combined pay rose 17.5 per cent to ₹4,078 crore. By contrast, 399 executives earned between ₹1 crore and ₹10 crore in FY25, down from 419 in FY24. Their combined remuneration declined 10.1 per cent to ₹1,298 crore from ₹1,444.7 crore a year ago. The majority of executives and board directors, however, earned ₹1 crore or less from their companies. The category included 1,681 directors, down 11 per cent from 1,874 in FY24. The majority of these relatively low-earning directors are either non-executive roles, or independent directors, or from public-sector companies.

 

The overall remuneration would be even higher if the current value of employee stock options held by many of the CEOs and directors is included.

 

The total remuneration currently includes salary, commission on company profits, contribution to provident fund, perquisites, board sitting fees, retirement benefits, performance incentives, bonuses, and other benefits. Salary accounted for 40.3 per cent of total pay, followed by profit commission at 24.7 per cent and perquisites at 18.2 per cent.