October 24, 2023
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft received a compensation package totaling $48.5 million in 2023, marking the lowest figure he has received in the last three years. This comes months after Nadella told full-time salaried staff their pay was frozen due to a slowdown in revenue growth.
Nadella’s pay package comprised $2.5 million in salary, unchanged; $39.23 million in stock; $6.4 million in non-equity incentives; and $360k for all other compensation. He fell slightly short in his target for financial results but exceeded targets for operational results, meaning he met 85.5 percent of the goals set.
Microsoft’s revenue grew by 11 percent to $211.9 billion in fiscal 2023, operating income edged up to $88.5 billion from $83.38 billion, and net income was flat at $72.36 billion. Cloud revenue alone grew 22 percent to a staggering $111.6 billion, albeit slower than recent years. More than 95 percent of Nadella’s annual target compensation goal is performance-based and 70 percent of the annual cash incentive is related to meeting pre-established financial metrics.
Nadella’s pay ratio to the median employee is currently 250 to 1. This is down from 289 to 1 in 2022. The company also revealed that the annual total compensation for the median employee, excluding the CEO, was $193,770, in contrast to Nadella’s $48,512,537. This is an improvement from the previous 289 to 1. Other top executives within Nadella’s leadership team received their own significant compensation packages in 2023.
Other executives in Nadella’s C-suite also saw their pay decrease in fiscal 2023. CFO Amy Hood was paid $19.9 million; top sales office Judson Althoff received $16.2 million; President Brad Smith got $18.1 million; and Christopher Young, who is exec veep for business development, strategy and ventures, pocketed $9.8 million.
The sources for this piece include an article in TheRegister.
