High compensation to CEOs is fine but reduce median salary gap

Compensation of top CEOs of India Inc has been a point of discussion for quite some time now. And it is not an entirely unlikely scenario. When a majority of the working class population draw a fraction of what the top executives take home as salary, this will always remain a point of discussion. However, there are two sides to the debate.

The negative side of the debate is more inclined towards a socialistic argument. For instance, the top CEOs of Indian IT companies draw multi-million dollar compensation per annum. Recently, HCLTech’s annual report has shown that its CEO, C Vijayakumar’s total compensation stood at $18.13 million (around Rs 175 crore) for the financial year 2025-26. This was an increase of around 67 per cent over the previous year.

Similarly, Infosys’ CEO, Salil Parekh drew a total remuneration of Rs 82.60 crore in FY26; while Srinivas Pallia, CEO of Wipro had a total compensation of $5.29 million (around Rs 49.5 crore) during this period. India’s largest IT services company, TCS’ CEO, K Krithivasan took home a total remuneration of Rs 28 crore in FY26. Not only top executives of Indian IT services companies, but also CXO-level professionals of other sectors including financial services, pharmaceuticals, airlines, manufacturing and others also draw such kind of compensation on annual basis.

If one compares a top executive salary to the median salary of his/her company, it sometimes exceeds 300 times. So, some industry experts are of the view that such disparity between the majority of employees and the top echelons is leading to a social divide in terms of earnings. Secondly, one school of thought is of the view that a company can better utilize some part of this capital (given to top executives) for boosting growth.

This argument has received a lot of resonance in recent times. Due to artificial intelligence (AI)-led developments, lakhs of employees in the US, India and other geographies have lost their jobs. But these companies are reporting higher profits, while top executives’ salaries continue to grow. So, when people are losing jobs, they argue why not cut the compensation amount of CXOs and retain the staffers.

There is also another school of thought, which argues that attractive compensation is the life blood of any capitalistic economy. Unless the company is willing to pay matching compensation as their global peers, they will not be able to attract or retain good talent. There is also a bit of truth in it as several sectors operate in global environment, where the talent movement is across the geographies.

So, if an Indian company is unable to match the compensation paid by its global peers, then it will never be able to hire the best. Secondly, some experts are of the view that the compensation earned by these professionals show that merit is being rewarded adequately. In a society like India, which has been plagued by nepotism, corruption and inefficiency for years; this is a good sign. It inspires the youth to rise only on the basis of their merit than anything else. Moreover, it has been seen that the wealth creators of India Inc (like these high paying professionals, startup founders & others) have turned into angle investors, or venture capitalists in their later career. They are investing in innovative ideas of new-age startups, which need the risk capital for initial growth.

So, in a way, these top executives have now become a part of much-needed domestic capital for the growth of startup ecosystem. Given both sides of the argument, it is hard to take a singular view on compensation issue. But it will be better if India Inc also raises the compensation of majority of its staffers to reduce the median salary gap.