HCL Tech’s C Vijayakumar is the highest-paid IT CEO among Indian IT firms

HCL Technologies chief executive officer (CEO) C Vijayakumar is the highest-paid executive among peers. His compensation reached $16.52 million or about Rs 130 crore after getting a two-year long-term incentive (LTI) worth $12.5 million, according to the company’s annual report.

Though Vijayakumar did not get a hike in his salary for FY22, the LTI propelled him ahead of Wipro’s CEO Thierry Delaporte, whose annual package was Rs 79.8 crore ($10.51 million) for the same duration and was up 20% over the previous year.

Infosys’s Salil Parekh comes third after his total compensation jumped 43% to Rs 71 crore, while TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan takes the fourth position with a comparatively modest pay package of Rs 25.77 crore in FY22, up 27% from the previous year.


For Vijayakumar, his compensation was hiked 74% in FY21, where his base salary was $2 million and performance incentive was another $2 million, taking the total pay to $4.13 million (about Rs 30 crore).

“At HCL Technologies, we have taken pioneering steps in our talent strategy. We are proud of our global team of diligent, diverse and passionate people, all 209,000 plus of them across 52 countries,” Vijayakumar wrote in a note to shareholders. “They are delivering an extraordinary experience to our clients under the leadership of a world-class management team rooted in our culture of ‘Ideapreneurship’.”

Vijayakumar was also granted 900,060 restricted stock units during FY22. HCL Technologies’ chief financial officer (CFO) Prateek Aggarwal saw his remuneration for FY22 rise 36%, partly due to the contribution from HCL America Inc. - the firm’s wholly-owned subsidiary.

Further, the median remuneration of employees in FY22 increased by 11.42%. The average percentile increase in the salaries of employees other than the managerial personnel in the last financial year was 6.85%.