HCLTech CEO and Managing Director C Vijayakumar's remuneration also increased by 67% year-on-year to around ₹175 crore in the financial year 2025-26. It was mainly thanks to long-term incentives and stock-based compensation, according to the company’s latest annual report.
Vijayakumar, who lives in the United States and gets his salary through HCL America Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of HCLTech, is paid $18.13 million (around ₹175 crore) for FY26. The increase is further evidence of the increasing role of performance-linked incentives and equity awards in executive compensation in the global technology sector.
The annual report shows that his compensation package was based on a base salary of $2.48 million with a performance-linked bonus of $2 million and benefits and perquisites worth $0.31 million. But the biggest factor for this rise in pay was vesting of long-term incentive plans and exercised stock options.
The latest payout puts Vijayakumar among the highest paid executives in India’s information technology industry. With global IT companies increasingly reliant on stock-based compensation to reward leadership and to link executive interests to long-term shareholder value, such remuneration structures have become more common.
HCLTech is at Vijayakumar’s helm in digital transformation, cloud computing, engineering services, and artificial intelligence. The company has also expanded its global presence and has rapidly developed AI-based solutions and enterprise technology services to drive long-term growth.
Executive compensation in India’s IT sector has been heavily scrutinized in recent years, particularly for the management of executive compensation as companies have to find a balance between shareholder demand, employee salaries, and leadership benefits. In Vijayakumar’s annual report, HCLTech’s annual report shows that much of Vijayakumar’s remuneration is performance-based, and this is not only in line with the company’s investment in the long-term value creation strategy for the company in the long run.
The disclosure is also coming at a time when investors are very keen to know what corporate governance and executive pay are like. Stock-based incentives are also an essential component of the compensation packages for global technology leaders in a marketplace where talent can be so fiercely competitive.
With a 67% increase in remuneration at ₹175 crore, C Vijayakumar’s pay package in FY26 demonstrates HCLTech’s long-term incentive strategy and the changing remuneration culture in India’s technology industry.
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