At Axis Bank, the staff cost has increased by 10.82 per cent from Rs 3,891.86 crores in fiscal 2017 to Rs 4,312.96 crores in fiscal 2018.
Shikha Sharma, managing director and CEO, Axis Bank has got a hike. Her basic pay which was at Rs 2.7 crore, has now been increased to Rs 2.9 crore – a jump of Rs 20 lakh.
In addition, Sharma is entitled to a house rent allowance of Rs 97.05 lakh per annum and a leave fare concession of Rs 14.76 lakh, perquisites (excluding ESOPs) worth over Rs 32.08 lakh and deferred variable pay (for 2013–14 and 2014–15) of Rs 44.10 lakh.
In total, Sharma’s package is around Rs 5.5 crore. Her perquisites include a furnished accommodation, club fees, loans, use of car and telephone, personal accident insurance, medical reimbursement, as well as travelling and halting allowance, among others.Additionally, there were 5,40,000 stock options in her portfolio during the year.
The combined salary of top 4 executives at Axis bank is around Rs 13.26 crore.
This package is quite modest compared to the salary that CEOs of large IT companies claim. For instance, Infosys CEO, Salil Parekh draws a salary of Rs 16.25 crore which includes Rs 6.5 crore of fixed salary and Rs 9.75 crore of variable pay. Wipro’s CEO, Abidali Neemuchwala’s annual compensation is around Rs 18.2 crore.
Even Wipro’s CHRO, Saurabh Govil gets a higher package than Sharma – Govil is at an annual package of Rs 6.6 crore. This year Govil’s salary grew by 136 per cent.
Sharma has been working with Axis Bank since 2009. She has more than three decades of experience in the financial sector.
She started her career with ICICI Bank in 1980. In her 29-year tenure with the ICICI group, she was instrumental in setting up ICICI Securities – a joint venture between ICICI and J.P. Morgan, besides setting up various group businesses for ICICI, including investment banking and retail finance.
In her last assignment at ICICI, as managing director & CEO of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, she built and contributed remarkably to make it the number 1 private sector Life Insurance Company in India.
At Axis Bank, the staff cost has increased by 10.82 per cent from Rs 3,891.86 crores in fiscal 2017 to Rs 4,312.96 crores in fiscal 2018, primarily on account of 5.29 per cent increase in employee strength. Currently, the company’s employee strength is around 59614.