List of highest paid CEOs of 2023 in the US was released by the Wall Streeet Journal on Tuesday/ Indian origin CEO of Palo Alto Network Nikesh Arora, coming 2nd on the list with an impressive compensation of $151.43 million. Notably, the compensation of Nikesh Arora earned a compensation that was much higher than Mark Zuckerberg’s $24.40 million and Sundar Pichai‘s $8.8 million.
Alto Networks’ CEO Indian-born Nikesh Arora is the second highest paid top boss in the US as per The Wall Street Journal’s list. Nikesh Arora’s total compensation reached $151.43 million, primarily from stock options, as per the list which also featured other Indian-descent executives among high earners.
During his stint with the Softbank Group as well, Arora set a new record in Japan with a mammoth $135 million first year compensation. The people in the company saw him as the successor of legendary investor Masayoshi Son, a Bloomberg report from earlier this year revealed.
Palo Alto Network has previously justified their CEO’s high compensation package in light of the strong performance delivered by the tech executive. In a statement about Arora’s compensation package, Palo Ato Network stated in proxy statement last year, “Because of this significant vested ownership and the amount that Mr. Arora was projected to vest in over the next several years, the Board determined that a meaningful equity award would be necessary to ensure that such award retains and engages Mr. Arora, “Arora has done his schooling from Air Force Public School in Delhi before pursuing B Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT-BHU. He later did his MBA from Northeastern University, Boston and MS in Finance from Boston College.
Before becoming a CEO at Palo Alto Networks, Arora has worked with renowned companies like Google as Chief Business Officer and Softbank as President, Chief Operating Officer. Nikesh Arora is heading Palo Alto for six years now.
Among those of Indian-origin, 17 made it into the top 500- Shantanu Narayen of Adobe notably at number 11 with a compensation of $44.93 million.Other tech giants like Tesla’s Elon Musk and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai also opted for non-traditional compensation structures in 2023.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk has not received compensation, Sundar Pichai earned $8.80 million and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta took home $24.40 million, it was reported. Arora is an alumnus of Delhi’s Air Force Public School and was also Google’s chief business officer.
